MMM-awesome-alexa

vlatko_jordanov

Hi Sam,

Alright that’s cool I think I’ve put my question wrong, is it possible to have the mmm-awesome-alexa (standalone app) linked with alexa(cloud) without owning any amazon echo dot in my household i.e. the rapsi to be my first and only device with the awesome-alexa module? :)

I did heard that from a friend that his echo dot couldn’t be seen from the WAN side but he could still drop in and announce messages to it which I believe is using different callback settings/ports than the actual device communication, haven’t gone into details as yourself but that’s good to know :)

Thanks,
Vlatko

sdetweil

@vlatko_jordanov sorry. I do not know if u can have mirror BE a full function Alexa node. It seems that should be possible, as I have an automobile Alexa.

Now, can this module do all that?

Don’t know

vlatko_jordanov

@sdetweil

Cheers Sam,

I hope someone else could provide me that answer here as I am really confused to how this guy has full control over his calendar, spotify etc. via the alexa module on the mirror! Feeling helpless here as my mirror won’t even appear in my alexa app(cloud) as a device (well I did tried something but it says offline as described previously) :)

Reference: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1HROb1JCteiftaWwq7Hhhg/videos

Thanks,
Vlatko

sdetweil

@vlatko_jordanov yeh, I went thru his videos, and I don’t see the actual alexa setup ON the mirror…

I have sent him a message…

sdetweil

I can’t get the alexa module to do much… (on pi4)

I have to say ‘Alexa’ then the black circle appears… but no voice reco
I have to say ‘Alexa’ again, then the black circle goes to white, and SOME things are recognized.

it looks like the module does not support conversational mode (add an event, sure, what date and time, xxx yyy, what do you want to call it, some test, ok adding some test at xxx on yyy)

the main guts of the module haven’t been updated in 2 years… and they are minified, which makes debugging them almost impossible…

vlatko_jordanov

@sdetweil I think that could be down to having the old snowboy modules which can be updated following this guide here: https://www.howtogeek.com/423233/how-to-add-alexa-to-your-smart-mirror/

It would suck if the videos the dude made were misleading and all that effort invested is in vain… well not entirely as there are other cool features to be implemented on the mirror but this was one of my main reasons, to have Alexa.

Funny enough is that I have it linked it with AVS but as you said other modules are out of date and are probably not functional by now so yeah…

Any suggestion to use other modules such as this but providing the full experience? Google assistant modules perhaps?

EDIT:

Alright this guy is busted… he never had any sort of module to control alexa over the mirror, here’s the parts he used which he never mention in his videos (ECHO DOT)

http://gregensom.com/Build/SmartMirror/

So yeah, hit me up with suggestions on this one, I either buy echo dot or I find a module and do it myself which I would prefer more :)

EDIT2: Of which I am really confused by this bit in the video: https://youtu.be/aa3VVZA0e5Y?t=429 HOW?!!?

Thanks,
Vlatko

mr190e

Hey guys,
I run Awesome-Alexa on my RPi3. So far everything seems to work. The only problem is I cannot access my Smart Home devices. Same with Alexa Skills. Any idea why? Do I need an Echo device to make it work?

joel_afonso

You are not the only one… i can’t control smartphone devices nor amazon music…

joel_afonso

@Canterrain u need to do it quick. U have like 10 seconds to answer the questions. I had the same issue as well. Or maybe ur not typing the right device name.

mr190e

@joel_afonso &
I struggled like you to access my smart home devices. I’m German and my amazon account was bound to the German Amazon store. I knew that Alexa is working very limited outside the US. Some skills I wanted to use didn’t even exist the German skill store… very stupid thing. So I changed my Amazon Kindle Store region to the US-region, using this guide: https://intercom.help/wantboard/en/articles/1571875-transferring-your-amazon-kindle-store
After that, I re-added the skills for Philips HUE and BluOS Voice Control and voila, it works. The only thing what still doesn’t work is using reminders and alarms.
By the way: I already used Awesome-Alexa on my MagicMirror for quite some time (when it still run via the German Amazon store), so after I changed to the US store I had to re-configure Awesome-Alexa using this guide: https://www.howtogeek.com/423233/how-to-add-alexa-to-your-smart-mirror/
Remark: in this guide they forget to mention to add “https://magic-mirror-avs.github.io/Alexa-Web-Helper/authresponse” to the allowed return urls in your AVS-product settings.
To make sure I don’t carry over some old mistakes, I actually created a complete new AVS product on my developer account, so new client ID and secret, and so on.

I can’t use Amazon music on my Magic Mirror, but I anyway play music via a NAD receiver in my living room. So its safe to say that Awesome-Alexa can control smart home devices (so it has access to skills), but almost no other capability which a real Amazon Echo would have.

edit: I read a bit in the AVS console. what is funny: my MagicMirror can read Audible books. In chapter Entertainment you can see that Audible is approved:
https://imgur.com/7uE7iEg
In order to make Amazon Music (and other services) running on your Mirror, you technically have to submit your application for review to Amazon. So I guess its safe to say that you will probably never get this approved.

Try it :)