Question

Happy Sunday all you smart Smart Home programmers! I was wondering if there is a way for me to schedule (by voice) Alexa to turn on certain devices at the time I verbally specify? For example, I want to be able to say, when I go to bed, "Alexa, turn on Coffee Maker at 7am. " I know I can set a certain time in SmartThings, or make a routine with a certain time in the Alexa App, but my schedule changes so drastically, I want to be able to verbally tell Alexa to set the time it comes on. Rather than having to go into either app every night, to change the time in the routine. Is there a way to do this, or is that functionality just not available yet? I was really surprised when I tried telling her to turn the plug on at a certain time, she just turned the switch on right away. I would have thought telling her a specific time to do something was a pretty basic thing, but I guess not. LOL

Answer 1

To my understanding neither google or amazon have a way to make this happen.  

Answer 2

You're about a year or two (5 at the outset) off from that capability. You can do some advanced stuff with AskAlexa (not Echo Speaks) around this with its variables but it's cumbersome. Tried and failed miserably. With EchoSpeaks yiu can now do some automation around which echo 'heard' the ask but it's still not bulletproof (mostly because of a very technical explanation and Amazon throttling) Amazon and Google now both have the capability to use an Alarm as a trigger and use that trigger to run a routine (could be used for your coffee maker scenario - set a routine that automates the coffee triggered on an alarm between the hours of x and y and set an alarm during that time using normal voice response. But it's very rudimentary and for me doesn't work because wife and I have separate alarms and I snooze mine a million times.  

Comments

@subtreasury70 there's a thread on the community site about this. One of the attributes you can access through webcore is lastspokento. You can poll all the devices and the last one in your account to hear a command sets this flag true. Anthony had to throttle down his polling to 10 seconds prevent Amazon from blocking comms so basically you could theoretically have the last spoken to Alexa device with a 10 second resolution. Not good for Alexa do this, wait for response stuff. But very good if you want to only send a noncritical announcement to the device most likely to be near actual people and not spam the whole house.  

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@subtreasury70 more like this, This piston triggers anytime any one of the echos in my list updates that attribute and it populates that global var @LastSpokenTo./activity" class="qa-user-link">LastSpokenTo. So whenever I reference @LastSpokenTo as an Alexa Device I automagically have (theoretically) the last echo that heard a command. There's some holes - see 10 second throttling) but for the most part it works.  

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@anatolia7046 - oh yeah this idea could work! I don’t usually use Alexa for an alarm clock, but I definitely could. Thanks!  

Answer 3

This could be done with multiple routines if you don’t have too many different times. For example, you could have one routine that turns on the coffee maker at 7am and another routine for 7:30 with different triggers phrases.  

Comments

@endoplasm17 - thank you, this might be a good option for me too. I could make 4 different routines.  

Answer 4

You might be able to get part way there wth Ask Alexa and Webcore see .  
http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php

Comments

@battledore this sounds interesting. I’ll deep dive into that programming when I have more time.  

Answer 5

I have a complicated way to get you what you want, I've done something like this for my daughter. I made a virtual switches for "School, 1 hour delay and 2 hour delay. then have an automation that runs if school is on, at 7 am, 1h delay at 8 am and 2 h at 9 am. So I can say Alexa "no school tomorrow and and it turns off the virtual switch and says a confirmation message. The more varibles you have in your wake up the more complicated this gets.  

Comments

@fassett - oh that’s an interesting idea. I’m pretty familiar with virtual switches too. I might have to give that a shot. For now, attaching it through IFTTT for when my Alexa alarm goes off if working. I’d love to figure out a way to have Alexa announce “your coffee is ready” about 7 minutes after the coffee maker plug turns on. Not necessarily, but something that will impress my guests, for when they use the alarm coffee maker setup. Lol

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Well Alexa routines can now use an Alarm as a trigger. So you could take IFTTT out of thee setup. Less points of failure anyways. So you cold set up an Alexa routine when Alarm is stopped then turn on coffee maker, Wait 7 minutes, Alexa says "coffee is ready". Turn off coffee maker. All with one Alexa routine. You could do it with virtual switches like I suggested above and set up your logic in smart lighting and it should run in the monring even if the internet is down. Then you can use some Virtual contact sensors to be flipped in webcore or use some of those that are set up as switches as well to use other methods and have them trigger Alexa says routines in the Alexa app. My daughters has a when alarm is stoped it turns on a virtual switch in ST once this switch turns on it starts a timer and if she doesnt open her bedroom door before that timer goes off , Rooster crowing sounds starts to play . this repeats every minute for 5 minutes after 5 minutes if her door still hasn't opened , the Alexa volume is pushed up to 10 and Reveille plays, this again repeats every minute untill the door is opened. Has a hard shut off after 60 minutes.  

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@fassett wow! Ok, thanks for the tips! I’ll switch that over to an Alexa routine. I toyed with the routines, but it wasn’t seeing most of my plugs and switches in the routines section for some reason, so that made me think I would just add it on to my hot water circulation pump IFTTT routine. That’s impressive what you’ve done at your place, are you available for hire?! Lol

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@fassett - it looks like there was just a problem with the app the day I went to make the routine. Everything shows up there now. So I made the routine, but I guess there isn’t a way to have the announcement come from more than one echo device?  

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To have Alexa say stuff from multiple devices use Messaging > Annoucement instead of Alexa Says action in your routine. You'll get a little chime sort of noise before it though. My daughter hates the alarm thing, but she gets out of bed now and hasn't missed the bus since.  

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I love this sort of problem solving, 15 ways to do something now what will work the best for this situation and not piss off the wife ;) I actaully had to take off the you've got mail notification from the alexa devices because the dogs leaned what it ment and started only barking if they heard the chime.