Australian Vera skill

Other Devices & Integrations Voice Assistants
21

If you’re happy to change your location this has worked for me.

This will change your default skills store from Australia to US.

22

Try this out. Not sure if any one has posted this link before.

http://support.mios.com/customer/en/portal/articles/2648086-alexa-user-guide

23

So Im pretty frustrated right now, I got my Vera Plus yesterday and setup has been going great until I went to add “Vera Control” to my Alexa Skills and found there isnt one for Aussies. It’s doubly frustrating as we have echo’s in basically every room of the house now and Alexa integration was a huge selling point for Vera Plus. :o

I googled it to make sure I wasnt being dense and I found it but cant use it because “You are not eligible to enable this skill due to geographical restrictions.”

I dont understand the Geo-blocking as Australia is an officially supported region for Vera (for years?) and Amazon echo (for 4 months) products!

24

[quote=“bigmusic11, post:22, topic:198394”]Try this out. Not sure if any one has posted this link before.

http://support.mios.com/customer/en/portal/articles/2648086-alexa-user-guide[/quote]

That only works if you switch over to a US Amazon account - I like my Aussie account for the local news services etc.

25

if anyone has a spare RasPi lying around, I’ve found that HA-Bridge is excellent for integrating Vera and Alexa together.

It pretends to be a Hue Hub and gives you full control over what on your Vera is visible to Alexa, including scenes - I’m pretty impressed with it.

I have my old Pi Model B running in console only mode @ 800mhz (100Mhz over-clock) and it’s very responsive. 8)

[url=https://i.imgur.com/NYhhVlLh.jpg]https://i.imgur.com/NYhhVlLh.jpg[/url]

[url=https://i.imgur.com/KXaxLm6h.png]https://i.imgur.com/KXaxLm6h.png[/url]

26

Hello guys, just a friendly tap on the back. It’s happening now. 8)

https://status.getvera.com/incidents/ztm8526hjrcx

Alexa V3 comes with support for English UK, US, CA, AU, IN.

27

[quote=“dJOS, post:24, topic:198394”][quote=“bigmusic11, post:22, topic:198394”]Try this out. Not sure if any one has posted this link before.

http://support.mios.com/customer/en/portal/articles/2648086-alexa-user-guide[/quote]

That only works if you switch over to a US Amazon account - I like my Aussie account for the local news services etc.[/quote]

I hooked my Alexa up to a US account in the very early days. Now Alexa is supported in Australia too, mine is still linked to the US but I have access to all the local content, weather, skills etc. Seems to work exactly like an Australian one except I have full integration with Vera too.

28

[quote=“Sorin, post:26, topic:198394”]Hello guys, just a friendly tap on the back. It’s happening now. 8)

https://status.getvera.com/incidents/ztm8526hjrcx

Alexa V3 comes with support for English UK, US, CA, AU, IN.[/quote]

There’s still no Vera Control skill in the aussie Alexa Skills store.

29

Cloud-related, portal updates and the new plugin push will take up to 24 hours, then, there will be another few days until it’s gonna show up in the new stores.

30

Impatiently twiddling my thumbs!! . . .

31

Me too!

32

Slight update, so until now, we’ve updated the Vera portal and the Vera Helper plugin on the customer’s units with support for Alexa V3. But as far as I understood from the Alexa team, it might take up to a week or two for the Skill to be analyzed by Amazon and make it available in their stores. We’re almost there…

Thank your for the patience

33

[quote=“Sorin, post:32, topic:198394”]Slight update, so until now, we’ve updated the Vera portal and the Vera Helper plugin on the customer’s units with support for Alexa V3. But as far as I understood from the Alexa team, it might take up to a week or two for the Skill to be analyzed by Amazon and make it available in their stores. We’re almost there…

Thank your for the patience[/quote]

Ok, thanks for letting us know. I’m looking forward to decommissioning my ha-bridge.

34

Sorin, off topic I know but how have you updated the helper plugin without customer intervention and without a new FW release?

35

Hello Markd

The plugin is updated automatically if your checkbox for Auto Updates of the plugin is checked, which it is, by default.
If it’s not, once you go to the plugin details it will tell you there is a new version.

Something like:

App id :8840
Current Version:1.36
Latest Version1.36

1.36 being the latest V3 capable plugin.

36

Ok thanks for the info

37

Vera for Australian Alexa now available.

38

So it is, awesome!

39

Ok so the new Vera skill works great!!! It definitely has slightly lower latency than my previous solution (HA-Bridge) and now I ca control my Nest’s using Alexa via Vera too!

However I’ve found an issue, my Vera and Echo’s are all configured to use Metric (you know the base 10 system that actually makes sense) … but my Nest Temps show as Fahrenheit in the Alexa App. I can still issue temp changes in metric, without specifying Celsius, but it’d be nice if the set-point was in the correct format.

oh and I have a question, I excluded a couple of devices during initial Vera Control skill setup, how do I add them back in later on if I want to? NVM, I found the Manage Alexa options.

40

[quote=“dJOS, post:39, topic:198394”]Ok so the new Vera skill works great!!! It definitely has slightly lower latency than my previous solution (HA-Bridge) and now I ca control my Nest’s using Alexa via Vera too!

However I’ve found an issue, my Vera and Echo’s are all configured to use Metric (you know the base 10 system that actually makes sense) … but my Nest Temps show as Fahrenheit in the Alexa App. I can still issue temp changes in metric, without specifying Celsius, but it’d be nice if the set-point was in the correct format.

oh and I have a question, I excluded a couple of devices during initial Vera Control skill setup, how do I add them back in later on if I want to? NVM, I found the Manage Alexa options.[/quote]
Actually, for humans, Fahrenheit makes more sense. Here’s why:

Faherenheit

0 - pretty cold 100 - pretty hot

Celsius

0 - kinda cold 100 - dead

Kelvin

0 - dead 100 - dead

:wink: