So I have been using the vera echo beta, works good, about the same performance as the unofficial skill, but it names the devices as the room-device name, so you have to reference devices this way. for instance if I have a switch called “kitchen light” in room “Kitchen”, i have to tell Alexa to turn on “kitchen kitchen light”.
Update: the naming must have had to sync or something, because now all devices are working as expected, I no longer have to say room - device, I can now just say turn on device
I’ll try to keep my official discussion on this thread so we don’t all pollute the other vera bridge thread.
Just an FYI, it does in fact appear that Alexa takes a little bit of time to parse out the room names from the device names in the database. When first using the Skill, you need to say the room name before the device name “Turn on Hallway, Hall Light” instead of just “Turn on Hall Light.” However after about 30 minutes it automagically distinguished room names from the device name so the latter call of just “Turn on Hall Light” works.
Even though the release notes said scenes were supported, I can’t seem to figure out how to implement them. Also, when I was working through it last night, complex logic hadn’t seemed to work such as “Turn off all Living Room Lights” I’ll try that again tonight with some more variety in what I’m saying.
Also, this provides some fledgling IFTTT support through Alexa albeit kind of a complicated work flow. I have a Nexia-locked Thermostat (AZONE-950) that I now hope I can set up to use IFTTT connected to Alexa in order to use Home/Away from Vera via a virtual Switch to set the Home/Away mode of the thermostat. We’ll see if that works
Other than that, I got a firmware upgrade implemented the first time on my Vera Edge without failed upgrades, re-configuring, restores, constant Lua Reboots, etc. I’ll give that a thumbs up for now.
I was able to upgrade my firmware on my vera plus without any issues, I went to the portal and enabled the skill and i can see vera connected home in the alexa app. When I try and discover devices it does not show up any new devices? Has anyone run into this? Thank you,
Yeah, happened to me the first time. Click on the link in the email that is sent to you about the beta test being confirmed. Then it goes to the portal and log in. There’s a screen that says something like “Enable Alexa for the following devices” and it listed all of your devices. There’s a gray checkbox next to each them…but you need to click each one and turn the check box green in order for it to be added for Alexa to discover.
When I am trying to enable the skill from the email I received, I get the Amazon sign in page and then it throws a 500 error. Anyone else see this behavior?
For those of you that have the skill up and running are you able to tell whether alexa is communicating with vera locally or is it going through the vera relay servers?
Oh wow! Vera released. Guess I better unpack my Echo and find a space for it and then hook it up to vera. I wonder if I can hook it up to multiple ones…
I’ve just activated it myself and haven’t had a chance to play around with yet. Is there a list of commands anywhere? I have an HA bridge running also, surely they’ll conflict?
? Reply #727 on: Today at 07:40:47 pm ?
Wow, that was easy till I broke it ;{(
Before you use this, make Room names and Switch names unique (you’ll later add groups in Echo, make these unique also)
(Echo also has a problem with device names with compass directions (North West), Flood and Night in the device names)
So I set up a Room call Dining room, a Switch call Dining Room and Dining Room Nightlight.
If I ask Echo to turn on the dining room lights, it says “Which one”
So I changed the Room name to Upper Level, and Dining Room Nightlight to just Nightlight.
Went to Echo and “Forget all devices and Groups”
Deleted Vera Smarter Home Control.
Went to the “Amazon Alexa Beta: Participation Confirmed” email and re-enabled the Skill
And went to Echo and Discover Devices
Dining Room worked.
I then voice tested all switches, still had some conflicts so I Deleted Vera Smarter Home Control and re-enabled it.
But now when I click “Discover Devices” , nothing appears ;{(
So forewarned, before you use this, make Room names and Switch names unique otherwise you’ll have to say "Echo, turn on Dinning Room, Dinning Room.
[size=12pt][b]Updating the Firmware fixed me.
Advanced: (in Vera)
URL for custom Vera firmware: (enter URL from the following link for your model)
Oh…well, my old Vera lite that I never unregistered was listed alongside my Vera edge on the page to add your devices with Alexa. So, I would assume yes, but then again…this is Vera
Can anyone else confirm that the requirement to say the room before the device goes away once Echo learns the device list. Is the room name requirement an Alexa requirement or a Vera implementation of the Skills API? Requiring the room name is really cumbersome.
Before you use this, make Room names and Switch names unique (you’ll later add groups in Echo, make these unique also)
(Echo also has a problem with device names with compass directions (North West), Flood and Night in the device names)
So I set up a Room call Dining room, a Switch call Dining Room and Dining Room Nightlight.
If I ask Echo to turn on the dining room lights, it says “Which one”
So I changed the Room name to Upper Level, and Dining Room Nightlight to just Nightlight.
Went to Echo and “Forget all devices and Groups”
Deleted Vera Smarter Home Control.
Went to the “Amazon Alexa Beta: Participation Confirmed” email and re-enabled the Skill
And went to Echo and Discover Devices
Dining Room worked.
I then voice tested all switches, still had some conflicts so I Deleted Vera Smarter Home Control and re-enabled it.
But now when I click “Discover Devices” , nothing appears ;{(
So forewarned, before you use this, make Room names and Switch names unique otherwise you’ll have to say "Echo, turn on Dinning Room, Dinning Room.
Has anybody managed to get this to work in UK yet?
I seem to be able to add the skill, but nothing is discovered, when it adds skill it uses the .com address so I’m not sure if it’s linking to my UK vera properly…
