Guess who’s missing…
There are at least two, if not three, different solutions to integrate Vera and Echo/Alexa.
Native support???
You’re right. Echo/Alexa does not natively support Vera. I find it very annoying. It’s not like Vera hasn’t been around forever. And, it’s not like Vera doesn’t have a stupid-simple and well documented web API for them to leverage.
Really there’s no excuse for Echo/Alexa to not have native Vera support. You should complain to Amazon about that.
Community developed solution, non native and requires a separate server that is on 24/7. Not to mention it involves tricking the echo into thinking that it is a hue bridge (a hack, but a very clever one)
I’m not cutting getvera any slack here. Getvera needs to get their act together. They are falling far behind
[quote=“Z-Waver”]You’re right. Echo/Alexa does not natively support Vera. I find it very annoying. It’s not like Vera hasn’t been around forever. And, it’s not like Vera doesn’t have a stupid-simple and well documented web API for them to leverage.
Really there’s no excuse for Echo/Alexa to not have native Vera support. You should complain to Amazon about that.[/quote]
Do you really think Amazon engineers coded the integration with all the other bridges?
It was a partnership where the Amazon engineers allowed their partners access to echo’s api and let them code the integration pieces.
Getvera either never bothered to partner with them, or Amazon didn’t think of them as a legitimate player. Either way if sucks for them.
I know the guy in charge of the sensi thermostat (subsidiary of Emerson) and he said amazon contacted them a while back and asked them if they would be interested in a partnership. They then worked together as corporate partners and the sensi team integrated their software with the echo’s.
Maybe it wont matter in the not to distant future with Google’s Verge coming out.
#1. Maybe there will be an Echo/Verge app? or a simpler interface app for Home Controllers
#2. All the Verge has to do is minimally do what the Echo does; only the Verge needs to be able to Bluetooth to some detached speakers and everyone, including myself will try to sell their Echo on eBay or Craigs List because they are switching to the Verge, cause that’s one of the biggest faults with Echo… no detached speakers… Amazon wants you to spend more money on something else to have that feature…which essentially makes the Echo nothing more than a “Transistor Radio” by comparison…
#3. If Vera doesn’t provide an interface soon with Echo and Verge then for everyone in the world with an Echo or a Verge who wants home controller automation… well, it’s lights out for Vera and that market solution…
Here’s a Native Amazon Echo integration for Vera(does it really matter if it was developed by Vera or someone else?). It has been available since last October. Amazon broke it two months ago and still hasn’t approved the updated version that works for public availability. Amazon, is the delay here.
Having another company being a gatekeeper to your product, such as Amazon is in this case, is not a good business position.
Do you know if Amazon contacted Vera about a partnership? Do you know if Vera contacted Amazon?
On this we agree. But these petulant demands that Vera create partnerships and integrations with third party companies and products, appearing on the forums in the past few weeks, are rather absurd.
I wonder if there is any “revenue” or “promise of revenue” exchanged in the “partnership”… I mean Amazon charging for API Web Service Fees, etc.
A single developer creating an app for pretty much themselves is no cost… but for a company like Vera… there may be excessive fees involved…
I was just thinking about that…
Frankly, I don’t think that expecting a company whose product we’ve chosen to support, but isn’t adding the common features of its competition, is “petulant” or “absurd”. Also, I sincerely doubt those features would be added if those of us who would like to see those features added, sat quietly and waited for them to be added ‘just because’.
You can call it whining or you can call it customer feedback.
I am annoyed because I invested time, money and resources into this platform. If the company is poorly run and fall behind (or worse yet, go out of business), I will incur more costs to switch to another platform.
I have a big box full of X10 devices to remind me of a similar outcome.
On the other hand, I don’t know if any of you used unraid (for media storage), but that company was having similar issues a couple of years ago. Their latest stable version was getting really stale, while the competitors kept churning out new features, surpassing unraid. The company (was a one man show at the time) was nowhere to be found on the forums. The users started revolting. There was a lot of noise. It got to a point where blogs started picking it up and there was bad press all over.
I think that’s when the company realized they weren’t going to make any more money unless they did something about it. They hired a couple of new employees (outstanding guys), became very engaged with the users on the forum, put out a new release right away and started adding super cool features. Fast forward a year, there are a ton of new community developers who develop amazing addons (dockers and such), some of which made it into the official product, and the product is hands down the best option out there. It is getting a lot of good press and is getting featured in popular outlets like Linus Tech Tips (7 gamers, 1 tower and the new 8 (or is it 10) gamers, one cpu videos).
They totally turned it around. I’m hoping for the same for Vera.