I can lock doors but not unlock them. Says we can’t do that for now. When will that be available?
That would be an Amazon rather than a Getvera question. Seems Amazon is at this time not allowing locks to be unlocked. I can see that as some one could yell from outside the door ‘Alexa! unlock front door’ and gain entrance that way. As Alexa isn’t locked to one voice but obeys commands from any voice.
@BOHF
Thanks for your comment … you gave me an idea for securing the Locks for Vera Concierge (I currently do allow unlocking doors) … Google does know whose voice is speaking.
There are apocryphal stories of people yelling “Siri unlock the door” through a window and homekit doing it. Amazon gets enough grief for news stories buying products.
There is a way around this, if you don’t mind the security concern. Setup a scene to unlock the door, but use luup to carry out the task. The scene will be visible to Alexa, but she won’t know what it’s for. I use this trick to disarm sensors that Alexa considers security / locks. Works great and allows me to disable a single security item without turning them all off, switching to home mode.
It will be available at some point but it does require a separate Skill with some additional “pin” configuration.
Work on this would start after all region current Alexa Skills (UK,DE,US) will be final and released.
I set a scene called front door lock that opens the front door. I then say Alexa turn off the front door lock. It opens the doors. I use Ha bridge to assign this to Alexa. It by passes any of the Amazon Vera prohibitions.
The issue is sensitive because allowing alexa to work while the controller is in Away mode is dangerous. What is someone comes to a window and yell ‘Alexa unlock …’. And having a verbal pin code is not very safe since it can be overheard. There are ways to make it more secure, but it has other drawbacks.
If you want to have a conversation about securing unlocking the door I’m all ears.
Thank you for your feedback!
Vlad, I agree with your observations. Even though it’s easy to use LUUP code in a scene to achieve this, I for one am not doing it for that reason. Not until Alexa can be programmed to respond to certain voices only.
For the US crowd, this weeks episode of South Park (not watching that but read all the articles) proved beyond a doubt how easily both Amazon Echo and Google Home can be abused. They managed to trigger both devices a lot during that show. Setting up 7AM alarms etc. just by the TV’s audio. Some people had to unplug the Echo or Home because of it.
It’s also apparently possible to use frequencies outside the human hearing range to command Home and/or Alexa…
As a developer, implementing unlocking people’s houses with a human-unhearable voice scares me…
Vlad, as an end-user it equally scares me. Here’s a few links on the subject, it’s called ‘Dolphinattack’
[quote=“BOFH, post:11, topic:197053”]Vlad, as an end-user it equally scares me. Here’s a few links on the subject, it’s called ‘Dolphinattack’
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/08/25/amazon_alexa_answers_inaudible_commands/[/quote]
Thank you for the links, I saw the video on youtube and I’ve heard from various sorces there’ an APK you can buy that will automate this.
As a personal opinion, I don’t want to add unlock doors to Alexa and I would add a feature to block Alexa commands if your Vera is NOT in home or night mode (or make it user-selectable). When you’re away there’s (almost) no reason to allow Alexa to work. I say amost because I use the reverb app to command alexa with my phone, to turn on AC / thermostats when I’m coming home from work… so there are some use cases…
Vlad, I like that idea. Would it be possible to put house mode conditionals in the Alexa plugin on the Vera side? Like check boxes for each device for home,away,night and vacation? To only let Vera execute if there is a check in the currently set house mode? I honestly do not care about an error return to Alexa, but if it could show up in the ‘Alerts’ that would be nice so we can see if it was tried.
Here’s my workaround.
I set up a Virtual Switch, named it something random like “Magic Wand”.
Set up scene where if “Magic Wand” is turned on, door will unlock. Another scene so when door is locked, “Magic Wand” is turned off too.
So you can say “Alexa turn on Magic Wand” and she will turn on that virtual switch. And then the door will unlock for you.
When you re-lock door, the other scene will turn off virtual switch too, so it’s ready to be flipped back on when you ask.
[quote=“jrweiland, post:14, topic:197053”]Here’s my workaround.
I set up a Virtual Switch, named it something random like “Magic Wand”.
Set up scene where if “Magic Wand” is turned on, door will unlock. Another scene so when door is locked, “Magic Wand” is turned off too.
So you can say “Alexa turn on Magic Wand” and she will turn on that virtual switch. And then the door will unlock for you.
When you re-lock door, the other scene will turn off virtual switch too, so it’s ready to be flipped back on when you ask.[/quote]
I tried this but the virtual switch doesn’t show up in my Alexa list of devices (i created the virtual switch using the virtual switch app)
In the meantime I used the luup workaround
Using the Virtual Switch you have to add device characteristics to the configuration to make it discoverable for use with Alexa. There is a thread here somewhere but I can’t find it. Basically if you know how to go to the Apps + Develop Apps + Upload Luua files and replace the D_VSwitch.xml file with one that adds the following lines:
<Category_Num>3</Category_Num>
<SubCategory_Num>0</SubCategory_Num>
In the section of the file. You will then need to restart LUA and then go to home.getvera.com and login and then manage your Alexa devices/scenes before re-discovering devices in Alexa.
I’ve attached a file with the above mods, but you don’t know me so be sure to review the changes made before just blindly trusting me and modifying your system 
I was thinking of putting my wall tablets and various voice devices on an appliance module to turn off when I am in away or vacation mode mode.
Anyone know of a way to mute these or turn these devices off while away?
When hell freezes over, and/or Alexa perfects the voice analyzing algorithm for personal voice commands feature in which is already implemented within Alexa devices. I personally don’t like the idea of unlocking doors by voice. Do you remember when Amazon initiated the feature where their delivery drivers could unlock the door and drop off your package inside the house under certain circumstances based on user pre-authorization? Did you also see the video in the news where recently one of the drivers in California got caught on camera taking a dump in someones driveway??? Yeah, I don’t want that in my house!!! Nooooo unlocked doors!!
[quote=“Opt2bout, post:16, topic:197053”]Using the Virtual Switch you have to add device characteristics to the configuration to make it discoverable for use with Alexa. There is a thread here somewhere but I can’t find it. Basically if you know how to go to the Apps + Develop Apps + Upload Luua files and replace the D_VSwitch.xml file with one that adds the following lines:
<Category_Num>3</Category_Num>
<SubCategory_Num>0</SubCategory_Num>
In the section of the file. You will then need to restart LUA and then go to home.getvera.com and login and then manage your Alexa devices/scenes before re-discovering devices in Alexa.
I’ve attached a file with the above mods, but you don’t know me so be sure to review the changes made before just blindly trusting me and modifying your system :)[/quote]
I didn’t have to do this at all when adding a virtual switch manually rather than using an app to do it. Showed right up after including it within the “manage alexa skills” and then discovering it.
Here’s the instructional link [url=http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/Create_Virtual_Switch_Manually]http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/Create_Virtual_Switch_Manually[/url]
Just follow the instructions for UI5 even if you’re using UI7, you’ll get the idea.