Connecting Wyze Sense to Alexa

The “Save” button is greyed out until you choose which device it should speak it on. Maybe that’s the problem? Did you choose an Echo device?

We did not get in trouble with Alexa. They were actually on site at Wyze when we found out so that’s why we were able to talk about the risks and what would be the best response possible. Since they mentioned that cameras could be a problem, we decided to do a near full rollback.
The good thing here is that we have highlighted two issues in the certification process and are asking for improvements to address those issues.
As for the left opened/closed, unfortunately, no. This is not something supported by Alexa just yet so we don’t have a way to signal that to Alexa.

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That was it! Once I picked a device it saved just fine. Dumb mistake on my part.

That said Alexas “bleep” is not very effective, nor much like a beep. It actually sounded fairly close to the original phrase.

Aw bummer. Are the open/closed buttons part of an Alexa interaction model, or do you guys build those buttons to say whatever you want? I figured instead of two buttons, you’d have 4, (Open, Closed, Left Open, and Left Closed) and the “left open/left closed” could trigger a numeric field or something. But if Alexa doesn’t support that, I understand. :slight_smile: Still thrilled to get what we’re getting.

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Did you write a whole phrase? I just wrote the single word. I don’t hear any “F” or “K” or anything. Just a beep/tone.

Yes. Alexa has a set of “interfaces” that are clearly defined that relate to the capability that is being exposed. They call them controllers. Google does the same thing and call them “Traits”.

Because we are not defining the capabilities but relying on the definition provided by Alexa and Alexa is trying to make them work for the largest amount of hardware possible, those capabilities are very close from common denominators. It’s usually enough but once in a while we have a feature or two that are not covered.

You can find the list of controllers for the Sensors there: Build Smart Home Skills for Sensors | Alexa Skills Kit. Browsing around, you can actually find all the Alexa documentation of what is supported.

But the model is not completely closed and we can make the choice to create a custom skill instead of a smarthome skill and define new attributes. This means that we are responsible for all the utterances definition. This is notch up in complexity and we would still not able to make those extra “buttons” available in Routines from what I understand but I might be wrong on this one.

Gotcha. I understand. :slight_smile: I was just playing with the Alexa Skills Kit and looking at some of that documentation yesterday actually, (Now that Alexa allows skills be triggered by routines, I was trying to make a super simple skill to play a beep. I successfully created it, but I can’t get it to appear in my list of skills I can choose from a routine yet.)

Anyway, thanks for the explanation. At the very least, this sounds like the quickest/easiest way to get the functionality working. Really glad you guys are working on it. Maybe Amazon will expand it in the future

That’s something I can talk to them as a feature request but I think they are going to say that this should be a feature that should be offered by Routines as part of the triggers! :slight_smile:

Maybe. But Wyze would still have to send the information to Amazon after the delay period, so I feel like it would probably require SOME integration effort on Wyze’s part. (It’s not the same thing as a simple “wait,” it’s whether or not the sensor is STILL open/closed after X period of time)

Anyway, just would be a nice feature, but I’m not complaining. :slight_smile: I’m glad we’re getting Alexa integration with this at all.

Alexa has the state of the device so they can actually fully implement the function in Routines.

The integrations of hardware requires that you update some of the attributes related to the capability within a certain amount of time, your ‘Work with Alexa’ certification depends on your ability to be under that threshold. So there might be a few 100s of milliseconds difference but it would work. :slight_smile:

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Oh, I guess that’s true. I hadn’t even thought about that. Yeah, I forgot that I can check the state of the device in the Alexa app, which obviously means they get all that information. In that case, I agree – it sounds like the onus is probably on Amazon to implement something like that. I understand why it makes more sense for you guys to implement it based on their existing “controllers” rather than reinventing the wheel with your own interaction models. It’ll be more compatible and future-proof. I just wish Amazon was as receptive to customer feedback as you guys are. Hahaha.

That makes sense why I was not able to add it with your method earlier… Too late to the party I guess!

Well, I can’t say you didn’t warn me. The camera that hosts the Sense Bridge just restarted a minute ago, and I got about 12 Alexa announcements that EVERY SINGLE sensor had been opened. Hahahaha. :joy:

Interestingly, when I check the status in the Alexa app now, they all show as being open, although the Wyze app shows their correct states. (I just tried opening and closing the front door, and the state updated appropriately in Alexa, but the rest of them still show as being open.)

Do you guys want feedback about this stuff? I know it’s still in development and we’re not really supposed to be using this yet, so this stuff may already be known. But I’m happy to share whatever weirdness pops up like this if you guys want it. I’ll tag @Frederik too, in case that’s useful. :slight_smile:

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I have tried both. My wife actually asked why Alexa was swearing while I tested it so it’s not doing a great job of masking it. It seems to work a little better with st and a however.

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That’s strange. I’m surprised the speech engine or whatever behaves that differently from device to device. I do use “brief mode” with Alexa. I wonder if that would make a difference. That’s the only thing I can think of.

Just curious… is this a skill you created for yourself, or one that was approved by Amazon? I’ve not used the Skills Kit, but created a couple skills for my own use with Voiceflow. I was really hoping that I could then use them in routines, however, it appears that only those approved by Amazon show up in the skill list. :frowning: Hoping this will change.

I finally just added a line where Alexa says “beep beep”.

By the way I don’t think Alexa is behaving differently I think it’s how different people hear. My wife and myself and my oldest son all hear the f-word fairly clearly. His girlfriend does not, she hears a garbled bleep.

I played it for my Dad over the phone and he heard the f-word but my step Mom did not hear it. So it seems to be more how your hearing works than anything else.

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I created it myself, but I went ahead and submitted it to see if they’ll approve it so that I can use it. And yeah, I can’t get it to show up in the skill list for a routine. I can invoke it by telling Alexa to open the skill with my voice – when I do so, it just makes a beep sound and quits (which is exactly what i want) but I want to invoke it from a routine. If they don’t approve it, I’ll just delete it, because it’s kind of pointless unless it can be invoked by something other than my voice.

If they approve it, I’ll let you know.

Are you hearing the f-word here? I’m not. This is my f-word Alexa routine. Just makes a beep.

Seriously, if my ears are crazy, let me know. I hear nothing but a short steady tone.

I just hear the bleep, let me see if I can make a similar video.