Alexa Custom Notify with actionable notification

The aim of this project is to avoid the use of Alexa Media Player custom component for tts/announce. It also provide a support for actionable notification.

This project does not replace at all AMP since it does not provide media_player functionalities like audio file play, custom commands like skill invocation, volume adjustment and so on.

This project is not for beginners.

Let's assume:

• you know what is the Amazon Developer Console
• you know how to create Skill in Amazon Developer Console
• you know what are Home Assistant Areas
• you know what are Home Assistant Tokens
• you know how to create helpers and mqtt sensor in Home Assistant
• you know what is MQTT and it's already configured within your Home Assistant
• your Home Assistant is exposed on public internet with https connection
• your Home Assistant is exposed to Alexa via Nabu Casa or HAASKA
• you know how Home Assistant entities are exposed to Alexa (we need to use them as routine trigger)

If any of the above assumptions are not verified, delve deeper into that topic(s) and come back when they are clear and confirmed.

Check list

1. Create Alexa Skill
2. Create Home Assistant entities/scripts
3. Create Alexa Routine(s)
4. Test

Let's start.

Create Alexa Skill

Create the skill from Alexa Developer Console. Give it the name you want.

Skill Configuration Values

• Type: other
• Model: custom
• Hosted: node.js
• Template: scratch
• Invocation Name: custom tts (please, keep in mind this value)

At this point save the Skill and then copy the content of interaction_model.json into the JSON Editor. Save the Skill and build it.

Once built, go to code section and replace the content of the index.js and package.json files.

Please remember to change ha_url and ha_token constants value inside index.js.

Click save and deploy: once deployed, go to test and enable the development stage.

Create Home Assistant entities/scripts

In Home Assistant create an input_boolean helper for each echo device you want to use: input_boolean.alexa_tts_<echo_name>

At this point you should expose these entities to Alexa through your provider (Nabu or Haaska).

Suggestion: assign each entity to related area.

Now you can create an mqtt sensor like this:

mqtt:
  - sensor:
      - name: "alexa_tts_data"
        unique_id: alexa_tts_data
        state_topic: "alexa_tts/data"
        value_template: "{{ value_json.state }}"
        json_attributes_topic: "alexa_tts/data"
        json_attributes_template: "{{ value_json.info | tojson }}"

And finally, you can create the script:

alias: alexa_tts_launch
sequence:
  - action: input_boolean.turn_off
    metadata: {}
    data: {}
    target:
      entity_id: input_boolean.alexa_tts_{{alexa_device}}
  - action: mqtt.publish
    metadata: {}
    data:
      evaluate_payload: false
      qos: 0
      topic: alexa_tts/data
      payload: |-
        {
            "state": "call",
            "info": {
                "event_id": "{{context.id}}",
                "need_answer": "{{need_answer|lower}}",
                "suppress_confirmation": "{{suppress_confirmation|lower}}",
                "speak_out": "{{text}}"
            }
        }
  - action: input_boolean.turn_on
    metadata: {}
    data: {}
    target:
      entity_id: input_boolean.alexa_tts_{{alexa_device}}
  - if:
      - condition: template
        value_template: "{{need_answer == True}}"
    then:
      - wait_for_trigger:
          - trigger: state
            entity_id:
              - sensor.alexa_tts_data
            to: answer
            from: call
        enabled: true
        timeout:
          hours: 0
          minutes: 0
          seconds: 15
          milliseconds: 0
      - if:
          - condition: template
            value_template: "{{ wait.trigger == None }}"
        then:
          - action: mqtt.publish
            metadata: {}
            data:
              evaluate_payload: false
              qos: 0
              topic: alexa_tts/data
              payload: |-
                {
                    "state": "answer",
                    "info": {
                        "event_id": "{{context.id}}",
                        "need_answer": "{{need_answer|lower}}",
                        "suppress_confirmation": "{{suppress_confirmation|lower}}",
                        "speak_out": "{{text}}",
                        "answer": "ResponseNone"
                    }
                }
    enabled: true
  - variables:
      response:
        intent: "{{state_attr('sensor.alexa_tts_data', 'answer')}}"
  - stop: recognized
    response_variable: response
fields:
  alexa_device:
    selector:
      text: null
    name: Alexa Device
    required: true
  text:
    selector:
      text: null
    name: Text
    required: true
  need_answer:
    selector:
      boolean: {}
    name: Need Answer
    required: true
  suppress_confirmation:
    selector:
      boolean: {}
    name: Suppress Confirmation
    required: true
description: ""
mode: single

Create Alexa Routine(s)

The final step is to create Alexa routine(s) based on input_boolean activation. To do this:

1. Open Alexa app on your smartphone with the same account used for Skill Creation
2. Create a routine with:
   • trigger: the opening of your entity
   • action: custom command like "Alexa, open custom tts" - replace custom tts with the skill invocation name, if changed.
3. Repeat 1. and 2. for each entity/echo device you want to involve.

Test

This is an example of usage without actionable notification:

action: script.alexa_tts_launch
data:
  need_answer: false
  suppress_confirmation: false
  alexa_device: show
  text: hello world!

This is an example of usage with actionable notification:

action: script.alexa_tts_launch
data:
  need_answer: true
  suppress_confirmation: false
  alexa_device: show
  text: Are you Ok?

This will produce an output variable: intent: ResponseYes, for example.

You can use it in automations/scripts like this:

alias: test_alexa_answer
sequence:
  - action: script.alexa_tts_launch
    data:
      need_answer: true
      suppress_confirmation: false
      alexa_device: show
      text: vuoi accendere la luce?
    response_variable: response
  - if:
      - condition: template
        value_template: "{{response.intent == 'ResponseYes'}}"
    then:
      - action: light.turn_on
        target:
          entity_id: light.faretti
description: ""