Alexa alerts when contact sensors are opened/closed

I'm from the US

I followed the first link, It only discovered my lights, no contact sensors.

Awesome, the first link is the one to use then like you did.

That page states:

The Amazon Echo Skill app and Alexa Hubitat Skill are capable of controlling are on/off switches, dimmers and locks. Hubitat Elevationâ„¢ Virtual buttons, thermostats, and input devices are not supported at this time.

I don’t know what you would use the contact sensors for in the Alexa app other than routines, but you can do this with rules in Hubitat and maybe use Text To Speech (TTS) for the alerts to your Echo or something.

What exactly are you trying to accomplish now that your Hubitat and Alexa are integrated properly? There is probably someone here that has done exactly what you want, just need to ask. :smile:

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I wanna have alexa let me know when a door or window is open. I switched to Hubitat from Iris, which chimed the hub as well as the keypads when a contact sensor was opened or closed.

I haven’t done any alerts or TTS stuff with Hubitat and Alexa yet.

But there are a lot of people here that do and lots of great options to get what you want.

Two options were just posted in another thread, so linking that is faster.

If you search the official documentation or the forums you may find what you need or someone should come along to help.

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Thank you, I appreciate it.

Not a problem, wish I could help more, but someone I am sure will post soon enough. But lots of info on the forum or official docs if you want to hunt around.
I’d like to know more about it anyway. :slightly_smiling_face:

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You might want to take a look at this thread...

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I'm not sure about a chime, but echo speaks app is great. You can have it send any custom message you choose as an action in rule machine with whatever trigger you want

It's supported for SmartThings, but not Hubitat Elevation at this time. You can do it via SmartThings cloud, without owning a ST hub, which is not needed for this. You have to build a Google Home Assistant server. Not hard.

You can do similar with @keithcroshaw 's method.

It can also be done with @ogiewon 's method

and there's @tonesto7 's method.

or another simple option is a Google Home Mini for announcements only. Several methods for that too.

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This is the method I am using with @ogiewon's AlexaTTS app. Using Rule Manager, I have spoken alerts for all my contact, lock, and window events. If something opens or closes, Alexa notifies me of it. Works perfectly.

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On another thread I read that the Eufy Genie Alexa Enabled Speaker worked with the Media Renderer (Connect) app and DLNA Player device driver here GitHub - Scottma61/Hubitat: MyDrivers, so I ordered the speaker for $15 and voila! Works like a charm. A note however, you need to install the app code and device driver code and then install the app, select the speaker when it is discovered and click done, then click done again to exit the app. Then go back in the app and that causes the speaker device to be created. I futzed around with this for some time before finally figuring that out :slight_smile:.

After you get the speaker set up, you can have the contact sensor open announce the event (or maybe even play an mp3 file if you have a URL) on the speaker with Hubitat Safety Monitor custom rules, see here: Hubitat Safety Monitor - Hubitat Documentation. I use %device% and %value% in the text string, for example %device% was %value% would say "Front Door was opened".

Edit: Forgot to mention that you need to set the speaker up in the Eufy Genie app on your phone (that will make the speaker get an IP address), including connecting it to your Amazon Alexa account. I thought I could skip the Alexa part, but the orange ring was lit up until I did that.

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Wait, what? Do I have to have this speaker, or can I somehow make this work with a regular Echo?
I'm a little foggy on the details of how this is achieved.

I don't think this works with an Echo, unless it is DLNA capable. This item is advertised as an Alexa enabled speaker. When the app was doing discovery, it was only finding my Bose speakers (which I did not know where DLNA capable...something to try!) and the Eufy Genie plus some TVs, but no Echos.

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:-1::+1:

You can use any TTS device in HSM custom rules.

Personally, I like the AlexaTTS app as opposed to the Media Renderer app. AFAIK, the Eufy Genie works with the AlexaTTS app as well (as they now register as Alexa capable speakers in the Alexa app).

I'm aware of the options that either require a separate server or need to keep the Alexa cookies refreshed. Just got excited when I saw a possibility to speak messages without either of those requirements.

Seems like it could be done with DLNA through Echo. I found this, and its a very cool integration if nothing else.

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Anyone have issues with this? Alexa repeats the status 2x. Ie: the door is closed the door is closed. I can’t find any settings in Alexa or Hubitat to control this.

Have you looked in the logs to see if the contact sensor is sending duplicate actions? I have seen posts in the past complaining of certain sensors (I can’t remember which) sending duplicate actions with every event. I use the Echo Speaks integration and haven’t experienced this.

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