That's a great idea! One level of abstraction beyond my reasoning capability apparently..
Yeah I started with an Aeon doorbell on SmartThings then moved to the Ring + Ring Chime. The Ring Chime was less than satisfactory with volume/tones etc so I just used the chime part of the Aeon doorbell. It worked nicely on ST and does work using IFTTT but I like the idea of using Alexa since I'm already kinda committed to that platform.
On a side note I'm having trouble with the HE Aeon Doorbell driver and RM though - I can't get a door opened alert to play the defined "beep" chime - it only uses the default doorbell track. Of course the device only appears as a "switch" not a notification device or speaker.
Is the Aeon doorbell using a built in driver or a custom one? If its built in and is listed as a switch, you should be able to share it directly with Alexa (no need for the virtual switch).
EDIT: I created a device using the built in Aeon Labs Doorbell driver and it seems to have a lot more options than the standard switch. It also does not appear in the Alexa app as you mentioned earlier. Looks like a virtual switch is the way to go.
With respect to the door opened alert stuff... I tried to port krlaframboise's custom ST doorbell code over but could not get it to work.
I had stopped using WebCoRE because it caused my hub to become non-responsive though to be fair it was very likely my not quite so good piston writing skills than anything else.
In the interim until HE updates the driver I may bring WC back carefully. It's very handy to be able trigger the bell as well as doorbell.
My Aeon Door Bell is terrible at doing what it's intended to do. As a doorbell, it burns through the button battery in days. I've replaced the battery 4-5 times and they last about a week, with zero use. The last battery I installed I tested once to verify, then put it on a shelf where it was never touched. 1 week later, the red light on the main unit was telling me the battery was dead. I haven't used that part since.
I've got 11 "phrases" installed into the main unit and they play. However, they mostly play poorly. They repeat and or cutoff. Often both. "There's a vis vis vis There's a visitor at There's a visitor at the front d"
A common complaint with these is they play randomly.. I'm guessing: any power glitch causes it to play a track. Therefore I want to Set Volume (7+), play track, and then set volume to 1, so that the random tracks are so soft, I get no complaints. So far, I haven't found a simple way of implementing.
This is a years old problem for me. I worked with Aeon last year and we agreed it was not defective, per se. It was just not working well. There's a new one due out.. Aeon's site last year said "end of 2017" but as we approach end of 2018, I'm thinking it's the beginning of the window it might get released. (Aeon seems to always announce products 1-2 years in advance.) [edit] Current website says: "Doorbell 6 will be available to our partners in late 2018."
I haven't found any driver that works well. They all drive the device the same, meaning I can tell them to play a track via any driver. The differences between the built in driver and Kevin's is the wealth of options in Kevin's. I love that BUT don't need it. My needs are simple.. when a door contact opens, play a track, ideally at a specific volume. All I need exposed in a driver is "set volume" and Play track number:" so I can verify it's the track I want before entering it into a Rule. Therefore for me, all drivers are adequate.
Yeah - I don't use the doorbell at all just the powered chime. For me it's worked well though now that you mention it there may have been some ghost rings with ST on occasion but they were infrequent enough that I didn't really notice. The issue I've had is sometimes the device status says it's still playing even though it's not - doesn't seem to turn "off" properly. Under HE things appear to be better so far but I just got the beep track working again via a custom command. That doorbell driver on my HE doesn't show up under Music Player or Notification so couldn't do any actions in RM initially. The goal was to have a doorbell tone for the doorbell (Ring in this case) and "Door Opened" alert using the beep track.
So it has been pointed out to me that the doorbell does show up under "Music player/ play a tone" which calls the "beep" action which is what I want. I wonder if its better to change tracks/sounds on certain action types (doorbell/beep/siren) dynamically or just use the different types with each having their own default tracks/sounds already set. Maybe it doesn't make a difference.
Figuring all this out can be terribly humbling sometimes.
Also custom commands are still very helpful I think...
It seems to me that it would be better to use the format suggested by @Tony in the other thread.
You can use speak as well using the 'send or speak a message' action, you're right, no custom command is needed. Turn on 'use a speech device' in the RM 'Send or Speak a Message' settings and supply the desired track number (without quotes) for the message.
This way you can choose the exact track you want for every action.
This is the built in Virtual Switch driver. The preference I highlighted in red is where you convert it to a momentary switch. Let me know if you dont know how to create a virtual switch and I can post screenshots.
