Amazon Echo Skill -- Support for RGBW?

⚙️ Custom Apps and Drivers
1

I have some RGBGenie, RGBW lights.

I can control their color using Alexa, but I can't figure out how to control the white LED, or if it's even possible.

The devices page has a "Test WW" command (test warm white) that works. The white leds in the RGBW strips turn on. But they do NOT turn on when I asked Alexa to turn them on white (the R, G, and B leds illuminate to create a "flavor" of white). Alexa does not recognize a warm white color.

Are there utterances that can be used by Alexa to turn on/off the white LED? It needs to be off for decent color accuracy, but needs to be own to get a tungsten light like color.

I think I can do it with virtual switches and Rules if Alexa just doesn't deal with RGBW (just RGB).

2

I don't know about your device, but Alexa commands can be used to set/change color temperature for zigbee Sengled and Osram Lightify bulbs. I've used commands like "Alexa, set xyz to warm white" or "Alexa, set xyz to daylight".

1 Like
3

I've tried both the "Generic RGBWW controller" and a custom driver that is specific to the RGBGenie Zwave controller I'm using.

I can control everything using device commands--just can't get the Alexa ColorTemperatureControl utterances to work.

4

That's helpful!

So, it SHOULD work. But when I try doing it with the RGBGenie, Alexa tells me the device doesn't support that. Yet the custom driver advertises these capabilities (and more);

capability "ColorControl"
capability "ColorMode"
capability "ColorTemperature"
5

Does it support "ColorName"? Daylight etc. is a color name.

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6

I don't see ColorName as a Hubitat driver capability.

I see colorName as an attribute in the ColorTemperature capability. The custom driver does not have that attribute. Can't tell if the built-in, generic driver has that attribute.

Would it make sense adding that attribute to see if it changes Alexa''s notion of what the device supports?

7

Disregard that last post. You get a colorName attribute just by having a colorTemperature capability. It does not need to be explicitly declared.

And, I see it in on the device page. It accurately reflects the color, when it's something like red, blue, green.

And white--but white is not the white LED, but rather a mix of Red, Green, and Blue.

8

Here's the device page after running the testWW command (and the light is actually a warm white color):

warm
warm1331×818 77.3 KB

9

Alexa command: warm white
Screen Shot 2021-06-14 at 12.04.24

Alexa command: soft white
Screen Shot 2021-06-14 at 12.04.33

Alexa command: white
Screen Shot 2021-06-14 at 12.04.41

Alexa command: daylight white
Screen Shot 2021-06-14 at 12.04.47

Alexa command: cool white
Screen Shot 2021-06-14 at 12.04.55

11

I deleted the devices from the Amazon Alexa device list then re-added them. That changed what's happening.

Now, the lights do respond to commands like make over cabinet warmer and make over cabinet daylight and the lights change to the correct color. But, Alexa says something like "Hmm, the device is not responding".

So, I think that that Alexa (or the Hubitat app) held on to the original device type when I change to the RGBGenie specific driver.

There's a switch on the Amazon Alexa app page to tell Alexa to return immediately--that should hush Alexa's complaint. I also think I know how to modify (hack) the driver so that's not needed--I did that in a driver I wrote last week.

Another issue that I might need help on (in another post if I can't figure it out). Color control commands sent to a group of these devices doesn't go to each device. That used to work reliably on the builtin, generic RGBWW driver.

12

For anyone reading the thread, my issues were:

  1. Using generic RGBWW instead of the @bcopeland driver.
  2. After changing to the RGBGenie driver, not deleting the devices from Amazon Alexa app
  3. Didn't check "Use group device to indicate if any members are on" (at least that's what I think that what fixed unreliable on/off control using the group instead of individual devices.

Still, I get complaints from Alexa about device not responding when I try commands like "make over cabinet warmer" or "make over cabinet cooler". The lights do change, but when I ask for warmer, they actually get cooler. And, I get the complaint from Alexa.

But I don't really plan to set a specific color temp anyway. Just "warm-white" and other named colors. Those now seem to work fine through Alexa, including asking the group to change color.