Echo Speaks / Heroku end anxiety support group. See one solution below. 🙂

Anyone else?
What are we going to do??
Please do not tag the creator.

Does anyone have a working Raspberry Pi server? I have an extra Pi so I think I would try that first.

:grimacing:

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Well, I feel your pain and share it. I'm trying to be patient. If I have to, I do have two Raspberry Pis and would follow the steps that start here: [RELEASE] Echo Speaks V4 - #629 by user2305 Hoping for a more foolproof method, but I could probably get this going if necessary.

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We have 25 days still though.

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Is this because of Heroku?

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Yes. Heroku is terminating free service for small accounts / hobbyists this month.

Looking at the plans on Heroku, do I understand it correctly that a $7/month fee would keep it working?

My best understanding is that the fee is $7 per "something" and Echo Speaks requires two of those "somethings" so, $14 per month to continue using Echo Speaks. But, I am not sure about that.

This is the reply I received from Heroku....
Hi,
Danielle from the billing support team here, thanks for reaching out. I have been able to review the apps within your account that have a free dyno attached and those include: echo-specho-speaaks-cc1qkbdug and echo-speaks-wsj17cgs0.
In this case, the pricing for these apps would move to $7/month per app if the apps were upgraded from a free dyno to a hobby dyno. This pricing is based on the resources currently provisioned for the app, and any additional resources would incur separate costs. I have more information on our dynos and their respective pricing here:

f no upgrade is made, free dynos will be scaled down to 0 starting November 28, 2022.

I have also included a link on how to upgrade your resources:

I hope this was helpful, if you have any questions please let me know.

Best,
Danielle

Danielle from the billing support team here, thanks for reaching out. I have been able to review the apps within your account that have a free dyno attached and those include:
echo-specho-speaaks-cc1qkbdug and
echo-speaks-wsj17cgs0.

In this case, the pricing for these apps would move to $7/month per app if the apps were upgraded from a free dyno to a hobby dyno. This pricing is based on the resources currently provisioned for the app, and any additional resources would incur separate costs. I have more information on our dynos and their respective pricing here:

f no upgrade is made, free dynos will be scaled down to 0 starting November 28, 2022.

I have also included a link on how to upgrade your resources:

I hope this was helpful, if you have any questions please let me know.

Best,
Danielle

Yeah that's just not feasible from my perspective. Hope there's a solution. For the moment I'm thinking about maybe just recording what my echo says that I need (like "The front door just opened") as a "chime" on my Ecolink Chime+Siren. Haven't attempted that yet though.

I am fairly confident Tonesto will have ES fixed. However, if you only have 1-2 phrases, it might be just as easy to create a virtual device in Hubitat (and expose it to Alexa), and when that is turned on have Alexa speak a certain phrase via a Routine.

There is even a special driver that someone created that works great for this purpose. This thread might be helpful Trigger Alexa Routine on Virtual Switch - not working

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I just broke down and purchased Sonos One(s)… TTS, Alexa support and AirPlay, all local..

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Sonos One speakers are definitely very nice, but TTS is not local. Hubitat uses Amazon Polly (on the cloud) to encode text into mp3 files that are sent to the Sonos. If the text doesn't change, the encoded file is kept on the Hubitat until it is overwritten.

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I didn't know that..

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Anxiety support group !!

Love the title of this thread.

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To be honest, I've avoided the entire thing. Sounds like way too much effort.

If this became an easier process then sure, it'd be handy to be able to use tts around the house via the dots. Would save me having to use a handful of cheap androids/speakers as I do now.

Watching with interest.

Be patient. I believe the app developer stated he will be working on a solution that does not involve Heroku.

I have Echo Speaks running using a Docker container on a Raspberry Pi. I followed the instructions found here GitHub - TonyFleisher/echo-speaks-server at docker-enablement (Instructions are in the docker/ directory).

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I use virtual hubitat motion sensors with rules as triggers. Alexa natively supports them. they work great.

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I moved onto a docker container as did a few others. If you check the main ES thread I think there are good instructions.

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i would love to put this on container station on my qnap but not sure where to start. i wasnt able to find directions anywhere. any ideas?

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Instructions for setting up using regular Docker can be found at GitHub - TonyFleisher/echo-speaks-server at docker-enablement under the Docker folder. You can use those as a basis for creating a container in Qnap.