How to trigger a light when Amazon delivers a package

We need an AfterShip integration.

Might be possible to set up a rule in email to send a message when a delivery email arrives. Have that message sent to text phone number (e.g., for Verizon, xxx-xxx-xxxx@vtext.com) and voila, text notification of deliveries.

Second option: If there is space to put a container of some sort on your porch for deliveries, then you could use a contact sensor on the lid to alert you when the container is opened to put the delivery into it.

the email option seems to be the current best idea on how to signal into HE that the event has triggered. I have also reached out to Tonesto about Echo Speaks to see if it's possible to pull the notification directly from Amazon somehow, if he isn't already!

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Can you elaborate on why this isn’t sufficient? I think you’re referring to a visual cue from an echo device right?

What’s the goal by adding a light flash? In another part of the house?

Except that the person and package detection AI as of late has been flakier than my late grandmothers pie crust.

Received a package today and all I got was the bong sound from Alexa after the driver marked the package as delivered.
Wyze AI only detected motion, not the guy with the bright orange vest on with the package in his hand.

@jshimota I am pretty sure that my Google Calendar/Task/Reminder app can be expanded to Gmail too. I just looked in the Google Console and see there is a mail API with similar search capabilities as calendar events. You would have to poll much more frequently but it might work. Though it might be better to setup a filter and forwarding rule within Gmail itself to say IFTTT.

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FWIW, the Camect utilization in my use case has been rock solid. It may just be where I have my driveway camera set up, but every single delivery truck that even passes on the street is correctly identified as either a Amazon truck, a USPS truck, UPS, FedEx or DHL truck. This last Christmas season, I had to work on some stuff in my front yard all day and it correctly identified every single delivery vehicle that passed, and there were quite a few considering the season! It is absolutely uncanny how well it is able to identify these through its AI (and Camect is 100% local and does not rely on the cloud). Anyway, I can understand why you would not necessarily want to go this way as the setup (both physical and logic wise) is a little more involved than a purely software based solution. Good luck! Hope you find something that works for you.

I agree, BI does logo recognition as well, but just because it recognizes a delivery truck passing by doesn't always mean that the truck stopped and delivered a package.

@Vettester , I also agree if that is all you are depending upon (meaning just detection of a truck logo) but that’s where RM Rules come into play. If an object identified as a person approaches my porch within a set period of time after detection of a delivery vehicle (direction approach/depart determined by motion sensors) and/or an object package is identified, then you can pretty well be assured that it is a delivery, and logo identification can tell you what type of delivery (especially helpful if you are expecting a delivery). At any rate, this has been extremely accurate for my setup. For my mailbox, a specific area in front of the mailbox is defined for detection of a USPS logo, and mail delivery is only triggered if a USPS truck is in front of the mailbox and the mailbox door is opened while the USPS truck is present. Anyway, was just trying to give some possible suggestions as a way to contribute as I have gotten so much valuable help from this great community in learning how to use HE in various applications. YMMV.

This is a good suggestion that I'll have to look into. Are you using BI to do this?

Hi @Vettester , I’m using Camect. I have only very limited experience with BI. At the time I started to seriously looking into object identification, I decided to use Camect as BI was not as sophisticated with object identification at that time. However, I understand that BI has since gotten much more sophisticated in this respect and may be equivalent to or even better than Camect at this time as far as I know (which I don’t, lol). Also, Camect, being hardware based (the Camect hub is the same size as the HE hub) is unfortunately limited to 24MB stream total so I use it only for object recognition and alerts, limiting most of my video streams to it to 1080p, with 4K only on a couple of “critical” cameras. My cameras simultaneous stream to a separate NVR at full res (4K) 24/7 if I need to review at higher definition for law enforcemnt etc. Usually, 1080p is more than adequate for quick viewing on Camect and most purposes, but that is definitely a big advantage of BI as BI scales much better as you can run it on your own hardware. What makes all this so much more useful, of course, is Hubitat! Hope this helps.

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Do you have the Amazon mobile app installed on your phone? Everytime a package is delivered to my home, I get a notification on my phone from Amazon. It is not instaneous, though. I also have USPS Informed Delivery configured, and get emails from USPS each time a package is delivered. I also have free accounts at UPS and Fedex, and have those apps installed on my phone and thus get notifications of those deliveries as well. I also have a vibration sensor on my mailbox and a Ring video doorbell on the front porch. It is pretty hard for a delivery to be made to my home without me knowing about it on my phone. :wink:

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I sometimes laugh as a see what seems to me at least, a complete tangent to the intial question or problem.
The discussion of vehicle identification, while interesting, misses the mark and adds a level of complexity that just seems so unfathomable. Is it academically interesting? sure, I guess. Will I go to that much work just because I'm too lazy to open my security camera window on my computer? um. No.
It's been mentioned there are already notifications in place - Emails, the ring scrolling around the a Echo Dot. When I first asked the question, I was just expecting someone to point out a small thing I'd overlooked what would recognize the Echo Dot in a 'you've a delivery' state and let me do what I want - flash my lights in this case.
So I'll add more to whats going on here - as the question also was asked 'why do you need to flash your lights'.
So - my echo dot is behind my deskphone and not visible. I am deaf. the Bong you all hear, I can't hear. I can push volume to 11 and then hear it, or put on my hearing system (I have 20% in 1 ear, 0 in the other) but while I'm programming in my office I don't normally hear squat.
When my phones ring, the room lights flash. Us deaf people have a device that makes that easy. I just wanted to add a flash of my office lights so I knew not to let packages sit too long for fear of porch pirates. and No. I'm not giving Amazon my house keys either. I trust Amazon, just not their drivers.
Okay. all that said. On the theoretically, I did attempt deepstack but don't have the puter horsepower to run it. it's a beast.
I'm not buying cameras - i already have them. I just don't want to watch them 24/7.
The Email idea is too hit or miss. I don't ALWAYS get an email. Sometimes the driver doesn't update Amazon of my delivery right away.
The text message might be okay, but it just seems like YAML to me. When there are too many ways to skin a cat, you forget which knife you used.
So. Back to my problem - The amazon dev site talks about a new interface expansion for delivery mechanisms. I also reached out with a PR to Tonesto asking for a feature request on my Echo devices being able to have an event with the ring (for other purposes as well).

I thank you all for your interest and support on this topic! As always, HE community is a blast!

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I think this tends to happen when there is no easy, available solution. So people offer alternatives that have worked for them.

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This would seem to affect any notification from Amazon of the delivery (rather than only an issue w/email-based notifications) ... if Amazon isn't notified by the driver the delivery occurred, no notification option is going to work.

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Well said @marktheknife. I think everyone here is just trying to help the OP who is “struggling to find a way”. I know I have received much help from this community and appreciate it.

@danabw maybe my wording was not good enough. I don't always get email because I don't monitor email. I don't wish to allocate screen space to a mail app, and I don't always work locally.
Often I'm vpn'd to a clients or doing work with remote security. Regardless -
I feel I'm being forced to explain and defend. If you have it working, even in a convoluted way - thats great! I was looking for help in case I missed something obvious ie; a driver exists, an app exists or theres a variable/or a soft switch somewhere I can grab onto. I was hoping to hear 'oh, check cobra's site' or 'theres this thingy on Smartthings you can port. No one's mentioned any thing I want, so theres no solve.

In the spirit of things - I'll say why I want what I want. I don't like things that work 'most' of the time. I don't like email for that reason. Text messages. the same. Image ID's from camera's? Fun stuff but not very accurate at all. One person may have allocated 1000's of dollars and 100's of hours and gotten something to work most of the time but that is not realistic in my book.
as a small joke - let me add, right now I rely on the dog getting excited. He's about 90% accurate... better than many other options!
HA.

Sometimes there's just no answer at this time. Don't be slighted.

complete agreement there @marktheknife ! It's the first indicator I'm likely not getting what I want today....

Explain? Sure. Asking questions helps others understand better when they’re not clear on certain details that may seem obvious to you.

IMHO no one’s asking you to defend anything.

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Thanks for explaining...

This isn't about forcing you to defend anything, our addtional questions and probing are all about ensuring that we understand your use-case and any limitations. Any good solution designer wants to understand their clients needs, capabilties, and limitations as clearly as possible, so they can be as helpful as possible. :slight_smile: At the end, we're all just trying to help, however clumsily it may come across as badgering or cross-examining you. :smiley:

For an email option, I'm not suggesting you monitor your email. To use an email-based solution it would not matter whether or not you actually see your email arriving, are on a VPN, etc. As long as it's sent by Amazon it will arrive in your email account, and if you have a web-based automation based on your email account, then that would still run. It should be a set-it-and-forget-it solution, or it's not really a solution.

I think that @ritchierich's suggestion below could work that way, but only he can report back if it seems feasible and he has time to work on it.

I hope that helps w/any misunderstanding about our motives...we are a bunch of HE cowboys who saw a fellow rancher who needed help with a difficult steer, and are maybe throwing a few too many ropes on the animal at the same time. :wink:

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