[RELEASE] Echo Speaks V4

[ronv42]

Thanks for all your hard work on this.

[user2038]

Flightcontrol.dev may be an option. It says free for individuals. Heroku dx competitor

[marcusvrsilva]

This sounds very interesting. It would be great if someone could post a step by step on how to configure the server at Flightcontrol!

[jsender321]

Family first for sure! Thank you for all you do for this community.

[staze]

Thank you sir! In my case, I don't have anything critically using ES, so I just deleted and deleted the heroku app. Once the docker container is up and going, I'll recreate. =)

Take care, and happy holidays (soon)!

[KurtSanders]

@user2305

Assuming npm is already installed, for a raspberry pi: (adapted from a post by VilifiedFerret.

npm i https://github.com/tonesto7/echo-speaks-server
sudo npm install -g pm2
cd node_modules/echo-speaks-server
sudo pm2 start index.js
sudo pm2 list
sudo pm2 save
sudo pm2 startup
sudo pm2 save

Once that is running you need to configure insert the callback url from the habitat echo-speaks config page into http://RPI_IP_ADDRESS:8091 in your browser, then go back to the habitat echo speaks page and login to the local server.

Logging into the Amazon account via the local server took multiple attempts, but worked eventually.

Thank you! The local server on raspberryPi is working perfectly.

I deleted my Heroku account and unsubscribed from all their emails to pay up!

Also deleted both our family Twitter accounts! Freedom from both platforms that are melting down!

[user2305]

Glad it worked for you. I have had it running on my Pi locally since I set it up with no issues.

[kewashi]

I re-read their payment agreement, and the $7 a month fee is the "max" they would charge if your app was running 24 hours a day 7 days a week. The actual charge is 1 penny per hour. Does this app count as continuously running? Or does it only run when the cookie needs updating? If the latter, then the total costs will be pennies a month, which to me means it isn't worth jumping through a lot of hoops to replace it. My guess is because it's a node app Heroku considers it as always running, looking for changes. Anyone know for sure? Here's the language we need to understand in their billing:

Heroku computes usage from wall-clock time, not CPU time. Any dynos scaled above 0 accrue usage, regardless of traffic or activity. Heroku prorates all costs to the second. You can scale down your dynos when they’re not in use.
For example, a Hobby dyno costs $7/month. Running 1 Hobby dyno costs roughly $0.01/hour. If you scaled your formation to 1 Hobby dyno starting on 2022-01-01 00:00:00 and scaled down to zero at 2022-01-01 02:00:00, it would cost you approximately $0.02 for those two hours.

[maffpt]

Hi everyone!

Sorry to ask instead of reading all posts regarding this subject, but since there are a lot of posts, it's difficult to identify a solid and reliable solution for a Docker installation of ES4.

As the final days of the Heroku saga, I'd like to ask our fellow users if a Docker image is running ok and where can I get a reference to a Docker image at Docker hub?

Thanks in advance!

[dJOS]

These instructions worked for me:

Echo Speaks Local Network Logon/Cookie Authorization Server to replace Heroku

If you use the Echo Speaks smart application in Hubitat Elevation to drive your Alexa devices for customized speech, be aware that the Heroku cloud application server will begin charging per month for their service on November 28th. Echo Speaks uses a Heroku routine in order to maintain a valid login cookie to the Alexa service. I have developed a tutorial on my Notes server that shows two ways to install Tony Fleisher's (Echo Speaks author) local echo speaks login/cookie authorization server t…

[diegodelprat]

interesting, if it is worth that price I would continue since, I do not have rpi or time to do the whole process, I was looking forward to another method, before using an rpi, but if it is for that price, I prefer to pay

[wiegout]

I've been of the "let's be patient, there's plenty of time" mindset. Now I guess I'm going to have to dive into moving the login service to my Pi4. Wheeee. Thanks for the write up. I'll do this today as the deadline is approaching F A S T.

[KurtSanders]

@wiegout

I've been of the "let's be patient, there's plenty of time" mindset. Now I guess I'm going to have to dive into moving the login service to my Pi4. Wheeee. Thanks for the write up. I'll do this today as the deadline is approaching F A S T.

It is not that difficult to implement and I wish I had done this years before and reduced one more cloud platform dependency!

[iSEEu]

Curious if its possible to use a Raspberry Pi emulator and VirtualBox to host the alternate local server while we wait for a new stable version of Echo Speaks that no longer requires Heroku? I'm shocked to see how expensive Raspberry Pi devices cost these days. I already have a spare Windows 10 host running VirtualBox. Apologies if this has already been mentioned.

[marktheknife]

No need to limit to RPis, essentially anything that runs Linux natively or in a virtual machine should do the trick.

Take a look at the linked thread four posts above yours.

Edit: for simplicity’s sake, probably best to stick with a debian-based Linux distro though.

[iSEEu]

Awesome. Thank you @marktheknife

[wiegout]

I'm stuck in an endless loop trying to get Echo Speaks to recognize the login from a local Pi server that I set up. The question is in the anxiety thread. Any ideas? I'm going about half crazy.

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

Man oh man. I keep doing it, but keep getting the same results. The Amazon login works, but Echo Speaks still thinks "I'm no longer logged in" [image] Any other ideas from anyone?

[Greenwave]

@wiegout have you tried rebooting the Pi?

[wiegout]

Yep. A few times

[wiegout]

OK. So I must be missing something. I have rebooted the pi and the hub multiple times. I'm wondering if I am doing something out of order?

I just wiped out the server in the echo speaks configuration. Then I went to the login server on my pi and logged in to amazon successfully. The Echo Speaks config now shows my local server so I think that means the API callback worked. But the Echo Speaks app does not see the Amazon cookie I guess because it says that I'm not logged in. I've been around and around and of course now ES no longer works and I blew away the heroku account. So I have to get this working.

THis page here. Should it go away? Should I "Save Settings"? I see that lots of people got stuck getting a cookie but after a few tries "it magically works." Well, not for me so far.