[RELEASE] Echo Speaks V4

Tony will need to look at this. We have been dealing with over the last month the Alexa api changing underneath us..
@tonesto7

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I’m seeing a lot of issues with Amazon. Most of my Echos are not connecting to the internet today.
I think Amazon is changing a lot of stuff on the back end.
I will look into it tomorrow

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Oh Amazon can't leave well enough alone. All my music services on the Synology have stopped working, not a Echo Speaks issue but the changes to their services on the back end.

I noticed a somewhat weird quirk the last few weeks. I have an Echo Speaks Action set with the trigger as the Hubitat mode changing to Away. There are several execution actions in Echo Speaks, including turning off lights, setting volumes, etc. One particular action is to "Say Goodbye" using the Builtin Speech Config option. This typically says one of Alexa's random goodbye phrases, but the last few weeks when the random goodbye phrase is "Hasta la vista baby", the Echo says something like "Hesta la vesta byebay". It sounds like it's trying to speak a non-english language. All actions still execute just fine, it's just interesting sometimes when my Echo tries to speak a different language.

Anyone else able to replicate this quirk?

This has me laughing... I honestly have no idea what is going on at Amazon lately there has been weird behaviour across the board... They seem to be making changes everywhere

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Halloween is approaching.

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We will eventually get things back to normal. I'm just waiting to see what things they are changing before trying to fix them all.

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My wife asked if it's possible that Alexa had a stroke. Honestly, at this point with all the other crazy inexplicable changes going on at Amazon, I wouldn't be surprised.

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im not crazy big bang theory GIF
I feel SLIGHTLY less crazy after reading the confirmations in this thread. I am amongst friends.

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I guess it is too late for tPA for the Alexa stroke....

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It's not her first. She's been having them for a long time.

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"Alexa, play classical music"
"Here is a station you might like, Rap Music".

Um, no, I wouldn't enjoy that.

Or just sitting there, nobody said anything or invoked Alexa:

"George W Bush was president ....................... (10 minutes speech later)"

Gee thanks, I think.

So yea, I do believe she is either senile, or had a stroke.

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Guard seems to be working again. Perhaps Alexa has been getting a little therapy.

More broken Alexa skills my companies skill stopped working 2 weeks ago and there has been dead air on why from Amazon. We are pouring over logs and nothing is showing up. When a customer tries to access our skill they just get the "I am having trouble.." message. We never see the app activate or even hit our app servers. It's not a critical skill who really checks the status of their insurance via Alexa anyway.

So now I know for sure I'm not crazy. My enable do not disturb commands seem to be hit or miss.

When configuring this by time from echo speaks, it appears to not be hitting every time. And then me sending the commands through webcore as echo device commands appear to be failing at least some of the time also.

I dont think it's failing 100% of the time. I just quadruple checked everything because for days I keep getting Alexa notifications at times when I shouldn't be. I needlessly reconfigured everything to find out that I'm getting the same results regardless. The only place where enable do not disturb on all devices is hitting 100% of the time is if it's scheduled from within the Alexa app.

Yesterday I set DND from the Alexa app and it didn’t work. It appears to be something on Amazon’s end. The Alexa app said it was in DND mode, as the notification ring continued to flash on the device and announcements continued coming through.

Ok, so I've noticed some weirdness there too. If you are in the Alexa app, and you click the DND to enable it, it will say "this device isn't ready for DND" and then not do anything. BUT, if you click the gear icon to go investigate further, THAT screen will say it's enabled, and then when you back out to the device page, THEN it will show DND as enabled.

I noticed this multiple times and thought I was doing something wrong and it was a fluke (because DND was enabled, I left it alone). But then I witnessed all this same exact behavior again last night where my devices didn't go onto DND via echo speaks or webcore, I went into the Alexa app to investigate, it said DND was not on in each of the devices. When I clicked DND to enable it, I get a message that the device is not ready for DND. When I click on the gear icon and scroll down, it accurately shows that the devices is in DND. When I go back to the previous screen, it will THEN show that DND is enabled on the device screen.

It did this consistently enough to where I could recite it from memory, just now. On BOTH days that I observed this, there were commands that SHOULD'VE been sent either from Webcore or echo speaks to go into DND and on both nights I witnessed this issue.

Just from going through the screens, it seems possible that the DND commands are jumbling something in Alexa (because they made changes) and its getting confused with the subsequent DND command.......OR it could just be messed up on the Alexa end causing it to act crazy everywhere.

I removed the Webcore code and echo speaks configs for DND and tonight I will solely be relying on a scheduled Alexa routine to DND all devices and see if I still get the weirdness in the app saying "not ready for DND" but then also seemingly doing what its supposed to just by accessing the settings screen (and not actually clicking anything)

Not doubting at all that this could solely be on the Amazon end, the behavior of the screens with the DND was just VERY suspicious and I'd like to do one final test tonight.

It's still a problem on the Amazon side only. I removed all other abilities to enable DND and I still get the same weird behavior in the Alexa app

It's reproducible every time.

They are definitely making changes. Just got an email about email on Alexa devices being deprecated. Who knows what else they are changing.
This is why i have been sitting silent waiting for things to stabilize before I try solving any of these problems.
I don't like chasing problems :slight_smile:

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Don't violate your developer NDA :wink:

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Adding to the notes and experiences -
I know Amazon has been changing the base - I began experiencing this error - I saw it first yesterday AM.


if you go directly to any Echo Show within HE devices and toggle DNDOn then DNDoff it generates.

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