Reining in Alexa

[csearle]

Does anyone know a way of forcing an Echo Dot to respond in a fixed way?

Background
I'm tinkering with some of my routines, so for example when I say "Alexa, Good morning" the lights go on, I'm told what's on my calendar for the day, the news headlines and the weather here in Tunbridge Wells. I want to add the room temperature.

Issue
I can program it up to read out the temperature but I get a range of responses:

• Inside it's 20.5 degrees
• It's 20.5 degrees inside
• 20.5
• The stat temperature is 20.5 degrees
• 20.5 degrees

I don't really mind which style is used because I can frame the response with fixed text if necessary. What I can't be doing with is the variety (which I presume is designed for robo-reduction).

Chris

[johnhemming]

Does anyone know a way of forcing an Echo Dot to respond in a fixed way?

I don't know a solution without writing a skill.

I have written a couple of skills. One of them was to encourage my children to clear up cat mess. It keeps a league table of who has cleared up the most cat mess each week. In doing that I specified the words to use. What we have done, however, is to effectively retrain the cats into not messing in the house, but I think the skill is still available.

[csearle]

I have written a couple of skills. One of them was to encourage my children to clear up cat mess. It keeps a league table of who has cleared up the most cat mess each week. In doing that I specified the words to use. What we have done, however, is to effectively retrain the cats into not messing in the house, but I think the skill is still available.

That is excellent, thank you. I've just had a very enjoyable time viewing the set of videos Amazon made about developing skills for the Echo et al.

Did you have to go through the certification process with your skills in order for them to work on your own device(s)? I imagine so but wondered if they can be used locally somehow without being published?

Chris

[johnhemming]

You need to set up a developer account, but you only need to get the application certified if it is to be generally available which is not that difficult, but is a bit of a faff. Just setting up a development system does not involve all of that.

I did this for Amazon and Google, but it was about 2 years ago.

We stopped using the skill a while ago (because we found a better solution).

I have just tested it it seems to still work and if you want to try it try:

Alexa - enable cat mess clearing league.

[csearle]

I have just tested it it seems to still work and if you want to try it try:

Alexa - enable cat mess clearing league.

Heh, that's excellent. It works fine! I can hardly wait to have a go at developing something. C.