Hi all,this is my first post on this firum. I haven’t even created a piston as yet but my question is…
Can you set off a routine on my Amazon echo by pressing my smarthings button🤔
My son has a routine where by saying it’s bedtime to his echo it
Sets the volume
Turns his main bedroom light off
Starts a sleep sound
Sets a sleep timer for 1hr
I would like this routine to run with one press of his smarthings button.
Is this possible
Many thanks Kev
Hi Kev,
Yes it is possible.
You just need to add that Smartthing button to Echo devices section.
(Alexa discover my devices)
When the button is found in alexa,
Just create the routine with that button is pressed etc.
IF for any reason Echo can’t see the button, than you can still do that with simulated switches and Webcore.
Just to embellish a bit… What you want to do is much easier if all the programming (volume, lights, sleep etc) is programmed in webCoRE instead of your original Alexa Routine. Then, you can simply use your voice to trigger the piston, which does all the fancy stuff.
To be honest, I recommend that all of your programming be done in webCoRE. It is infinitely more powerful than Alexa’s Routines.
I totally agree.
My whole house is only controlled by WebCore (except just a couple of wifi switches that can’t be seen in ST App)
Thanks everyone for the prompt replies.
The answer to the first reply regarding getting Alexa to discover the button, it won’t discover the Samsung smarthings button and in the smarthings app it will only allow me to assign discovered hardware that has been discovered by the hub ie my lighting and thermostat.
This is why I’ve signed up to see if I can create my own piston to achieve this.
At the moment I’m happy with how Alexa handles my routines all be it not the most complex routines but they do what I need them to do at the mimute.
Hope I haven’t rambled on 
Cheers Kev
Also may I ask what benefits I would get from running all routines through webcore when at the moment Alexa handles all my routines just fine🤔
Alexa routines are getting better. But, the level of control that you have with webcore cannot be matched by Alexa routines at this time. However, this does depend on your programming abilities. 
Hi there you said you had some WiFi switches that couldn’t be controlled by ST they wouldn’t happen to be sonoff would they.
I’d like to get into programming that’s why I thought I’d sign up to this forum but my experience is 0 at the moment
Just to clarify a bit. Devices like this need to be connected (linked) to the SmartThings hub first, and then Alexa should be able to see it once you say, “Alexa, discover my devices”.
Alexa’s routines are static, while webCoRE’s pistons can react differently depending on other circumstances. For example, when I tell Alexa good night, all she does is flip a Simulated Switch. At that point, webCoRE takes over, and runs a very complex set of events. Everything from checking to make sure my doors are locked, checking the rain chance the next 8 hours, and warning me if there is a window open, starting some nice background white noise, and depending on the day of the week, time and weather conditions, many other things also come into play.
Basically, with Alexa’s Routines, you only get one result. (the same every time)
With webCoRE, one command can return many different variations, based on other conditions.
I got a degree in computer science 30 years ago and did lots of programming. I went to medical school and have done very little programming since. So getting back into programming with webcore over the last year has been exciting and somewhat challenging. But I feel that webcore offers some great opportunities for hobby programmers and those who are invested in Smartthings and home automation.
Similar here. I have an Alexa routine that turns on a virtual switch when I say “Alexa, shower with 80’s hits.” That’s all it does. Then my webcore routine takes over and turns on my master bathroom and master shower speakers, sets the desired volume and starts playing my 80’s hits playlist. Then I can say “Alexa, turn off the shower music” and my webcore piston shuts all of that down.
Here is one more example of the difference between Alexa and webCoRE.
Using webCoRE, when I enter a room, the motion sensor sees me.
If you tried this with Alexa, you’d get only one result, no matter what time of day it was.
If you want to stay with 3-4 devices, couple of bulbs and just doing simple things (never changing) then I would say webcore would be an over kill.
If you want to go down the rabbit hole:)))) then WebCore is going to be your only option:))))
I love it… same here…
I wonder how many of us have 80’s hit list in their system already setup LOL (age reveal thursday ahahahha)
My smarthing buttons are linked to my smarthings hub and are working for dingke/double clicks. When I choose s button in smarthings it gives me a list of things to control but Alexa routines isn’t one of them.
I have linked the smarthings skill in my Alexa app and every smart device I have shows up in a list but the buttons aren’t thrre.
Hope that makes sense. 
