Turning on device groups through Alexa

#1

1) Give a description of the problem
I have a game room with about 17 games. I have them all on switches and can turn them on and off individually using either Alexa or the app. My problem is that I’d like to turn them all on (with delays in between) using a single voice command. Something like “Alexa turn on Party Time”. I’d like delays between groups of machines so I don’t have 17 games coming on at exactly the same time.

2) What is the expected behaviour?
Saying “Alexa turn on Party Time” turns on groups of games separated by a 2-3 second delay.

3) What is happening/not happening?
I’m not sure how to link this to a voice command. I think I can figure out the piston, but I’m not sure how that relates back to Alexa. Do I need some type of virtual switch added in ST to link to webCoRE?

**4) Post a Green Snapshot of the piston![image|45x37]
N/A

5) Attach logs after turning logging level to Full
N/A

#2

Hi,

I think I’d do this by using a virtual switch. Turning the switch on would run your piston to perform the phased start up of your games.

I would then just add the virtual switch to alexa and setup a routine to turn that switch on when you say “turn on party time”

You need to consider turning the virtual switch off to, to allow an activation next time. The piston code will not run when you turn the virtual switch on if its already on.

I use this approach for my nighttime routine. “alexa goodnight” turns on a “night” switch which then starts turning everything off. The switch is reset to off at dawn.

#3

Looks like this should work? I set it to turn off the virtual switch after turning everything else on.

Pinball%20Party
Pinball Party.png1178×1243 54.1 KB

#4

Yes…

Same here:))))

#5

Nicely done! The only thing that I may consider is removing the line that turns off the SimSwitch. This way, after the party, you can issue another command (Alexa, turn off party time, etc) and you can have another piston return all the games to their default position…

#6

Thanks for your help. I’ll remove that and add it to the “Get the hell out of my house” command. :rofl:

#7

I use several simulated switches to start webcore pistons. The switches are usually turned on by an Alexa routine that triggers the switch. Should I reset the switch at the end of the piston or at the end of the Alexa routine?

#8

Mine are all turned OFF by webcore. So that pistons can correctly track them.