Skip to content
Elmar Hinz edited this page Jan 2, 2023 · 23 revisions

Goals

This step summarises the requirements to use Alexa Actionable Notifications. The goal is to give you best orientation and to save you a lot of time by this.

Prerequisites

Amazon Account

Your echo devices are connected to your Amazon account. You can login to the developer console for Alexa skills.

Screenshot of ask account

You don't need to register for an AWS developer account, as long as your skill doesn't exceed the limits of typical personal usage of AWS resources..

Screenshot 2023-01-02 at 12 11 51

Note: You can't install into your account and speak to a device connected to your wife's account or vice versa. Even within the same rooms skill and devices have to belong to the same account. (And they still call this dumb devices smart.)

Alexa Media Player

Alexa Actionable Notifications make use of the Alexa Media Player custom component. Install it via HACS. Make sure it is up and running. Get acquainted to the usage before going on.

Screenshot of Alexa Media Player inside HACS

Accessibility from outside

The Alexa skill needs access to your Home Assistant. There are different approaches to do this, including the services of Nabucasa, Cloudflare, Duckdns and Let’s Encrypt. Please use search machines to figure out your personal solution.

If you choose the Duckdns addon, consider the NGINX proxy addon to separate external HTTPS from internal HTTP.

Screenshot of Duckdns addon Screenshot of NGINX add

Find your locale code

The following languages are currently supported by the Alexa developer console. In doubt open the Alexa App and check out the language settings of the echo device you are targeting.

Screenshot 2022-12-31 at 16 27 14

Know the Developer Tools

YAML configurations have to be reloaded multiple times. They can be reloaded selectively without requiring a restart.

Screenshot of the developer tools

You find the Developer Tools within the main menu of Home Assistant. Select the YAML tab.


Head to the next step: Initial Config