Amazon alexa announcement if a vera device door sensor is open/close

Other Devices & Integrations Voice Assistants
#21

Count me in. I have my alarm system tied into Vera. It’d be nice to have the potential to use the dozen plus sensors for various purposes in Alexa. I’d previously included a wireless alarm sensor adjacent to the magnetic actuator of a traditional wired push button doorbell; upon activation it trips the magnetic sensor’s reed relay sending me notice via Vera that the doorbell was rung.

Better still would be having it announce on all 4 Alexas that someone is at the door. I find it interesting that I can ask Alexa for the status of 3 different brands of door locks [locked vs unlocked] w/in Vera and she responds just fine. Hopefully adding the functionality for the sensors to come through into Alexa is not complicated. I have lots of alarm sensors and zwave sensors that would greatly enhance the system’s functionality.

#22

I want announcements too.

I have two z-wave motions at my front door, and want to be able to announce when someone is at the door - delivery folks don’t ring the bell these days and want to announce so we can bring in our packages. But only if both motions are triggered to prevent false positives (wildlife)…

I would also announce other things that are currently alert driven (currently only cell phone notification) like doors left open…

#23

I find the echo/vera integration a little too iffy.
The echo dot will tell me my controller is offline when it’s not.

The Vera / HA combination works very well and doesn’t rely on the cloud for alerts/notification/functions.

#24

I use the HA bridge too, but it doesn’t support alerts or notifications AFAIK. It works great to control devices, but that is it-

#25

They said they will do it in the next firmware update. Which from Vera has stated they will have a beta firmware by end of March (3 days from today) and a release version beginning of April.

#26

I’ve never seen them mention that once in any replies. Can you show me where?

#27
#28

That’s way too vague.

#29

I agree. But that is all that they are giving us so far.

#30

SMart life door sensor okay. Which model of Alexa does your sensor connect to? I think it only works ONLY the newer model with the built in HUB? Do you find it reliable? How is the battery life?

#31

Basically there are two work arounds for this feature right now. First is buy an Echo plus which has zigbee support for sensors. Not all sensors work, but Amazon provides a “works with” list. The hub is $150.00 and then there are the sensors which are $20-30 each. In addition, you also have multiple sensors on each door.

The second, which I prefer and use, is to buy a Smartthings hub for $70.00 and create a bunch of virtual switches to trigger routines. Vera can trip Smartthings virtual switches without bridging by using http commands sent through WebCore. I spent a long time trying to figure out the easiest way to do this and would like to give credit this post by BruceNH who set me on the right path.

After you set-up the virtual device in Smartthings and obtain the http command in Webcore, the Vera part is simple by using a LUUP comand like:

luup.inet.wget(“https://graph-na04-useast2.api.smartthings.com/api/token/XXXXXXXXXXXXX/smartapps/installations/XXXXX/execute/:XXXXXXXXXX:”)

#32

You do not need to buy a smarthing for this. You can just use home assistant which also has this same hacky way to make the alexa device a media player to which you can send TTS. I have mine setup this way with ability to send TTS to each individual speaker or to all but if like me you have multiple echo devices and want announcements to all of them, they will go one at a time and will not be synced up like the sonos does.

#33

This has been over a year now. When will this be added? I can see status of my door lock via Alexa and ask whether the door is locked or unlocked but the status for a door or window sensor has not been implemented.

#34

My original message was hidden because it was flagged as going against the community standard. So I will rephrase it. How much longer will it take to have alexa announce that a sensor is open or close is an excellent question, I have no idea, I do hope that it is implemented soon as it has been sometime that Amazon made this available.

#35

What’s more confusing is the response that it is a security issue. If its a security issue how can the door lock be available but not any kind of door or window sensor statuses. It seems that other controllers have already implemented this.

#36

This will, of course, require a new Vera Skill which is already work in progress.

Amazon Alexa API has gone a long way since its inception and we’ve worked with them almost from the beginning. This is now a well documented and accepted feature which will be part of the Vera capabilities as well.

We just need more time.

3 Likes
#37

So correct me if I’m wrong but this is doable right now by adding a second door contact but not configuring for security? I can get the 2Gig door contacts from my local low voltage guy for cheap but need to verify 100% it will work.

#38

Sorin,
Thank you for the response. Do you have any idea on a time frame for this?

#39

Any updates?

#40

Another alternative to make this work is to be able to develop an alexa app where we can trigger voice announcements through scenes in vera. that might be easier than configuring vera to be recognized as devices in alexa. HTH