Amazon Echo smart home - Building a smart home with speech assistant

I am keen to make contact with people who own or are thinking of buying a smart speaker with speech assistant from Amazon Echo or Google Home and want to build a smart home based on this equipment.
Firstly, what is the Amazon Echo referred to as Alexa:
It is a smart speaker that you can speak to and it will turn on the music you want to listen to, it will tell you what time it is, it will wake you up, it will start the timer but that is not all, it also controls the smart home i.e. it will turn the lights on/off, dim the lights, change the temperature in the house, turn appliances on or off e.g. the TV, you can talk to it e.g. ask who is the president of Poland. It works brilliantly with Spotify, you can create a multi-room, you don't need to use an app on your mobile as you just have to speak to it, although there is an app too.
I own two units at home and want to buy two more. Based on these speakers and other add-ons I want to build a smart home.
I started by buying a Logitech Harmony Elite universal remote control, this controls my equipment but through Echo Dot you can not only control by holding the remote in your hand, you can now just say what you want to get , I also have Philips Hue lighting.


If there is any interest I can do equipment tests for the forum.
Here is a video of how the system works for people. Youtube video: [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4nrl9qhL2o/youtube]

My first smart home based on Alexa:
In the kitchen it is connected to a set of ceiling speakers and is mainly responsible for playing music , the second Alexa is in the bathroom and here I even created a cool system, well I get into the bath and command it to turn on the relaxation program and it :
1. turn on the smooth jazz music
2. turn off the main light
3. turn on the LEDs of a specific colour on the ceiling
4. turn on the aromatherapy lamp with LED lighting

While relaxing like this, I can of course change to different music without touching anything.
At the moment, I'm just figuring it out, as I'm actually getting ready for a bigger project. In the house I am building, I will have a smart home from NEXWELL and Alexa will be an extension of this system. Although the manufacturer of NEXWELL does not foresee cooperation with Amazon Echo, I have found a way for these systems to work together. NEXWELL's offer includes an IR transmitter and receiver; their system can send a signal, e.g. to start the TV, but it is also possible to teach the system to trigger a scene, e.g. closing blinds, when sending a signal from the remote control. Since this is possible, I do not see any problems with Alexa using the Logitech Harmony intelligent remote control to send an IR signal, which the NEXWELL system will receive and process according to some predefined plan.
I think my plan will work but it will be no sooner than after the holidays 2017 when I am going to move into a new house, until then I want to test a smart speaker Amazon Echo or Google Home .
I bought the Amazon Echo on allegro.
Is there anyone who owns such equipment and could share experiences ? I would be happy to discuss, I can see enormous possibilities in such assistants and so far I have not been able to discuss it with anyone and I am trying to find out everything on my own, the more difficult it is for me as I do not speak English well and I do not think anyone in Poland is dealing with it. Finally, it is interesting to note that Amazon Echo's Alexa system is being developed and created in Poland, in Amazon's centre in Gdańsk, and the speech assistant is our Polish Ivona, which was bought out by Amazon.

The best part is that the Echo constantly eavesdrops on conversations between household members to detect what they are talking about and then serves them tailored adverts.

tikka.masala wrote:

The best part is that Echo constantly eavesdrops on conversations between household members to detect what they are talking about and then serves them tailored adverts.

Are you saying this because you have experienced such adverts or do you just think so ?
The fact that the speaker listens all the time is true but it only starts recording to analyse the query after a keyword is spoken e.g. "Alexa" until then nothing is recorded or sent, secondly Amazon assures that queries are only sent to the cloud to analyse the query, nothing else.
Finally, one more thing, almost every Android phone also listens to you all the time and sends queries to the internet, this is done by the Google assistant and the keyword in this case is "OK GOOGLE", we have such times and we will not escape from this.

Reviewers of this box have noted, for example, that adverts appear on the Kindle for content that has been discussed and they have never used a computer to search for said content before. I don't have an Echo and don't intend to, preferring to keep my issues to myself and not share with the world.

I have a Kindle and I haven't noticed anything like what you are talking about. Such advertising is common and practiced even on various forms, possibly even on this one, it's called remarketing advertising and it's a Google invention. All you have to do is enter a page or forum topic dedicated to, for example, a particular brand of speakers and then you will be attacked with ads for weeks but, as I wrote earlier, this is a Google patent, I have not encountered this on Amazon on the Kindle, not only that, I checked immediately after purchase whether Amazon Echo sends any data and it does not, it sends as soon as you say the keyword. Sending out to the world all the ambient conversations would be the end of any business. As I wrote earlier, every Google phone but also Iphones with Siri do exactly the same thing, you would have to not only have not only the assisted speakers described but also get rid of phones, maybe even computers because both Windows and iOS listen to everything you say because they also have their assistants. I'm not saying that something will never leak, after all, hackers don't sleep, but should you become a caveman because of this ?
Sorry but we are straying from the topic, I am more interested in the use of the described speakers with speech assistant in the smart home and it would be more interesting to discuss the physical use in Polish homes.

Delving further into the subject, I see that the Amazon Echo works well with Z-Wave based control panels, such as our Fibaro.
I can neither test nor confirm this as I don't have this system but a video on YT shows how nicely it dovetails.
[/youtube]

Today I have more knowledge of what Amazon echo works with for sure, as I already have it in my home.
It works very well with TP-LINK HS100/110 smart sockets, it works with a smart home control system on a Raspberry Pi minicomputer (I have version 3) built on Domoticz software. Due to the fact that Amazon Echo supports Domoticz, everything that can be connected to it will automatically work, whether it is a wired or wireless system, e.g. control in Z-Wave protocol (switches, C0 regulators, sockets, roller-blinds, etc.), control of 433 Mhz receivers, e.g. cheap sockets for a dozen or so zlotys from Biedronka or popular ones from KEMOT company
The case of the Amazon Echo is developing, it is a pity that I am the only one participating in the conversation because after the sale of the Amazon Echo on Allegro, it is clear that there are some users of this smart speaker.

Could you please write how such a speaker can be used in automation systems based on arduino or similar. I am mainly concerned with the data transmission protocol and the configuration of the speaker. If I know what is coming out of it then one could try to teach the arduino to recognise these signals....
One more question: does this work without the internet. Where I would like to test its operation so far the network is not there....

I don't know what kind of transmission protocol it has but Amazon provides an API for developers, maybe there would be something there, I'm too weak to go that far, I'm more checking how it works in reality according to proven descriptions.
At the moment the speaker works very nicely with the Domoticz smart home system set up on a Raspberry Pi, in order for the speaker and Domoticz to see each other a HUB needs to be installed on the Raspberry, a link to this Hub and a description of the installation is Link
The Hub takes over all the devices installed in Domoticz and through this with the Alexa Speaker you can voice control all devices, even those that were never adapted to work with Alexa. E.g. I soldered myself a 433Mhz receiver and transmitter (on an Arduino 2560) and added remote-controlled sockets, it came out to about £15 per socket, I connected a Christmas tree, floor lamps, small lights etc. to such a socket. Any relays connected directly to the Raspberry are seen too.
Z-Wave sockets or e.g. TP-Link HS100(110) cost about 150-250 PLN, they are designed to work directly with Alexa but why overpay ?
Alexa (Amazon Echo) needs the internet to work, as all commands are analysed in the cloud, I don't know if local equipment also needs the internet to run, I would have to turn off the internet for a while but that's after Christmas if there is such interest.

I have had an Echo for about a year now.
I haven't played around with the smart home and don't have specific experience in this area, but I used to use the integration with IFTTT (https://ifttt.com/). With this, anything that can be controlled via the API can be controlled via Echo.

My application is asking Alexa to call my mobile phone when I can't find it.

does anyone know if the manufacturer intends to add Polish language support?

alfsat wrote:

Deeping further into the subject, I see that the Amazon Echo works well with control panels based on the Z-Wave protocol, such as our Fibaro.
I can neither check nor confirm this because I don't have this system, but a video on YT shows how nicely it dovetails.

[/youtube]

Are you sure it can handle zwawe? I have an echo plus with zetbee built in.