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I need to create an Alexa smart home skill. I would like to control my lights using Alexa device. But based on my understanding, smart home skill only support utterances like this

Alexa, turn on name
Alexa, turn off name
Alexa, set name to x percent
Alexa, brighten name
Alexa, dim name
Alexa, dim name by x percent
Alexa, brighten name by x percent
Alexa, set name to x degrees
Alexa, decrease name by x degrees
Alexa, increase name by x degrees
Alexa, decrease name

But, my use cases is little different.

Alexa, turn on the kitchen light.
Alexa, dim the bedrromlight to 50%
Alexa, turn on the halllight for 3 hours
Alexa, set a daily timer for the testlight to turn on every day at 9am
Alexa, how dim is the bedrromlight right now?

Is smart home skill is suited for my use cases?

Suneet Patil
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Abdul Manaf
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2 Answers2

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I guess this is not only related to the specific Smart Home Skill. The user could give the different located devices (f.e. your lights) names like kitchen light and he could assign the different Smart Home devices to rooms.

Further more the user is also able to create groups with several devices in it so you could say:

Alexa, turn on the kitchen

and all related lights will switch on.

The user is also able to create routines in the Alexa app in your case: 

switch the testlight on at 9 am every day.

This could probably not be done by voice but in the app.

So Alexa Smart Home should be fine for use case.

Genfood
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This will work fine today with a Smart Home Skill:

Alexa, turn on the kitchen light.
Alexa, dim the bedroomlight to 50 %.

You can use a routine for this (but Routine's can't currently be created using voice, only in the companion app):

Alexa, set a daily timer for the testlight to turn on every day at 9am

These are not currently supported by Alexa:

Alexa, how dim is the bedroomlight right now?
Alexa, turn on the halllight for 3 hours.

You could build a Custom Skill for these two use cases, or simply wait for Amazon to implement them. If it were me, I'd focus on the core use cases that already work using a Smart Home Skill and not waste time on a Custom Skill. You can't integrate Custom Skill stuff with Routines, for example.

naide
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tig
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