EvoControl - custom Alexa skill for Evohome

[philchillbill]

Two new icons for HGI-80 (clones) to indicate connectivity status in the top right corner of the dashboard. They're the same whether you use Domoticz or HA because you know what you have in your castle...

[philchillbill]

Potential workaround for Widget issue

I found a workaround that successfully force-updated the widget for users who 'had' the v1 widget but had not yet received the v2.0 updated widget.

It may mean that users who were never offered the widget will now see it as installable if they take a fresh look...

[philchillbill]

EvoControl now has 2 widgets live:

• The first widget has been renamed from just plain 'EvoControl' to EvoControl ActivitiesEvoControl Dashboard

Both widgets will launch into the main skill if you tap their header.

It will be interesting to see if the 2nd widget shows up in the gallery for those afflicted with the Amazon bug preventing the 1st widget from being offered

[Midland45]

EvoControl now has 2 widgets live:


Both widgets will launch into the main skill if you tap their header.

It will be interesting to see if the 2nd widget shows up in the gallery for those afflicted with the Amazon bug preventing the 1st widget from being offered

Ok so I’m a member of the Amazon bug club and the good news is I have the 2nd widget now available to add to my Home Screen, which I of course duly did. I can launch the skill directly from the Home Screen so great work again @Phil.
Did notice on the widget my room order was slightly mixed up however, not too really too much of an issue.

[philchillbill]

Ok so I’m a member of the Amazon bug club and the good news is I have the 2nd widget now available to add to my Home Screen, which I of course duly did. I can launch the skill directly from the Home Screen so great work again @Phil.
Did notice on the widget my room order was slightly mixed up however, not too really too much of an issue.

Great that the 2nd widget showed up. Still *so* strange that the 1st does not, but hey! The sorting order mismatch would only happen for people using HA or Domoticz with the widget — should be corrected now.

[Midland45]

Great that the 2nd widget showed up. Still *so* strange that the 1st does not, but hey! The sorting order mismatch would only happen for people using HA or Domoticz with the widget — should be corrected now.

So the widget is still displayed and still launches Evocontrol Dashboard ok, however it now has no room/temps displayed and only the following message “ Please first link your EvoControl account and open the skill once to populate the widget”

[philchillbill]

So the widget is still displayed and still launches Evocontrol Dashboard ok, however it now has no room/temps displayed and only the following message “ Please first link your EvoControl account and open the skill once to populate the widget”

The widget asks the skill for the current system state and then stores that on the Echo itself. When you get that message, it means that the storage on the Echo is empty. That's strange, because I never empty it even when somebody disables the widget (it's a tiny amount of data to leave on board). I really hope you're not in the process of discovering another Amazon bug with widgets. Anyway, even if you open the widget in rapid-fire succession, it doesn't trigger the skill to refresh the Echo every time so maybe retrying again after 2-3 mins will help.

[philchillbill]

Backup/Restore on your account dashboard now also includes the Schedule-Shift zone targets ('sBlockZones')

[philchillbill]

I've made some changes to the way the widgets are updated so hopefully things should be better now. Amazon provides 2 ways to update the Echo's local DataStore: either specifically just for the Echo in question, or for all the Echos in a user's arsenal. As per Amazon's recommendations, I had been doing it the per-user way but from the logs it was evident Amazon has a crazy long list of devices for each user so not credible. I've now switched to just updating the Echo on which the widget is swiped and in my own limited testing I see valid updates every time. YMMV but let's see if there's any improvement for others.

[philchillbill]

Progress. I found an Amazon docu page stating that arrays nested inside an encapsulating object are discouraged for the Echo's on-device DataStore. It's advised to declare a top-level array instead. Hmm, why on earth? Well I've done that and the skill is re-certified with the modified widget code and I do see a big improvement in my own testing. When the widget launches, it initially shows the 'stale' data stored on the Echo but immediately requests the skill's Lambda to update the DataStore. That round-trip takes a second or so and then the new values appear. Haven't seen it fail yet in my own testing.

Note that refresh only happens once when the widget(s) are swiped into view. So if you e.g. activate a scene from the 1st widget you won't see the SP changes on the 2nd widget until it has vanished and you re-swipe it. It's supposed to be possible to have the widget watch the DataStore and update itself immediately (rather than waiting for a swipe) but when I implemented that the simulator told me that the features I was using were unrecognized as valid commands. Somebody at Amazon accidentally published docs for something that's coming but not yet actually live... Sigh.

Anyway, there should be no more unpopulated widgets. While I was at it, I added a thick white border to tiles on the dashboard widget for zones that are demanding heat.

I'd appreciate feedback from any widgeteers out there on how well it works out in the field.

[bruce_miranda]

All working. I'm so nervous about not being able to get the first widget back, that I kept it visible even when it wasn't working. Because I'm not offered it any more. The new widget is nice too.

[Midland45]

Great work, I have the Evocontrol Dashboard widget displaying a snapshot of the set points/actual temps. Have also noticed my rooms are ordered correctly now too. The white borders function correctly and are a great addition too.
Sadly still no sign of the activities widget in my widget gallery.

[philchillbill]

Great work, I have the Evocontrol Dashboard widget displaying a snapshot of the set points/actual temps. Have also noticed my rooms are ordered correctly now too. The white borders function correctly and are a great addition too.
Sadly still no sign of the activities widget in my widget gallery.

Good it's now working. If you can see the white borders on the widget then you must have the heating on — how do the little flame icons look on the main dashboard? Their opacity matches the demand % but on the widget it's just binary white-or-nothing.

I also don't see the 1st widget offered any more. It disappeared a week or so ago. Amazon really needs to push out that fix they already have but are sitting on...

[philchillbill]

The skill now handles up to four locations instead of the previous limit of 2. You'll also notice that the name of the location as defined in your TCC account will appear in the dashboard header (when you have more than one location). This is the same name that appears in the textList when you ask "Alexa, list my locations".


EDIT: You can now also specify a weather locationID for each of your locations and have the correct outside temp / forecast shown whenever you change selected location on the dashboard.

[philchillbill]

Update from Amazon regarding the degraded widget gallery as they are calling it: https://amazon.developer.forums.answ...-users-in.html