EvoControl - custom Alexa skill for Evohome

[philchillbill]

I'm thinking of allowing people with more than one Evotouch to be able to see one big dashboard for all controllers. The thing is, there's not only 24-36 tiles to display (yep, some people have 3 panels in use in their mansions) but there are also multiple system modes to show/alter. To anybody with multiple controllers, is it usual to have all sysmodes the same or how do people handle this in real life?

[bruce_miranda]

And you think those people visit this forum :-) But I can see a case for each panel having a separate SysMode. e.g. Turn the West Wing off but keep the East Wing heated.

[G4RHL]

Philips Hue are looking to do something similar with their app and lighting set up. If you have more than one bridge controlling lights and devices you have to keep chopping and changing in the app to access/see the bridge you want, they are shortly to update the app so that all appears as one in the app. As it does in Apple HomeKit.

[philchillbill]

I guess having the relevant System mode show in a scrollable header that sits atop each sub-dashboard would work, or elsea sticky header at the page top that changes Evotouch depending on the scroll position. Easy to do in html but not sure how it would work in Amazon APL. I'll look in to it.

[philchillbill]

When EvoControl queries TCC for schedules, Resideo sometimes ignores the request with no data returned for one or more zones. This used to throw an error. However, if the missing data is not critical (i.e. it's only being displayed on the dashboard and not being used in a schedule-related command) the skill will now just show an ? in the tile appendage. The schedule will very likely be picked up again anyway on the next refresh cycle (normally after 90 seconds).

[s.w.webb1]

[philchillbill]

At https://smartskills.tech/evocontrol/index.html there's a section called "Diagnostics". You can even view this on your Echo by tapping the help icon on the skill's main dashboard and then choosing "User Manual"

[philchillbill]

A user in the UK with a large-screen Echo seems to have installed the widget 2x (side-by-side). The 2 separate instances of the widget cannot co-operate to just query TCC once so launching the widget viewer on that device causes a large burst of https requests towards TCC. That's starting to result in noticeable incomplete-retrieval errors in the logs. Make you own life easier and remove the 2nd widget - it serves no purpose anyway and may just get you blacklisted by Resideo

[philchillbill]

Screenshot 2024-10-16 141029.png

The ??-icon in the dashboard header has been replaced (in the main skill, not the widget) by a ? button that appears far-right in the footer whenever faults are present. Tapping it will launch a screen like the example shown above that will display both the current TCC-reported errors and any HA/Domoticz errors when a HGI-80 is in use. The red icon in column 2 matches the icon displayed on the individual tile(s). The date/time shown in column 4 for TCC errors is the TCC timestamp for when the error was first seen (not sure if it's UTC or your local timezone). TCC also has a binary flag 'isAvailable' for temperatureStatus and this is shown in the list in italics as 'Not reporting Temperature' when false (TCC does not timestamp this) .

I'm rather astonished how many people run a system with faults for months on end, apparently not realising that a low-battery or comms issue can destabilise an entire Evohome system due to RF chatter. Hopefully being able to see the list in the skill will get more people curious to probe their system issues.

Note that this is not a persisting log like on the Evotouch which displays historic faults until you manually clear the log. This is a dynamic list of what's being reported live on every launch of the skill so items on it are potentially ephemeral.

[philchillbill]

settings.png

The settings screen got a makeover with new icons for better comprehension

[Croftman]

"Now all I need to do is port the APL ViewHost to the browser and EvoControl will run on anything. Even Apple."

Phil is this something you are looking to do?

[philchillbill]

"Now all I need to do is port the APL ViewHost to the browser and EvoControl will run on anything. Even Apple."

Phil is this something you are looking to do?

Yes. I took a look at the open-source APL ViewHost and (as typical with Amazon ) there are no docs or examples whatsoever so I had to give up re-using my APL visuals.

Meanwhile I've started dabbling with ReactJS with the intention to write the whole front-end again as a PWA (progressive web app) while re-using the back-end I currently have running as an AWS Lambda function. I'm hoping that Apple would then allow it to be wrapped to look like an installable native iOS/iPadOS app (with in-app purchasing). People searching for 'Evohome' to install the normal TCC app on Apple devices would then see this as a better alternative in the list of apps. I could then copy/paste that principle to Android but I have no illusions that Android users pay for apps so probably would not bother.

The main issue with that idea (just as with this Alexa skill) is being discovered. Nobody ever searches for "maybe there's a (new) app/skill for that" so there's a danger I'd invest hundreds of hours and still reach a tiny audience. To date I already have 1500 hours sunk into this baby and it actually costs me money to run it as I have to pay AWS hosting fees. So unless there's a path to recoup some of those costs it's just a labour of love.

[s.w.webb1]

At https://smartskills.tech/evocontrol/index.html there's a section called "Diagnostics". You can even view this on your Echo by tapping the help icon on the skill's main dashboard and then choosing "User Manual"

[s.w.webb1]

Yes. I took a look at the open-source APL ViewHost and (as typical with Amazon ) there are no docs or examples whatsoever so I had to give up re-using my APL visuals.

Meanwhile I've started dabbling with ReactJS with the intention to write the whole front-end again as a PWA (progressive web app) while re-using the back-end I currently have running as an AWS Lambda function. I'm hoping that Apple would then allow it to be wrapped to look like an installable native iOS/iPadOS app (with in-app purchasing). People searching for 'Evohome' to install the normal TCC app on Apple devices would then see this as a better alternative in the list of apps. I could then copy/paste that principle to Android but I have no illusions that Android users pay for apps so probably would not bother.

The main issue with that idea (just as with this Alexa skill) is being discovered. Nobody ever searches for "maybe there's a (new) app/skill for that" so there's a danger I'd invest hundreds of hours and still reach a tiny audience. To date I already have 1500 hours sunk into this baby and it actually costs me money to run it as I have to pay AWS hosting fees. So unless there's a path to recoup some of those costs it's just a labour of love.

[MartyS]

The main issue with that idea (just as with this Alexa skill) is being discovered. Nobody ever searches for "maybe there's a (new) app/skill for that" so there's a danger I'd invest hundreds of hours and still reach a tiny audience. To date I already have 1500 hours sunk into this baby and it actually costs me money to run it as I have to pay AWS hosting fees. So unless there's a path to recoup some of those costs it's just a labour of love.

Hey Phil I've been thinking about this for a few days. Let me know if you think it might help with discoverability to have something on the Automated Home site itself. It probably wouldn't be much, but it might allow a few people to discover you.