alexaHarmonyApp

An application allowing Amazon Echo (Alexa) to directly control Harmony Remote control

What is it

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A server that allows your Amazon Echo (Alexa) to communicate with your Harmony Remote control. It can be easily configure to carry out scripting of commands to send to your remote.

Thanks to the work form https://github.com/matt-kruse/alexa-app-server this was fairly easy to put together.

Pre-requiste

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• A developer account with amazon. Access to Echo SDK.
• Have already deployed SDK example apps and have good understanding of the workflow.
• Have good understanding of how to deploy an application outside of lembda i.e. at your residence and have it connect to echo.
• Latest Node.js

I will try to help but best to get the amazon echo SDK related issues posted on amazon forum. This work is not usable off the self and requires some code manupulation befor it can be functional.

Installation

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Git checkout the repository run the follwoing command

npm install

Create Certificates

Follow the instruction from amazong for creating a self-signed certificate https://developer.amazon.com/appsandservices/solutions/alexa/alexa-skills-kit/docs/testing-an-alexa-skill#create-a-private-key-and-self-signed-certificate-for-testing

Put the created certificate in ./cert directory

Configure the Application

Create the application on amazon and copy the application id for it. Modify the variables at the top of the file "remote_conf.js"

hub_ip : IP address of the harmony hub.
app_id : Application ID as registered on amazon.

You can optionally add an array of channels under specific activities

channels : [
     {
       utterance_name : 'watch NBC',
       activity: 'Watch Tivo',
       channel: "516"
    }
]

Run the server

node server.js
Listening on port 443

Point your browser to the server

https://xx.yy.xx.yy/remote

The resulting page will show you the "Intent Schema" and "Sample Utterances" You will need to use this to configure the application on amazon.

Example Usages

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This was how I programmed the remote for my use case, it's fairly easy to customize it.

Direct commands to devices

Alexa tell remote to increase volume by 5

Alexa tell remote to decrease volume by 2

Alexa tell remote to mute

Alexa tell remote to turn the TV off

Activity commands

Alexa tell remote to start Movie

Alexa tell remote to start Music

Alexa tell remote to power everything off

Channel commands

Alexa tell remote to watch TBS (note this will also turn on the required activity)