In searching for a noise tolerant microphone for my EZ-Robot AdventureBot I checked out the Amazon Echo product which has a great feature in its always-on array microphones. You can even place several low-cost Echo Dots ($50) around your home to enable multi room use. The problem was how to get it to talk to EZB.
The answer is, as pointed out by @Mickey666Maus in a previous post, the free web service called IFTTT (If This This Than That). IFTTT has a built-in interface (Channel) that supports Amazon Echo and includes a user defined Channel called Maker that offers a means to send http commands to devices.
1. Add an HTTP server control and start it in EZ Builder. In my case I used port 8010.
2. Add port forwarding in your router to direct this port to your PC that is running EZ-Builder
3. Create scripts in Script Manager to perform tasks; e.g. forward, stop, reverse, battery level
4. Create Applets in IFTTT to trigger (the IF part) from Amazon Alexa Channel to invoke actions (the THEN part) in the Maker Webhooks Channel to launch the scripts in EZ-Builder.
5. Test the applets by speaking to the Amazon Echo and watch the EZB robot respond
In practice, this gives a neat way to have a walk around remote microphone to control your EZB robot or even just perform a simple verbal battery level check.
If desired, you could even add the $30 Amazon Voice Remote for Amazon Echo and Echo Dot to have a handheld microphone
If there’s enough interest in this, I could write up a tutorial with detailed instructions
Asked
— Edited
Thanx:)~
It should work on Google Home because IFTTT supports Google Assistant
I don't have a Google Home unit, so I can't test it
Regards,
Frank
The neat thing is that you don't need any Amazon Echo hardware to do this, but of course, its not always listening like an Amazon Echo, you must push a button in the app.
here is the video
Rob
Alan
http://104.158.XXX.XXX:8010/exec?password=admin&script=forward()
works fine and JD starts walking.
If I try in IFTTT nothing. Looking at controls in http server, the ifttt bot never logs in.
IFTTT has moved to webhooks now so a little different than turorial but it says sending that to ifttt when I say "Alexa Trigger Forward" and shows Applet ran and triggered in activity log in IFTTT
"Ingredients TriggeredAt February 15, 2018 at 10:03PM"
but it does not log in? If I stop the HTTP server I get an error so IFFFT sees http server and Firewall ports are open (TCP and UDP on port 8010)
It does not show a connection when IFTTT thinks it connected in http server so I think the instruction exec?password=admin is being parsed or modifed somehow. If I connect from phone shows admin connected but not when EZB logs in.
I am using post and leaving content type blank or using text/plain
As always any help appreciated
I’ll try my code again and see if IFTTT now using WebHooks makes any difference
Frank
https://synthiam.com/redirect/legacy?table=plugin&id=192
Yep, the tutorial was for sending messages TO the robot and the plugin was for receiving messages FROM the robot
Regards,
Frank
I just created a new project and followed the tutorial and it worked.
I can see that I need to clean up the tutorial a bit as the IFTTT screens have changed and I add to add a caution about Capitalization in the script.
The "E" in "Exec?" must be capitialized
Thanks for testing this
Frank
I just updated the tutorial
Please let me know if you have any issues
Thanks,
Frank
I missed the capital E thanks for pointing that out and updating the tutorial.
Alexa trigger move forward
Alexa trigger move backward
Alexa trigger move wave
You could have IFTTT invoke an EZB script containing these actions
In some of my earlier tests I was invoking scripts in Script Manager Control but didn't include examples in the tutorial
If you run into issues with that, I can include some examples
Thanks,
Frank
I was playing with this in prep for my Roomba arriving (found a cheap used one). I figured I need a way to interact with it and sticking the Echo on the iRobot and saying Computer Trigger action seemed like a good way to do it.
I like it.
I think I’ll try that too
What model Roomba did you get?
frank
It's a 650 (hopefully turns up soon).
Will need to work on the "Computer trigger get me a beer" script and robotics.