Building Alexa Skills for Home Automation with Raspberry Pi

We discuss at a high level what are Alexa Custom Skills and how they are different from other Skills in the Alexa Ecosystem.

We discuss some of the major components that make up a Custom Skill. These include:

• Intents

• Utterances

• Slots

• Dialog

• Skill Handler

I provide a parts list for the course in this lecture. There are links to several online retailers for parts.

We discuss the basics of setting up your Raspberry Pi and installing the latest Raspbian OS.

We walk through the process of installing all the software that we will need on our Raspberry Pi to build Alexa Skills

We discuss how to download the code and resources for the course.

Having an Amazon Developer Account is needed to create Alexa Skills. We talk through the process of setting one up.

In order to test the Custom Alexa Skills that you develop on an actual Alexa device, you will need to set one up.

Setting up an Alexa device is easy using the Alexa app for your mobile device or through the Alexa website alexa.amazon.com.

Please ensure that the Amazon account you setup your Alexa device with is the same account that you created in the Amazon Developer Portal.

In this way, you will be able to test Custom Skills that you develop on your Alexa device.

We introduce the flask-ask library and talk about some online documentation resources that are helpful in understanding how to use the library to create Skill handlers in Python for our Custom Alexa Skills.

We describe the make up of the hello world skill we will be building and how our skill will be invoked

We create and configure our Hello World Alexa Skill in the Amazon Developer Portal

We go through the process of coding our Skill Handler in Python for the HelloWorld Skill.

We run our Python program skill handler and ngrok and setup the https endpoint for our skill in the Amazon Developer Portal

Suggesting a fix for a Crypto Error that might occur.

We test our Hello World Skill using the Test capabilities that are provided by the Alexa Developer Console and we also show how you can use the Echosim tool for testing your skills.

We give an overview of the MyLED Skill so that you will understand the various components that will be created during the skill configuration in the Amazon Developer Portal.

We go through the steps of setting up our circuit.

We go through the process of configuring our MyLED Skill in the Amazon Developer Portal

We review the Python code for our Skill Handler for the MyLED Skill

We execute our Skill Handler Python program and run ngrok to get an https endpoint. We then configure the endpoint for our skill in the Amazon Developer Portal.

In order to test your skill using Echosim or on an actual Alexa device, we need to ensure that the language of the skill is setup correctly. This lecture addresses the setup that is needed.

We test out our project using the Alexa Developer Console and the Echosim testing tool.

We test out our project on an actual Alexa Echo Dot Device.

We discuss the various components of the MyDevice Custom Alexa Skill and how it will be used to achieve home automation.

We go into detail on how relays operate and specifically look at the relay module we will be using to control home devices to understand how it works.

We discuss in detail the circuit diagram and how they circuit will work for our project.

We connect the relay to our Raspberry Pi and also wire up the extension cord that we will be controlling programatically.

We create the Skill Interaction Model in the Amazon Developer Portal.

We run a Python  program to verify that our relay circuit was connected correctly and that the relay works.

We fire up the Python program on our Raspberry Pi for our Skill Handler, start ngrok to get an https endpoint for our Handler and complete the Endpoint configuration in the Amazon Developer Portal for our Skill.

We test out our Skill in the Alexa Developer Console

We discuss enabling your Skill in the Alexa app or the alexa.amazon.com website so that it can be tested on an actual Alexa device

A reminder to ensure that the Language setting of your skill matches that of your Echo device.

We test our Skill using an Echo Dot.

We perform a detailed code review of the Skill handler so you will understand how our program works.

I give an introduction to the project we will build to allow you to voice control any tv using an Alexa and a Raspberry Pi!

We discuss in detail all that is involved with the project and the communication that occurs between Alexa, your Raspberry Pi and the circuit we will build to control our TV.

I provide a list of resources that you will need for the project

The following components are needed for our project.

• Breadboard

• Infrared LED

• Infrared Receiver

• NPN Transistor

• Connecting Wires

• Raspberry Pi and its associated peripherals (SD card, Power Adapter, HDMI cable etc.)

For more details and links to specifics and some online retailers where these can be located, check the Course Hardware Parts List that was provided earlier in the course.

Setup your Raspberry Pi with a base install of Raspbian and install prerequisite software.

We review all the connections that made to be made between the Raspberry Pi and our circuit.

We go through the process of wiring the circuit for our project.

LIRC (Linux Infrared Remote Control) is the library we will be using for our Project. We will install the library in this lesson.

We go through the process of configuring LIRC (Linux Infrared Remote Control), the library we will use to send infrared signals from our Raspberry Pi to a TV.

We use a TV IR remote to test if our circuit is working and LIRC was installed successfully.

We go through the process of creating a custom configuration file for LIRC using the IR remote for the TV that we want to control.