I used the info at Nabu Casa to configure HASS to support Alexa:
- Sign up for Home Assistant Cloud at Nabu Casa. It costs £65 per year, but it is good to contribute to ongoing development of HASS… everything else is free!
- HASS elements of the Cloud config are at Settings -> Home Assistant Cloud
- Need to ensure signed in to Nabu Casa account
- Alexa selected, Google Assistant off
- Activate HASS Smart Home Skill via the Alexa App
- On phone app, go to Skills, search for “Home Assistant” and add
- Link to Nabu Casa account (sign-in)
- Can then discover devices from HASS
- Entities can be configured (enable/disable) through the Alexa card on the Settings -> Home Assistant Cloud
- TODO: Some entities (e.g. Skoda Battery Level) not discovered
To get the Alexa Media Player and Text To Speech (TTS) working I used the information provided by Mark Watt on his Youtube video.
- Install Alexa Media Player
- HACS -> Integrations -> Explore & Add Repositories
- Search for “Alexa Media Player”, click Download
- Restart HASS
- Go to Settings -> Devices & Services -> Add Integration
- Search for “Alexa Media Player”, select it
- Opens configuration for the integration
- Add email address / password for Amazon
- Set region as amazon.co.uk
- Accept URI provided for HASS remote access [was auto-populated]
- Click on Submit
- Opens Amazon login in browser, login and enter CAPCHA as required
- Should then show the supported devices Echo Dot, etc
- The Settings -> Integrations page will show the Device / Entities
- HACS -> Integrations -> Explore & Add Repositories
- Install Mini Media Player [not essential but good for testing TTS, etc]
- HACS -> Frontend -> Explore & Add Repositories
- Search for “Mini Media Player”, click Download
- Reload browser
- HACS -> Frontend -> Explore & Add Repositories
- In dashboard, add Manual Card, add in code editor:
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title: Echo Dot Speaker
type: custom:mini-media-player
artwork: full-cover
entity: media_player.bob_s_echo_dot
icon: mdi:amazon
tts:
platform: alexa
entity_id: media_player.bob_s_echo_dot
- Amend entity details as appropriate
- Card has volume control and option to send TTS messages to the Echo Dot
Notes / Resources
- Home Control
- TODO: put installation documentation for all elements online