Bitdog has released its first skill for Amazon Echo called Bitdog Voice. Bitdog Voice allows Bitdog users to invoke their custom commands and ask questions just by asking their Amazon Echo.

This Alexa skill augments the abilities of Bitdog Hub home automation software made for the Raspberry Pi. You can find out more about Bitdog Hub here Install Instructions and see a demo of the hub here Demo.

Instructions

Activate Bitdog Voice Skill

Use the Alexa web application at https://alexa.amazon.com to find skills to use with your Amazon Echo.

Find the Bitdog Voice skill to activate for your Amazon Echo.

Click Enable to activate the Bitdog Voice skill and link it to your bitdog.io account.

You will be prompted to enter your bitdog.io credentials and login to link your Bitdog.io account to your newly activated Bitdog Voice skill.

You should see the following message once you have logged in.

Now that you have successfully activated the Bitdog Voice skill for your Amazon Echo, let’s create a few custom commands and questions.

Creating Voice Commands and Questions

Login to Bitdog Remote mobile app press the main menu button.

The main menu will appear and you will have choices for Voice Questions and Voice Commands.

Voice Questions

Voice Questions let you retrieve your stored data from Bitdog Cloud to be spoken by Alexa as an answer to the question. In the following example, an Aeotec ZW100 MultiSensor is sending temperature data via Z-Wave to a Bitdog Hub. The Bitdog Hub stores the data automatically in the Bitdog Cloud. A question called “What is the temperature in the office?” is configured to query the data and put the result in a variable called “Temp”. Answer Format is a text response that injects the “Temp” value creating an answer to be spoken by Alexa.

Creating a Voice Question Example

To create a new Voice Question in the Bitdog Remote mobile app, navigate to “Voice Questions” from the main menu and select “Create Voice Question“. This will start the new voice question wizard.

The question text is the question that Alexa will respond and response is what Alexa will say when responding to the question. You can add data to the response by using the “Add Data” button.

You must select that data that you would like to add you your voice question response by selecting a device and picking a data element from that device. A tag is the name you have given this data element. The tag is used in the response text to denote where the data should go in the sentence.

Voice Commands

Voice Commands can execute custom commands on the Bitdog Hub or set values on Z-Wave devices. In the following example a command “Lock back door” is configured to set the locked property to true for a BE469NXCEN Touchscreen Deadbolt Z-Wave lock.

Conclusion

Using Bitdog with the Amazon Echo opens an unlimited world of possibilities. Bitdog is also working on the Bitdog Home skill using Amazon Echo home automation API. This new skill will enable users to say home automation commands without having to say the name of the skill first.