Alexa for MSR, any interest?
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Hi Everyone,
I've been working on an Alexa integration using MSR as the entity source. It seemed to make sense that if we use MSR for a variety of hubs and integrations, why wouldn't we populate the devices we want to use in Alexa from MSR rather than a separate integration from each controller?
It's a few Docker containers (bridge, provisioner, and mosquitto), a Lambda function, and an Amazon Developer Skill for Smart Home. State changes flow through MSR's MQTT add-on (using its "echo" feature) to a small bridge service, which reports them to Alexa — so it's not just polling, Alexa actually finds out the instant something changes.
There's also a small web UI for picking which MSR entities get exposed to Alexa and naming them — no editing config files by hand, just check a box and type a name.
Token management seems solid at this point, and I've been running it for about 4 days while refining it, and I think I'm ready to move everything over to it.
Right now, I've got switches, dimmers, and contact sensors, and I plan to add thermostats in the next few days as I have time.
If there's interest, let me know, and I'll publish the project with some docs when I think it is good enough to release.
Thanks for reading, and big thanks to Patrick for MSR.
Mike -
I also use Alexa via HA, but my biggest wish is for Alexa to serve as another notification method, if possible. Just as we already have email, Telegram, and Alert, it could be another notification feature.
I even recently mentioned to @toggledbits the possibility of adding Twilio for phone calls (similar config Telegram), it’s an exceptional service, not too expensive, and great for notifying users that an alarm has been triggered. I use Twilio with a Shell Command to trigger the node, but it limits me to pre-programmed messages.









