How to Connect Amazon Alexa

Link an Amazon Alexa account so people can control the devices you choose by voice, ask about them, and let Alexa routines react to your automations.

Before you start

• You need the Manage IoT Connections right. Only a person can link Alexa, never an SI member, and not while signed in as someone else.
• Amazon Alexa appears only once the platform offers it to your organization. If it is not in the catalog of Add connection, it is not available to you yet.
• You need an Amazon account and the Alexa app.
• Alexa is a voice channel, not a source of devices. Amazon offers no way to read or control the devices in an Alexa account, so this does not bring Alexa's own devices in.

Link

1. In Settings → Devices (IoT) → Connections, choose Add connection, then Amazon Alexa. It tells you to enable the skill in the voice assistant's app: there is nothing to fill in here.
2. In the Alexa app, find the skill named KamoUniverse under More → Skills & Games, and enable it.
3. Alexa opens a sign-in page. Sign in to your organization. The next page says what Alexa will be able to do.
4. Choose New Alexa link and give it a Link name, such as the room or team whose Echo devices these are. To link again after a problem, choose Replace with the old link's name instead: it keeps its access and virtual sensors.
5. Choose Link Alexa.

An organization can have up to 20 Alexa links.

Choose what Alexa can reach

A new link starts with no access. Someone with the Manage IoT Access right gives the link access to devices, function by function: in Settings → Devices (IoT) → Access, choose Add access, and under Who choose the link in Alexa links. On the link's page, Give this link access opens the same dialog with the link already chosen. On KamoMobile, choose Alexa link as the "who" of a grant. See How to Give a Team Access to Device Functions.

Safety-critical controls, cameras and live video, and health readings are never offered to voice. Nor are Google Nest, Google Home and Apple Home devices.

Result

Alexa finds the devices the link was given, up to 300 for one link. You can then say "Alexa, ask kamo universe…", or use the devices in the Alexa app. Every voice command is recorded with the link's name.

In Settings → Devices (IoT) → Connections, the Voice section lists each Alexa link, its status and who linked it; on KamoMobile it is Devices (IoT) → Settings → Connections → Amazon Alexa. Choose Open on a link to see What Alexa sees and What Alexa doesn't see, and why, its Virtual sensors and its Activity. Update Alexa now sends the list to Alexa again (at most once a minute), Rename changes the link's name, and Remove takes every device and virtual sensor away from that link at once.

Add a virtual sensor

A virtual sensor shows in Alexa as a contact or motion sensor. An automation changes it, and the change starts the Alexa routines that use it.

1. Open the link and, under Virtual sensors, choose Add a virtual sensor.
2. Give it a Name of 1 to 64 letters, digits and spaces (Alexa shows this name), choose its Kind, Contact sensor or Motion sensor, and its Pulse (seconds): how long a pulse stays detected, 5 to 3,600 seconds. A motion sensor stays detected for at least 30 seconds.
3. Choose Add. Alexa finds the sensor at the link's next update; Update Alexa now sends it at once.

A link can have up to 50 virtual sensors. Test pulses or sets a sensor the way an automation would and says whether Alexa was told. Edit changes the name and the pulse; the kind cannot be changed. Delete asks first: Alexa loses the sensor, and the routines and automations that use it stop working.

If it doesn't work

• No devices found: the link has no access yet, or its devices cannot be offered to voice. Check with How to See Who Can Operate a Device.
• "Only people who manage IoT connections in your organization can link Alexa. Ask one of them to link it." Ask someone with the Manage IoT Connections right.
• The link stopped working: the skill may have been disabled in the Alexa app. Enable it again, sign in, and choose Replace with the old link's name.
• See What You Can and Cannot Ask Alexa to Do.