Our guide to integrating Alexa in Home Assistant

Give your home a personality and have some fun too!!!

It's all very well having your home automated but, what if you're not near a control panel or your phone is over there!!! That's when you need voice control...

Being able to tell your home what you want AND have it talk back to you was a dream some years ago. Now you can DIY it yourself - for the cost of a 'Smart' Speaker

This series of tutorials will show you how to get voice control and feedback using more open-source software and plug-ins. There's no complicated setups, no extra sign-ups or subscriptions...

-  (unless you want to subscribe to our YouTube channel - thnx)

First: Getting Alexa and Home Assistant connected

There are many ways to integrate Amazon Alexa in to Home Assistant, this by far the easiest and quickest... 

https://youtu.be/r-pwLvCT0Bg

Next: Controlling your Home Assistant Devices

While all devices are 'discovered' as lights, we show you how much you can do using the power of Node-Red.

https://youtu.be/l1as3tYVy64

Now the fun part: - Advanced TTS (Text to Speech)

Of course there's standard TTS - blocks of text that are the same every time. How about automating random made phrases, given you HUNDREDS of variations.

https://youtu.be/3MdnRfCQcVE

Taking it even further: The power of TTS in Node-Red

Scripts and Home Assistant are fun but if you want more sophisticated speech, Node-Red gives you a re few more features.

https://youtu.be/Ib8RffCYcfo

More than one Alexa ?

In a another room and want to hear what the temperature is or need to have TTS follow you around the house? Let her know where you are!

https://youtu.be/cLv0CGgoTJ0

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Home Assistant: Fans | Thermostats | other DIY - Oh Yeah

The main topic of this Live Stream is 'Ultimate Fan Project'

Watch Dave convert, from scratch, a standard 3-Speed Desk Fan. That note only is controllable from Home Assistant but also has local control by re-deploying the on-board speed selector. Plus add in some speed indicator LEDs

This fan can now be controlled by Home Assistant, Voice and still have manual local control... and of course reap the benefits of temperature, time of day and other automation controls.

You will see how to program a Sonoff Basic to use an 8 port expander to provide the necessary GPIOs for:

• 3 Fan Speeds
• 3 Indicator LEDs
• 3 Speed Selector Buttons

My GitHub page for ESPHome code & Other Info:

https://github.com/3ative/ultimate-fan-project

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3ATIVE is getting all Automated

GOOD NEWS EVERYBODY!

Over the last year we have been working and testing some home automation products. Now we've settled on the open source software - "Home Assistant", it's time begin putting back to the community.
You may have seen previous post, where we discussed building an LED indicator/display in the IR remote receiver for a Media Centre PC.

We've recently started adding tutorial videos to our YouTube Channel and have a Playlist for our Home Assistant; Programming, Device and Gadget builds.
With accompany code and other information on our GitHub Page we hope to become a helpful resource for beginner to advanced users for this FREE software.

So, please Subscribe and tell everyone about us! LOL


More to come soon, stay tuned.

New Tutorial: Lightwave to Motionbuilder and Back again with Multiply Characters

I've been meaning to make an update to my other Tutorial "Lightwave to MotionBuilder and Back again" - for some time but, work got in the way LOL
Since that tut, I've worked out an easier way of getting the job done. Plus how you can use more than one character
 - Great for having two characters interacting... or a whole bunch of them!

Presenting:

Lightwave to MotionBuilder and Back Again. The Squeal - Multiple Characters 

In this new tutorial I show you the steps needed to take more than one character from Lightwave in to MotionBuilder, add some Motion Capture data and bring them both back to Lightwave at the same time!.

CLICK TO OPEN ON YOUTUBE

Please share this and my other Tutorials.... everywhere :)

... and as always - Thanks for reading.

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Work-Work-Work.. and new studio set up

It's that time again... Long over-due, Yes... it's been a while!

2015 has been soooo busy and it doesn't show signs of slowing down any time soon. Partnering with local company has brought in loads of work and we're only set to get bigger together. - Fun times ahead. 
Working on many projects in both motion graphics and full 3D stuff, it's been non-stop and even "days off" are spent working on personal videos - and no, NOT that sort of "personal" either ! LOL

The last few days have been spent setting up multiple studio cameras and video switching gear. As soon as the new lights get here those promised tutorials and studio Vlogs can start. Although, more testing with different microphones is needed, everything is looking good for the first presentation sometime next week!

As always, thanks for reading :)

Please do check out the two 3ATIVE.COM YouTube channels:

The Main channel: CLICK HERE and The 3ATIVE Vlog: CLICK HERE