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OneBusAway / onebusaway-alexa

An Java-based app to communicate with Amazon Alexa for devices such as the Amazon Echo
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Show arrival times on the screen of Echo Show devices #106

Open sharadagarwal opened 6 years ago

sharadagarwal commented 6 years ago

Summary:

When I launch OneBusAway on an Echo Show, Alexa tells me how many minutes away the next few busses are at my configured stop. Often, it is useful for me to know what time that anticipated arrival is.

Steps to reproduce:

Alexa, launch OneBusAway. Alexa tells me the next bus is 8 minutes away. I can then do some more work for 5 minutes and then run like the wind to my bus stop. I will keep glancing at my watch to see whether I should leave now, but then when did I ask Alexa so that I can mentally add 8 minutes to that time?

Expected behavior:

Show a list of arrivals & their times on the screen, similar to the phone experience.

Observed behavior:

I only get audio feedback, and the screen is not providing any additional value.

Device:

Echo Show.

Audio or video:

Current visual experience: img_5492

Proposed visual experience: 2

barbeau commented 6 years ago

Thanks @sharadagarwal! That definitely makes sense, I'll take a look at this.

One question - currently, you can say "Alexa, ask OneBusAway to enable clock times" and it will announce "Route 5 is arriving at 10:15am" instead of "... is arriving in 5 minutes" (default). Given that I don't believe the visual content can update dynamically without asking Alexa for arrivals again (unless something changed since I did the initial skill), would it make more sense to default to clock times as the primary UI element on the visual display? I suppose this could be user configurable too...

For my later reference - https://medium.com/hello-thirteen23/updating-your-alexa-skill-for-the-echo-show-36532957b326

sharadagarwal commented 6 years ago

Ah, I didn't know I could say that to Alexa. I will try that.

Yes, given the restriction of not being able to update the screen, I agree that it would make sense to default to clock times for the on-screen content.