Question: How to trigger an automation when someone speaks to Alexa?

[birdie60]

Hello, I have several Echo devices in my home. I'd like to create a poor man's presence detection by triggering an automation when someone talks to any Alexa. Is that possible? How would I do that efficiently?

[alandtse]

That is currently not supported. You're just hoping to have presence detection if someone triggers the wake word right? Not if they're talking in the room right? Wake word is probably possible; other is not.

[birdie60]

Yes, I'm aware that just by talking in a room there are no events created with Alexa. I meant detection when someone speaks the wake word. And I'd like to trigger some automation when that happens, on any or on some specified Echos. If that is technically possible, I'd like to ask you to consider a feature request for this. Maybe a binary sensor "interaction_detected" for every Echo?

[alandtse]

The last called attribute could be used in a template for this I think. Essentially if the last called turns true in the last few seconds then there's an interaction.

[birdie60]

I investigated last_called as a possible trigger. Thanks for the hint. Alas, it's only half of the solution. Yes, a change of last_called attribute to "true" indicates an interaction and could be used as a trigger for presence detection. But there is no change of last_called when a user interacts with the same echo sometimes later again. How would I detect that?

[alandtse]

That's true, it looks like we'll have to do a specific event.

[alandtse]

I just realized there is already an HA event triggered that may work.

Look for the alexa_media event type. The data will include the serial number.

{
    "event_type": "alexa_media_email@g*******m",
    "data": {
        "last_called_change": {
            "serialNumber": "G090XXXXX9FJ",
            "timestamp": 1577992084523
        }
    },
    "origin": "LOCAL",
    "time_fired": "2020-01-02T19:08:04.821440+00:00",
    "context": {
        "id": "e79baf39f940418b9e0e6d69b7ce551f",
        "parent_id": null,
        "user_id": null
    }
}

[birdie60]

Brilliant! I guess that will do the trick. I'll have a look into it asap.

[birdie60]

Just to confirm: With above alexa_media event type it is possible to implement a presence detecting automation that is triggered when someone says the wake word to alexa. Nice! Thanks a lot for your ongoing work on this superbe HA component! Very appreciated.

[alandtse]

Awesome! Glad you got it to work. To the extent you're able to share your discovery/sensors in the Wiki, I think others may appreciate it.