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I want to change audio source on my home cinema when Alexa is speaking so I need to be notified when it starts and stops.

sorin
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    What sort of notification are you expecting, exactly? – Aurora0001 Jan 03 '17 at 17:15
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    Anything that would allow me to call my code so I can switch the input source on my audio station. Probably HTTP request? – sorin Jan 03 '17 at 17:21
  • If you could intercept the SpeechStarted/SpeechFinished event, this wouldn't be too difficult. How you do that is a different question entirely - the link only applies if you are implementing Alexa for your own device. – Aurora0001 Jan 03 '17 at 17:41
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    @Aurora0001 I don't think so, that's if you use the AVS on a device you implement yourself – Helmar Jan 03 '17 at 17:44
  • @Helmar I'm aware of that, which is why I'm not sure whether it's possible to do it with the Echo itself, but I'd guess that the Echo just uses Amazon's API internally. It's worth investigating anyway (perhaps intercept router traffic to see if you can find anything?) – Aurora0001 Jan 03 '17 at 17:51
  • DPI might be the way to go – Helmar Jan 03 '17 at 17:52
  • Even if I could use DPI it would be useless in practice, I need official support from Amazon for getting these webhooks. – sorin Jan 03 '17 at 18:54
  • Basically you want to mute your current audio when alexa speaks? And also amplify Alexa at that moment? – aaa Jan 17 '17 at 21:47
  • @Paul as you probably know that the moment you connect something into the audio jack of the Echo it will stop using its own microphone. Muting should be ok, mixing would be probably too much. I just need a start-audio, stop-audio. – sorin Jan 19 '17 at 21:46

1 Answers1

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No. Currently there doesn't seem to be a way to do that with the Amazon Echo itself—not software based at least. Of course you could open it up and hook a sensor to the speaker but that seems to be not a good way to do what you're asking. Although it would be really IoT to supervise your IoT equipment with more IoT equipment.

However, if you are not opposed to building your own hardware and run Alexa Voice Services from there you could use the events provided by AVS1. That however wouldn't be notifications about the Amazon Echo but only about a device that can act like an Echo.

1: Link dug up by Aurora

Helmar
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