bjnord

bjnord

Build Talking Apps for Alexa: Device setup (chapter 1)

@habuma Hello: The only Alexa device I have is my Kindle Fire, which has the Alexa app installed. I can say “Alexa” to it and do the usual things (“What time is it?” etc.). It’s linked to my personal Amazon account (e.g. I can see all my Kindle books). I was able to create my Amazon Developer account (linked to that same personal Amazon account), do the “ask new” and customizations etc., and then do the “git push” to deploy.

I can see “starport-75” Skills on the Alexa web console, and I can interact with it just fine on the web. But when I tell the Kindle Fire “Alexa, open star port seventy five” she says “OK” and then opens an app called “Star Sport & Sub” in the app store.

My question is how I troubleshoot this. How do I see what devices I own that are associated with my Amazon developer account, which should be able to use skills I deploy? How would I associate a device with my Amazon developer account if it isn’t already? etc. I poked around on both sides and I can’t see anyplace to see or make the association.

Thanks,
Brent

Marked As Solved

habuma

habuma

Author of Build Talking Apps for Alexa

That’s a really good question…one that I’m going to attempt to answer (but may fail to adequately address). While I have SEVERAL Alexa devices in my house (and even a handful that I carry around with me), I do not own a Kindle Fire, so my experience with that particular device will be entirely speculation.

Assuming that your Kindle Fire is associated with the same Amazon account that you developed and deployed the skill with, it SHOULD just work. But, I can see a few gotchas that might prevent it from working.

When you asked Alexa to open “Star Port Seventy Five”, she may have misheard what you said as something else that (at least to Alexa) sounded like “Star Sport & Sub”. After all, those two things are named such that they sound similar. Moreover, the Kindle Fire doesn’t quite have the same level of sophisticated array of microphones that a real device would have, so the likelihood of being misheard is greater.

One thing you might try doing is going into the Alexa Companion app or https://alexa.amazon.com and go to the “Skills” section. From there find the “Star Sport & Sub” skill and disable it. This will give you a slightly better chance of hitting the right skill the next time you try.

If you’re still struggling, you could try changing the skill’s invocation name to something completely different to see if you have better luck.

Of course, it might also be that the device isn’t associated with the same account that the skill was deployed with. So, as you asked, how can you know? The best way to find out, I’d think, is to sign into https://alexa.amazon.com or into the companion application on iOS or Android and go to the “Devices” section (on the website, I think it’s under “Settings” if I recall correctly). Be sure to sign into the Alexa website or companion app with the same credentials as you signed into developer.amazon.com when setting up the ASK CLI. If the Kindle Fire is listed, then it’s probably a matter of Alexa mishearing what you said. If the Kindle Fire isn’t listed, then that device must be associated with some other account.

One other thing: You say that the only Alexa device you own is the Kindle Fire, but you could have a few others you didn’t think about. If you have the Alexa companion app installed on your phone, it can also be used as an Alexa device. If you have an Apple Watch or iPhone, you can also install Voice in a Can and use it as an Alexa device. I’ve also tinkered a little with an app called Ally for iOS which turns your phone into an Alexa device. And then there’s the Developer Console, which gives you the chance to speak to Alexa (or type at her if you prefer) that serves as a device.

Also Liked

habuma

habuma

Author of Build Talking Apps for Alexa

Awesome! So glad to here that you sorted it out!

Testing-wise (and automated testing notwithstanding), I tend to test my skills using whatever Echo device is nearby. While you don’t need a real device to test, there’s nothing nearly as rewarding as hearing the results on a real device. I also frequently use the Alexa app on my phone if I don’t have a device nearby (such as when I’m away from home). In short, it sounds like you’ll be able to test with the Kindle Fire, but if you continue to enjoy this kind of thing, I’d recommend a small investment in an Echo Dot or some other device.

Where Next?

Popular Pragmatic Bookshelf topics Top

New
simonpeter
When I try the command to create a pair of migration files I get an error. user=> (create-migration "guestbook") Execution error (Ill...
New
raul
Hi Travis! Thank you for the cool book! :slight_smile: I made a list of issues and thought I could post them chapter by chapter. I’m rev...
New
HarryDeveloper
Hi @venkats, It has been mentioned in the description of ‘Supervisory Job’ title that 2 things as mentioned below result in the same eff...
New
cro
I am working on the “Your Turn” for chapter one and building out the restart button talked about on page 27. It recommends looking into ...
New
gilesdotcodes
In case this helps anyone, I’ve had issues setting up the rails source code. Here were the solutions: In Gemfile, change gem 'rails' t...
New
jskubick
I’m running Android Studio “Arctic Fox” 2020.3.1 Patch 2, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I only made it to page 8 before running into ...
New
fynn
This is as much a suggestion as a question, as a note for others. Locally the SGP30 wasn’t available, so I ordered a SGP40. On page 53, ...
New
adamwoolhether
Is there any place where we can discuss the solutions to some of the exercises? I can figure most of them out, but am having trouble with...
New
Keton
When running the program in chapter 8, “Implementing Combat”, the printout Health before attack was never printed so I assumed something ...
New

Other popular topics Top

PragmaticBookshelf
Write Elixir tests that you can be proud of. Dive into Elixir’s test philosophy and gain mastery over the terminology and concepts that u...
New
New
AstonJ
We have a thread about the keyboards we have, but what about nice keyboards we come across that we want? If you have seen any that look n...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Learn different ways of writing concurrent code in Elixir and increase your application's performance, without sacrificing scalability or...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Build highly interactive applications without ever leaving Elixir, the way the experts do. Let LiveView take care of performance, scalabi...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Build efficient applications that exploit the unique benefits of a pure functional language, learning from an engineer who uses Haskell t...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Author Spotlight Rebecca Skinner @RebeccaSkinner Welcome to our latest author spotlight, where we sit down with Rebecca Skinner, auth...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Programming Ruby is the most complete book on Ruby, covering both the language itself and the standard library as well as commonly used t...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Develop, deploy, and debug BEAM applications using BEAMOps: a new paradigm that focuses on scalability, fault tolerance, and owning each ...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Use advanced functional programming principles, practical Domain-Driven Design techniques, and production-ready Elixir code to build scal...
New

Sub Categories: