Please help me to understand the difference between Skill Messaging API vs Alert/Remainder API. I went through the Amazon documentation. I am not able to differentiate.
Skill Messaging API
Your skill can get informed about skill events and things the user do with his shopping and todo list.
So you can subscribe to Events e.g.:
Skill events:
your skill is deactivated
an account was linked
skill enabled
skill permission accepted
List events: the customer created/deleted a todo list item or a item from his shopping list
Alert/Remainder API
You can create reminders for your customer. E.g. if there is a sports event you could notify your customer one hour upfront that the match will start.
Additionally you can also read and modify other reminders.
To confuse you completely this Alert/Reminder API is more close to an other Alexa feature, the Proactive Events. Here you can actively send speech to the customer. E.g. you could send scored goal to your customer. Here also a short description of it, instead of the technichal description.
The Proactive Event API is sending notifications (yellow light on devices without screens)
Related
Is there a way to activate an event Alexa without speaking?
For instance, I am working on a project involving a pill box, and once it is set up, I want Alexa to remind me to take my medication without requiring a vocal command from me
Have you looked into Routines? This would let you schedule time-based actions like Alexa-spoken reminders.
If you're building a custom skill, the Reminders API would give you a way to programmatically setup spoken reminders as well.
There's also the Alexa Routines Kit skills can use to create Routines by voice, but this is in developer preview, so you would need to apply for access.
The main goal is to make Alexa speak each time defined text when lambda is triggered.
There already is one similar solution, "Proactive Events Notifications", but instead of activating yellow light on the dispositive, I need Alexa to say the defined message.
Also, I've seen the "Skill Messaging API", but don't really understand if it is the solution.
Maybe you would help with this issue.
I suppose this is not possible currently.
Notification: Yes, the notification needs to be fetched proactively by the user.
Skill Messaging API: Will not help you. Your skill can get informed about skill events and things the user do with his shopping and todo list. So you can subscribe to Events e.g.:
Skill events:
your skill is deactivated
an account was linked
skill permission accepted
....
List events: the customer created/deleted a todo list item or a item from his shopping list
Reminder API: comes in directly but also not immediately. Maybe you could just set the reminder just some seconds after now and could simulate the effect of a direct message.
New to Alexa skills in general. Developing an application where the state of an Alexa skill is determined by other means than voice interaction. So let's say for instance it is a weather skill. I understand I could access a weather service from the skill intent handler to retrieve the "weather state", but I wonder if there is a way for - in this example - the weather station, to POST the state of the weather to the skill and have the skill store it as a (global, user independent) state variable.
This would save me having to build a second webservice where i would maintain state information.
I have seen the Messaging ability of skills, but I'm not sure if that is the right thing to use for what i want.
I think you need this Proactive Events API
You can use the Proactive Events API to send events to Alexa. The events represent factual data that might interest a customer. Upon receiving an event, Alexa proactively delivers the information to customers who have chosen to receive these events ...
Because customers can choose to be notified of events from your skill,
they are never surprised to receive proactive messages from Alexa.
With this API, you can send a personal customer-specific event, which
results in a notification for a single customer. Alternatively, you
can send a broadcast event, which triggers notifications to all
customers who have chosen to receive notifications from your skill.
For example, a weather skill can send a single weather alert, which
Alexa then delivers to all interested customers.
There is a demo in Javascript
After I figured out how easy it is to set up an EB webservice and build a simple API using Node for the ASK lambda function to fetch data from, I guess this is a better approach. I might even replace the ASK lambda function with an EB Node service that does both the skill backend and the persistent storage in one.
I am new in Alexa skill kit development
I have already read Tutorials on Alexa Skill Kit
I have to implement Alexa Skill , In which I need to manually send command and want Alexa to speak it.
i.e When user login in system I can fire API as Alexa request and I want Alexa device to Speak that for example "Welcome Have a great day"
Is it Possible ? Or Any other alternatives. ?
Notifications for Alexa skill are in still in beta. You can apply for the access to it by filling up this form here : https://alexa.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_72lplGGegxNZ9Ln
If Push Notifications is what you're looking for, then the answer is YES.
Since in the comments you said, "You are not asking for HOW TO DO IT", so I'll just let this link here for your reference. https://developer.amazon.com/docs/alexa-voice-service/notifications-overview.html
I think you may want to use proactive events for your skill. They are now commercially available. You will be able to send a notification to your skill and the Amazon device will blink (yellow). However you will still need to say "Alexa check my notifications" to retrieve the actual message
https://developer.amazon.com/docs/smapi/proactive-events-api.html
Another idea would be to use "progressive response" feature: https://developer.amazon.com/docs/custom-skills/send-the-user-a-progressive-response.html
You can fire the interaction to alexa when your API is invoked and send a progressive response. Not really a notification but it might serve you. This way you will not need to ask to check the notifications to Alexa but directly get the voice message in the progressive responses
I need help in sending notifications to alexa device of a user (echo, dot, etc.. not the other non amazon alexa devices) from alexa skill i am building. I see quote maker doing it but, how its doing it is a blackbox.
For example if the user ordered some item through my skill (say abc org). I would like to notify user on their alexa devices about the status of order proactively ( eg, item shipped, or item out for deliver today).
Amazon has this already for amazon shopping, but i dont see much information on implementing the same for skills.
I saw quote maker creating a notification for self, but how its doing it is a blackbox
I had the exact same question and am still not 100% sure about the answer.
As best as I can tell, the Notifications API never made it out of developer preview, and instead has been replaced with the Proactive Events API.
Unfortunately, unless your skill needs to send notifications about trash pickup or sports scores, you're probably out of luck. Here is the complete list of all notifications types that are currently supported:
Weather alert
Sports event update
Message reminder
Order status update
Reservation confirmation
Trash collection reminder
Media content availability notification
Social game invitation notification