Easy Alexa (Echo) Control of your ESP8266 Huzzah

by lady ada

published November 27, 2016, last updated November 27, 2016

posted in Internet of Things - IOT/ Wireless Feather/ Feather Boards Feather/ FeatherWings

Save Download

Intermediate

Project guide

Software Setup

Pre-Requisite Setup

Before you begin you'll want to make sure your Feather ESP8266 is running properly, you have drivers installed, Arduino IDE etc.

Visit the product tutorial for the Feather ESP8266 to get setup. Once you've tested it out and got it all working, come back!

Required Libraries

You'll need a few libraries installed in Arduino to continue. Here's a list of them, install by downloading the linked Zip file, uncompressing and installing in your sketchbook's libraries folder. See our Arduino Libraries Guide for details if you've never installed libraries

Open up the Arduino library manager:

ESPAsyncTCP library (to download zip click here)
ESPAsyncUDP library (to download zip click here)
FauxMoESP library (to download zip click here and then select download repository)

Search for the FauxMoExp library and install it

The rest of the required libraries aren't available on the Arduino library manager. Install these by downloading the linked Zip files, uncompressing them and installing them in your sketchbook's libraries folder. See our Arduino Libraries Guide for details if you've never installed libraries

Install the ESPAsyncTCP library from the link below

ESPAsyncTCP Library

Install the ESPAsyncUDP library from the link below

ESPAsyncUDP Library

Compile an Example

Instead of the example that comes with FauxMoESP, try this all-in-one sketch.

Download File

Copy Code

// SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2019 Brent Rubell for Adafruit Industries
//
// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT

#include <Arduino.h>
#include <ESP8266WiFi.h>
#include <ESPAsyncTCP.h>
#include "fauxmoESP.h"

#define WIFI_SSID "YOUR_SSID"
#define WIFI_PASS "YOUR_WIFI_PASSWORD"
#define SERIAL_BAUDRATE 115200

fauxmoESP fauxmo;

// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Wifi
// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

void wifiSetup() {

    // Set WIFI module to STA mode
    WiFi.mode(WIFI_STA);

    // Connect
    Serial.printf("[WIFI] Connecting to %s ", WIFI_SSID);
    WiFi.begin(WIFI_SSID, WIFI_PASS);

    // Wait
    while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) {
        Serial.print(".");
        delay(100);
    }
    Serial.println();

    // Connected!
    Serial.printf("[WIFI] STATION Mode, SSID: %s, IP address: %s\n", WiFi.SSID().c_str(), WiFi.localIP().toString().c_str());
}

void setup() {
  // Init serial port and clean garbage
  Serial.begin(SERIAL_BAUDRATE);
  Serial.println("FauxMo demo sketch");
  Serial.println("After connection, ask Alexa/Echo to 'turn <devicename> on' or 'off'");

  // Wifi
  wifiSetup();

  // Fauxmo
  fauxmo.addDevice("relay");
  fauxmo.addDevice("pixels");
  // Gen3 Devices or above
  fauxmo.setPort(80);

  // Allow the FauxMo to be discovered
  fauxmo.enable(true);
  
  fauxmo.onSetState([](unsigned char device_id, const char * device_name, bool state, unsigned char value) {
    Serial.print("Device: ");Serial.print(device_name);
    Serial.print(" state");
    if(state) {
      Serial.println("ON!");
    }
    else {
      Serial.println("off");
    }

  });

}

void loop() {
  fauxmo.handle();
}

// SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2019 Brent Rubell for Adafruit Industries
//
// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT

#include <Arduino.h>
#include <ESP8266WiFi.h>
#include <ESPAsyncTCP.h>
#include "fauxmoESP.h"

#define WIFI_SSID "YOUR_SSID"
#define WIFI_PASS "YOUR_WIFI_PASSWORD"
#define SERIAL_BAUDRATE 115200

fauxmoESP fauxmo;

// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Wifi
// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

void wifiSetup() {

    // Set WIFI module to STA mode
    WiFi.mode(WIFI_STA);

    // Connect
    Serial.printf("[WIFI] Connecting to %s ", WIFI_SSID);
    WiFi.begin(WIFI_SSID, WIFI_PASS);

    // Wait
    while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) {
        Serial.print(".");
        delay(100);
    }
    Serial.println();

    // Connected!
    Serial.printf("[WIFI] STATION Mode, SSID: %s, IP address: %s\n", WiFi.SSID().c_str(), WiFi.localIP().toString().c_str());
}

void setup() {
  // Init serial port and clean garbage
  Serial.begin(SERIAL_BAUDRATE);
  Serial.println("FauxMo demo sketch");
  Serial.println("After connection, ask Alexa/Echo to 'turn <devicename> on' or 'off'");

  // Wifi
  wifiSetup();

  // Fauxmo
  fauxmo.addDevice("relay");
  fauxmo.addDevice("pixels");
  // Gen3 Devices or above
  fauxmo.setPort(80);

  // Allow the FauxMo to be discovered
  fauxmo.enable(true);
  
  fauxmo.onSetState([](unsigned char device_id, const char * device_name, bool state, unsigned char value) {
    Serial.print("Device: ");Serial.print(device_name);
    Serial.print(" state");
    if(state) {
      Serial.println("ON!");
    }
    else {
      Serial.println("off");
    }

  });

}

void loop() {
  fauxmo.handle();
}

Just change

Download File

Copy Code

#define WIFI_SSID "..."
#define WIFI_PASS "..."

#define WIFI_SSID "..."
#define WIFI_PASS "..."

To your SSID & Password for your WiFi network!

Try to compile it (no need to upload yet!)

Compilation Problems?

Please note: as of November 27, 2016 the ESP8266 release core v2.3.0 did not have the right lwip code so there were some compilation issues. If you get a complaint about udp_set_multicast_ttl not being defined, you'll need to uninstall the ESP8266 board support, then manually install the most recent core from https://github.com/esp8266/arduino by following the instructions at https://github.com/esp8266/arduino#using-git-version

Essentially, you'll need to git clone https://github.com/esp8266/Arduino.git into your Arduino sketchbook folder under hardware/esp8266com/esp8266 and then in a terminal shell in hardware/esp8266com/esp8266/tools run python get.py

Once that's done, go back and test out your ESP8266 to make sure you can compile/upload code to it.

Upload & Test!

Once you've compiled and uploaded the code, open up the Alexa app on your phone.

From the Alexa App, navigate to Devices.

Tap the PLUS icon, then tap Add Device.

For the Type of Device, select Other.

The Echo device will attempt to discover new devices.

Not detecting your device? There's an ongoing issue with the newest version of this library not detecting devices on the fauxmoESP repository: https://bitbucket.org/xoseperez/fauxmoesp/issues/58/v30-not-discovered-by-alexa

The Alexa app should recognize the new pixels & relay devices as seen above. If it doesn't, try resetting the Feather and running the discovery process again.

Now open up the Arduino IDE serial console at 115200 baud.

Ask your Alexa (or Echo):

"Alexa, turn pixels on"

and

"Alexa, turn pixels off"

You'll see the ESP8266 print out the commands it received!

You can also try it with relay, the second device it is emulating

Now that you have it working you can change the names of the devices. Try to make them things that are easy to pronounce so the Alexa/Echo can understand them when yelled! :)