I recently got an Amazon Echo. Beside its out of the box features, what do you use it for? I'm looking for ideas. Currently i control my Phillips Hue Light system.
I recently got an Amazon Echo. Beside its out of the box features, what do you use it for? I'm looking for ideas. Currently i control my Phillips Hue Light system.
As long as you promise not to laugh... this was literally my first swing at anything node.js (they support python 2.7 now). I named it Barry after bharris01 our resident guru of all things WHD at Loop1. 
So when I said "Alexa, launch Barry" it would say "You have 27 open tickets in the queue."
// Alexa SDK for JavaScript v1.0.00
// Copyright (c) 2015 Steven Klassen. All Rights Reserved. Use is subject to license terms.
/**
* Simply tell me how many tickets are open.
*/
/**
* App ID for the skill
*/
var APP_ID = "you_app_id_here";
/**
* The AlexaSkill prototype and helper functions
*/
var AlexaSkill = require('./AlexaSkill');
var http = require("http");
var concat = require("concat-stream");
/**
* Affirmations is a child of AlexaSkill.
*/
var WebHelpDesk = function () {
AlexaSkill.call(this, APP_ID);
};
// Extend AlexaSkill
WebHelpDesk.prototype = Object.create(AlexaSkill.prototype);
WebHelpDesk.prototype.constructor = WebHelpDesk;
WebHelpDesk.prototype.eventHandlers.onSessionStarted = function (sessionStartedRequest, session) {
console.log("WebHelpDesk onSessionStarted requestId: " + sessionStartedRequest.requestId
+ ", sessionId: " + session.sessionId);
// any other initialization stuff goes here
};
WebHelpDesk.prototype.eventHandlers.onLaunch = function (launchRequest, session, response) {
console.log("WebHelpDesk onLaunch requestId: " + launchRequest.requestId + ", sessionId: " + session.sessionId);
handleTicketCountRequest(response);
};
/**
* Overridden to show that a subclass can override this function to teardown session state.
*/
WebHelpDesk.prototype.eventHandlers.onSessionEnded = function (sessionEndedRequest, session) {
console.log("WebHelpDesk onSessionEnded requestId: " + sessionEndedRequest.requestId
+ ", sessionId: " + session.sessionId);
};
WebHelpDesk.prototype.intentHandlers = {
GetTicketCountIntent: function (intent, session, response) {
handleTicketCountRequest(response);
},
GetHighestPriorityIntent: function (intent, session, response) {
handleHighestPriorityRequest(response);
},
HelpIntent: function (intent, session, response) {
response.ask("You can ask web helpdesk how many tickets are open.");
}
};
/**
* Gets the current count of open tickets via the API.
*/
function handleTicketCountRequest(response) {
var hostname = "your_helpdesk_url_here";
var apiKey = "your_api_key_here";
var helpdesk = "http://your_helpdesk_url_here/"
var request = "Tickets/?qualifier=((statustype.statusTypeName %21%3D 'Closed') and (statustype.statusTypeName %21%3D 'Resolved') and (statustype.statusTypeName %21%3D 'Cancelled') and (statustype.statusTypeName %21%3D 'Eng Hold'))&username=YOUR_USERNAME_HERE_BUT_SHOULD_BE_A_VARIABLE&apiKey=" + apiKey;
var url = helpdesk + request;
// get the tickets object
http.get(url, function(res) {
res.pipe(concat(function(body) {
var tickets = JSON.parse(body.toString());
var verb, ticketWord;
if (tickets.length != 1) {
verb = "are";
ticketWord = "tickets";
}
else {
verb = "is";
ticketWord = "ticket";
}
var speechOutput = "There " + verb + " currently " + tickets.length + " outstanding " + ticketWord + " in the queue.";
response.tell(speechOutput);
// console.log("There " + verb + " currently " + tickets.length + " open " + ticketWord + " in the queue.");
}))
});
}
// Create the handler that responds to the Alexa Request.
exports.handler = function (event, context) {
// Create an instance of the WebHelpDesk skill
var whd = new WebHelpDesk();
whd.execute(event, context);
};