Ness M1 voice control

There is new hardware available from Ness which allows to control Ness M1 and Cbus lighting thru Alexa, Google, Apple voice control. Is anyone tried it yet?
Could be nice addition or alternative to the Smartvoice.
George

 

Let us know how it goes when you test it out

 

I'll order one on Monday.
Will be nice to be able to control relays and tasks from M1

 

Seeing this is a Raspberry Pi (appears to be) why can't Clipsal do the same thing. The inferface would appear to be suitable and it would just be the command to the device - in this case C-Gate instead of the M1.

From a high level, all that is needed is whatever code they are using , C-Gate for Linux.

Potentially FauxMo (Wemo emmulator) might be able to do the job and then a nice web front end for configuration.

 

I've spoke with Clipsal rep on the show when they were promoting Smartvoice and been told there is no plans for Clipsal voice control. May be they will acquire Smartvoice later on as the same thing happened to Push controls.

 

It would be interesting to see the image on the SD card - if it is actually accessible to see if my theory is correct.

Fauxmo allows custom plugins so a C-Gate plugin could theoretically be done. Add a SIM and connect directly to the network with needing a network interface.

 

Just wondering if anybody bought one of these a has it working. I can't get mine to talk to Google Home. According to Skaro (the actual makers), there is a problem with Google Home that stops it working with the device. Not very promising.

 

I don't have google but mine works with Alexa

 

Apple voice control, you mean Siri, you mean it is Homekit compatible?

 

So I finally got this working by resetting everything back to factory default and starting from scratch. On the whole it works quite well with a couple of caveats:
1/ M1 Lighting names are limited to 16 characters. I have 4 blinds in my family room so once you have entered say "Family Blinds" you only have 4 characters left to specify a particular blind. I ended up just changing them all to numbers.
2/ The Automation Bridge has lost connection with the M1 twice over the last couple of weeks. To fix this you have to log onto the Bridge and restart the M1 service. Why can't it do that itself when it looses connection?
3/ It's slow. It takes at least 5 seconds between issuing a command and it being actioned. I can get up, walk to the switch, press it and sit down again while google is still thinking (and people don't look at me bemusedly). If I want to close all 4 family blinds it's just not worth the effort. I will probably have to introduce a pile of Phantom groups and some cbus logic to do common tasks.
4/ M1 task are run by saying ACTIVATE "task name". So to open multiple blinds with a task you need to say "Activate Family Blinds Open" which make you sound like a dork (unless you have enthusiastic sci-fi guests).
5/ It is supposed to understand OPEN and CLOSE for blinds but it doesn't work. You have to say "Turn Family Blind 1 on" to open etc.
6/ If you use a plural like "Turn Family Lights Off" it turns everything with family in off so all the blinds close.

So if you really like voice control and have an M1 connected to Cbus it is a very simple and relatively inexpensive way of getting into it. Assuming you are accustomed to trying to get a 2 year old to do things for you of course.

Yes, it works with Siri through homekit.

It's on the list of jobs