Here’s something new on the Amazon Alexa front….
Users (In the US at least) can view recorded smart home camera video feeds on their Echo Show, Echo Spot, Fire TV, & Fire Tablets. According to Amazon, once you’ve implemented the new Cameras Recap API, customers can say, “Alexa, show the event that just happened at the front door”, &d see the last recorded event from their connected camera.
Support for the Amazon Alexa Cameras Recap API is available today from Ring, Arlo, Cloud Cam, and August. This new capability is available today to developers in the US with support for additional international locales coming soon.
How to Use the Cameras Recap API
To use the new Cameras Recap API, you must use version 3 (V3) of the Smart Home Skill API. The Cameras Recap API implements the authentication model in V3 of the Smart Home Skill API, which enables your skill to send events to Alexa asynchronously. When your smart home skill receives a camera stream request, you respond with an URL to the requested video feed. Depending on your storage and subscription policies, the recorded video feed is made available your customer.
To support this functionality, there is 1 new directive & 2 events related to cameras:
- If the camera supports Media Creation, then it should be declared during discovery with this new capability set as “Alexa.MediaMetadata”. When a customer requests a video feed then an URI will be requested via MediaMetadata: GetMediaMetadata.
- Use the MediaCreatedOrUpdated Event to indicate when there is motion, audio, a doorbell press, or when a live view being recorded.
- When a video is deleted, send an event using MediaDeleted Event.
In addition, there are some security & performance requirements for the smart home camera feeds.
Developers are advised by Amazon to review the requirements for smart home cameras before starting their implementation.
