Amazon Echo developers can, by updating their smart home skill to use either or both of the new Doorbell Event Source & Motion Sensor APIs, can, in turn, enable their customers to connect their doorbell press & camera motion sensors to Alexa.
These new additions to the Smart Home Skill API are available today in the US, with support for other countries coming soon.
Here’s what you can do by implementing these APIs:
- Customers can turn on voice “Announcements” for your smart home camera or doorbell by visiting the smart home section of the Alexa App.
- Customers can also set up smart home automations using doorbell or motion events like turning on lights, playing music or custom announcements using Routines within the Alexa app.
In addition to the above APIs, Amazon has also released a 2-Way Communication API that enables smart cameras & doorbells to establish a 2-way communication with Echo Show & Echo Spot.
Ring has implemented the 2-way communication API, & this feature is coming soon with August. Right now, Amazon only supports WebRTC compliant cameras or 3Ps who use a WebRTC bridge to connect to Alexa, said Amazon.
Alexa voice commands are currently only available for full duplex cameras. Half duplex cameras will have push to talk capabilities on the Echo Show or Echo Spot.
With these new developments on the API front, it will soon become very easy for connecting smart home camera to Amazon Echo.