Echo with smart things starter kit

[Phillydwight]

Here is my hopeful setup with starter set... Use a motion sensor on mail box to notify me when I get mail.... Use another to turn on bathroom lights when someone enters.... Plug to be used for coffee maker... Questions:. Can I ask Alexa if my mail arrived?. Will the lights go out when I exit the bathroom?

[DParker]

Here is my hopeful setup with starter set... Use a motion sensor on mail box to notify me when I get mail....

Whether or not that works will largely depend on how far your mailbox is from your hub, as well as how much the intervening walls, the mailbox enclosure (metal?), etc interfere with signal transmission.

Use another to turn on bathroom lights when someone enters....

Since the SmartThings Starter Kit only includes one motion sensor I presume you have acquired (or are planning on acquiring) a second unit.

Questions:. Can I ask Alexa if my mail arrived?.

Sure.  You can ask her anything.  The real question is:  Will she give a useful response?    The short answer is, "Yes, if you set things up right."  The longer answer involves all of the SmartApp installation and configuration (in both the SmartThings and the Echo app) that will be required to accomplish that.  It's not that difficult if you're technically inclined and at least somewhat familiar with the two platforms, but it's definitely not plug-and-play.  Like I tell everyone, the place to start is here:  https://community.smartthings.com/  Pay particular attention to the thread titled "UPDATE: Recent SmartThings User Experience & Platform Performance" so that you get an understanding of the current shaky state of the ST environment.  You're going to need to adopt a bit of a hacker mentality, as quite possibly more patience than you might already have.

Will the lights go out when I exit the bathroom?

Probably not right away.  The problem is that most motion sensors (including ST's) do exactly that; they detect motion, not whether you are entering vs exiting the area they cover.  So using them to to trigger events (like turning on a light) when you first enter an area is pretty easy.  But it's much trickier to trigger an event (like turning the same light off) based on an absence of motion unless you set up some sort of rule (in a SmartApp, in this case) to trigger said event after a specified period of time during which the sensor does not detect motion.  And even then you face problems with having the lights turn off while you're in the bathroom and either not engaging in any detectable motion (y'know, like sitting down) or simply out of view of the motion sensor's detection arc for a period of time >= the "lights off after n minutes/seconds of no motion" threshold you've defined.

There are multiple ways to skin this particular cat, but each has its shortcomings...so you need to do a fair amount of reading up on how others are doing it in order to determine which method will most likely work best for you.

[renegade600]

question is, is your mailbox on the side of the house or the side of the road.  seems to me there could be a lot of false alerts when big trucks speed past or the wind blows.

as far as turning on the bathroom lights when someone enters, I think it would be simpler just to purchase a motion detector light switch.  I was just looking at one the other day at lowes. 

[DParker]

question is, is your mailbox on the side of the house or the side of the road.  seems to me there could be a lot of false alerts when big trucks speed past or the wind blows.

Unless the box has a cover/door.

as far as turning on the bathroom lights when someone enters, I think it would be simpler just to purchase a motion detector light switch.  I was just looking at one the other day at lowes.

For a bathroom I'd tend to agree with that.  Cheaper too.  Someone else might be able to, but I just can't think of anything useful to be done with bathroom lights that are integrated into an HA system.  Bedroom, family room, living room, porch, etc, yes...especially since these are lights that I group together and tend to want to turn on/off and/or dim with voice commands via my Echo, or by home automation rules (lights on at dusk, off after midnight, etc.)

[seba]

Questions:. Can I ask Alexa if my mail arrived?.

No, Alexa will not respond to that question. if your are using IFTTT with alexa, you need to use a trigger word which is "trigger" in order to do the IFTTT task.
If using smartthings alexa will detect real or virtual switches, light bulbs. I own a motion and door sensor and is not detected by Alexa nor the echo smartapp. Also you need to trigger lights or switches by "turn on/off"

Here is my hopeful setup with starter set... Use a motion sensor on mail box to notify me when I get mail....

For this you can use lannouncer to receive voice announcement or sms.
here is the link to smartthings forum for setup: https://community.smartthings.com/t/android-as-a-speech-alarm-device-released/30282 and once you have it working on phone or tablet you can pair with echo.

[renegade600]

question is, is your mailbox on the side of the house or the side of the road.  seems to me there could be a lot of false alerts when big trucks speed past or the wind blows.

Unless the box has a cover/door.

dont think cover or door would make any difference.  I lost count the number of times I sat in the living room and felt the vibration of a 18 wheeler rumbling by. 

[DParker]

Questions:. Can I ask Alexa if my mail arrived?.

No, Alexa will not respond to that question. if your are using IFTTT with alexa, you need to use a trigger word which is "trigger" in order to do the IFTTT task.
If using smartthings alexa will detect real or virtual switches, light bulbs. I own a motion and door sensor and is not detected by Alexa nor the echo smartapp. Also you need to trigger lights or switches by "turn on/off"

Actually, as I indicated in my first response above you could accomplish this with a pure SmartThings solution.  You just need to piece together a few community-supplied bits of code for devices and apps.  Using a combination of the Rule Machine app, Lannouncer device and my phone, which is Bluetooth-paired with both of my Echos, I now have the Echo in my bedroom saying "Good night" after I tell it to turn off the bedroom lights for the night.  You could easily use the same technique to query a sensor or virtual device state via Alexa.  Of course, you'd need to modify the phrasing of the question so that it's recognized as something like a switch operation (ie, "Alexa, turn Mail Check on", where "Mail Check" is the name of a virtual switch that gets set automatically by a rule based on the activation of the mail box motion sensor).  Your immediate response would of course be the "OK" that we all insisted Amazon return to, but your rule would then cause that to be followed by the response phrase of your choice sent to it via Lannouncer.

Like I said, this stuff isn't plug-and-play, but it's quite doable if you're willing to learn how it all works and do a little tinkering.

[DParker]

dont think cover or door would make any difference.  I lost count the number of times I sat in the living room and felt the vibration of a 18 wheeler rumbling by.

The SmartThings motion sensor is based on detection of infrared (from a heat source, like a warm body).  Vibrations aren't a trigger.

[renegade600]

dont think cover or door would make any difference.  I lost count the number of times I sat in the living room and felt the vibration of a 18 wheeler rumbling by.

The SmartThings motion sensor is based on detection of infrared (from a heat source, like a warm body).  Vibrations aren't a trigger.

not totally true.  look it up.

[DParker]

The SmartThings motion sensor is based on detection of infrared (from a heat source, like a warm body).  Vibrations aren't a trigger.

not totally true.  look it up.

What exactly is it that you're claiming is "not totally true"?