Alexa NotifyMe Skill + Node Red

Here’s another winner for Raspberry Pi (though not specifically) and thanks to my good friend Aidan Ruff for taking time out of his busy schedule and bringing this to my attention.

tmpCDAs regular readers know, I try to use Node-Red for just about every aspect of my home control here in Spain and back in the UK – and Amazon Alexa is no exception. I use node-red-contrib-amazon-echo now instead of HA-Bridge and other ways to control devices with Amazon Alexa…. and now, thanks to the skill Notify Me from Thomptronics,  and node-red-contrib-notifyme I can send myself regular pill reminders (10pm every night) for example.  Thanks to the people who put these items together, well done.

I have an alarm for my phone which uses my voice but thanks to Google, it only works if I happen not to have my phone on mute – useless. This on the other hand works by having your Echo light up and beep whenever you have notifications (which we already get for Amazon deliveries) and then lets you listen to the notification or notifications at your leisure.

On your Echo, add the Thomptronics skill i.e. tell Alexa to “enable notify me skill”  –  in the skills section of your phone’s Alexa app, enable notifications in the “notify me” skill settings and then link the skill to your Alexa account. Finally, “launch the notify me skill”. You will hear instructions then receive an email with an access code which you should not lose or give to anyone else.

Then add the notifyme node to Node-Red, note that it will prefill with a username and password – WRONG – empty that out. Ensure the first field is blank and the second one is filled with that access code and SAVE. Then add an Inject node and set that to string. Put your message in the payload of the Inject node. You can then use that immediately or using the usual inject repeat commands. You can then add as many other inject nodes as you want.

Your Echo will give the usual notification warning then you can ask it to play notifications and hear the message you left. Note that the RPI and Nod-Red must be ON at the time the notification is reprogrammed with the inject node or you’ll miss that day.

If you want to see a video on the subject – check out this one from Martin at NotEnoughTech… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIXXbEDWXcI

The rest is up to you. Have fun. I’m currently running this one one of my Raspberry Pi 3 units along with a ton of other things it is doing at the same time.

6 thoughts on “Alexa NotifyMe Skill + Node Red

  1. Hello.
    Do you know if exist this type of skill, feature in spanish? (Without VPN connection to uk)

  2. Pete
    It appears that the Notify Me skill isn’t available on Amazon.es, so I can’t enable it (I live in Spain)
    How did you get this working with your Spanish setup??

  3. Apart from some Amazon Echo Dots, I use Google Home Minis and when I send notifications to them from Node-Red, the voice message is played immediatelly. No need to say “Alexa, tell me my notifications”. Usefull when you need to hear messages in the moment.

    Currently I am using this feature to notify my wife when a land line incomming phone call is for her, so she answers only her calls. (Notifications are sent from Freeswitch – The software PBX I use – to Node-red and from Node-red to Google Home Mini using node-red-contrib-google-home-notify).

    I am planning to implement a door bell notification to my Google Home Mini. Some times I just don’t hear when it sounds.

  4. I also wanted Alexa to speak to me!

    A typical scenario is the kids leaving the kitchen doors open when its cold outside and the heating is on (I’m old and grumpy), or as a general notification.

    I settled on https://github.com/586837r/node-red-contrib-alexa-remote2 which when you set the credentials correctly will allow you to make Alexa say anything (and any of the media stuff that Alexa can do)

  5. If you are into using voice services like Amazon Echo or Google Home and you also have a healthy suspicious mind about Big Brother is watching us, you really must take a look at this Project Alias: https://www.instructables.com/id/Project-Alias/
    I made it and it works wonderfull with my openHAB system.
    But perhaps you are already familiair with it?

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