question

Neil Renaud avatar image
Neil Renaud asked

Doorbell doesn't show video

I've developed a skill for a Doorbell with both the Alexa.DoorbellEventSource and the Alexa.RTCSessionController interface.


If I ask my Echo Show to "Alexa some me the Doorbell" I can view the video. When I send a DoorbellPress Event the Echo Show will announce "Someone is at the Doorbell" however I was expecting the Echo Show to automatically display the feed as the DoorbellEventSource document says:

"When a doorbell event occurs, Alexa plays the doorbell announcement on the selected Echo devices. If the customer selected an Echo device without a screen, the Echo device plays the doorbell announcement. If the customer selected an Echo Show device and the doorbell implements the Alexa.RTCSessionController interface, the Echo Show device plays the doorbell announcement and automatically displays a live feed from the doorbell video camera when the doorbell event occurs. "


How can I find out why the video doesn't display?

smart home
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1 Answer

Jason@Amazon avatar image
Jason@Amazon answered

In the Alexa app, you need to enable Doorbell Press announcements and select the device to receive these, as per the documentation:

https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/docs/alexa/device-apis/alexa-doorbelleventsource.html#doorbellpress-event

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Neil Renaud avatar image Neil Renaud ·

Hi Jason,


I believe that is done correctly as "When I send a DoorbellPress Event the Echo Show will announce "Someone is at the Doorbell" " I don't believe the Echo Show would announce someone is at the door if that wasn't done correctly? The problem is it makes no attempt to show the video.

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Jason@Amazon avatar image Jason@Amazon ♦ Neil Renaud ·

If you've confirmed that you've selected the Echo Show as the device to receive announcements, then it does sound a little odd. As this issue is specific to your account, please file a contact us here where we will be able to assist further - include a test account for account linking so that our team can test it locally as well.

https://developer.amazon.com/alexa/console/contact-us

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Neil Renaud avatar image Neil Renaud ·

Hi Jason,


I stopped looking at this for a while but I've just got back to it and I've found a bug in the alexa skills....


If I define my video doorbell display categories as:

"displayCategories": ["DOORBELL", "CAMERA"],


Then the video doesn't work. However if I set it to:

"displayCategories": ["CAMERA", "DOORBELL"],


Then it does work. It isn't obvious here that ordering should matter but it does.

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