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hayden avatar image
hayden asked

Difference in Generic Controllers and Specific Controllers (ie ThermostatController)

Generic Controllers can be implemented using only device side code with discovery & capabilities.

Is this also true for ThermostatControllers & other API Controllers or will I need to create a Lambda function/skill to handle these?


alexa smart home
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Jason@Amazon avatar image
Jason@Amazon answered

The Generic Controller interfaces are generally for AVS, though smart home skills also use the same ModeController, ToggleController and RangeController interfaces as well.

Regardless of which controller/interface you implement into your device, you either create a smart home skill and publish that to the skill store (which inherently means you create a Lambda function as part of that), or you could play around with AVS and add smart home controls that way (see this video for more).

You may want to check out this Smart Home API forum page for more guides as well to understand how the backend works.

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hayden avatar image hayden ·

Are ThermostatControllers available to use through AVS?

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Jason@Amazon avatar image Jason@Amazon ♦ hayden ·
For testing over AVS, you may be able to test all smart home interfaces, but if you're creating a smart home skill then you should be using that for development.
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hayden avatar image hayden Jason@Amazon ♦ ·
Let's say I don't want to create a smart home skill and would rather have everything use AVS to interact with a physical device. Can I use any of the smart home interfaces including the ThermostatController for this?
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