Very excited to read all about the Video Skill API.
I am trying to get my head around it and have had a bit of success.
- created the Skill
- setup the Lambda function
- added account linking
The Skill appears in my Alexa app, I can login to my "account" and enable the Skill. It then scans for devices and ends up hanging on a black page. When I refreshed, I can see the Skill in my list, it is enabled, I can also see the "Manage in TV & Video" button. When I tap the button it hangs on a black screen again.
When I say "Alexa, change the channel" she replies "To change channels, make sure you've linked this Dot with your video provider. Manage your devices in the Music TV and Books section of the Alexa App."
Usually I don't bother trying new features as they are always only available to the US and not UK/DE. I tried to find something in the docs or blog announcements that said whether it was limited to US only.
The only reference I found about US only was when Gracenote was mentioned the https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-skills-kit/docs/content-catalog-ingestion
If you don’t provide your content catalog, Alexa will use a generic catalog made up of Gracenote data. This data is US-only at the moment.
But that was fine all I wanted to understand was how it connected to video services.
I am scared to ask... but is the Video Skill API only available to the US?
Really hoping that this is not case, a lot of time has obviously gone into writing the docs and blog posts, and a lot of time was spent reading them. Amazon have previously failed to mention that a feature (Speechcons) was US only. Amazon apologised and updated the article, and it has not happened since.
Edit: I think I have answered my own question, when I changed the url from http://alexa.amazon.co.uk/spa/index.html#poptart/setup/skil... to http://alexa.amazon.com/spa/index.html#poptart/setup/skill...
the UK screen goes form this:
to this:
But I'll wait for confirmation from you guys. Thanks
edit: I forgot to mention, I can see the discovered device in my list of Smart Home devices as well as being able to add and enable the Skill.
