# TIVO Bolt with Echo Alexa needing help



## wegotchacovered (Apr 1, 2012)

Needing help for disabled friend. Ordered her a Tivo Bolt & one for myself so I could also help on phone if she was stuck, our other Tivo's were older. New Bolt fantastic but little complicated as I searched for program, select & given choice of Cable, Hulu, Netflix etc. Hard for somebody without much use of their hands. Was at my daughters & she used the Echo with Alexa for music lights etc.

Googling what I fine is Alexa for TV and Tivo says something like Samsung hub with Logitech Harmony app & I can program Alexa to turn on and off and change channels or say Alexa turn on Netflix. She is capable of some remote controls. 

My question I see Tivo Remote ( which support gave me easy fix to program mine ) can be set to IR or to another option for remote. 

Does anybody have experience here with Alexa and Tivo as far as channels, volume etc. Being disabled is a tough thing in todays age. TIVO was means to not have 3 remotes and changing inputs etc as somebody bedridden has tough time. Any help appreciated and sure will help many others that are in need


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## alexb (Jan 4, 2003)

It doesn't do volume. Just on and off and change to specific channels. No ability to change to arbitrary channels. But I do love the basic smart remote of harmony.


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## osu1991 (Mar 6, 2015)

*Controlling a TiVo DVR with the Amazon Echo *






GitHub - jradwan/alexa_tivo_control: Alexa skill to control a TiVo DVR with voice commands


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## TIVO_GUY_HERE (Jul 10, 2000)

LOL I played that video in my livingroom with my Alexa... Thought poor thing was gonna blow up, her lights flashing,,, not knowing what to do, grin


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## enthalpy (Oct 11, 2006)

I've been thinking about suggestions. One is, that I see in an ad for a Harmony Remote, the Harmony now works with Alexa. It's extra steps, but that might work. My second suggestion I'm hesitant to offer here in the Tivo community. I love my Tivo Bolt. But if you want something for your friend to use with Alexa, it would be easier to stay in the Amazon community. Amazon sels the Fire TV box. It's streaming only, it's no Tivo, but it will work with voice commands from Alexa.


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## wegotchacovered (Apr 1, 2012)

Thanks guys I have read a lot of pages - looks like Harmony Home Hub works with Tivo some of features are there maybe more to come - Apple was given money to design siri for disabled which is a lot of people beings darn remotes so small and so many features but the ipad aps don't do everything & still complicated. I'm thinking give it a try at my house before I get her stuck and left without a TV . I am assuming Harmony has capabilities of Tivo but their Remotes are awkard numbers at bottom vs top. With all this smart home pretty new possibly it will go further. Thank you


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## wegotchacovered (Apr 1, 2012)

Trying to email Harmony did find Works with Alexa so possibly I'm going to order Harmony Home hub and try Hope anybody that tries same will post back here & possibly more will come. At least navigate to Netflix saves a bunch of buttons Harmony and Amazon Alexa


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## windracer (Jan 3, 2003)

osu1991 said:


> Controlling a TiVo DVR with the Amazon Echo
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That's my little project . I haven't had a lot of time to tinker more with it lately, but hope to tweak it a bit during my Christmas vacation.

It will work for channel changes via voice commands to Alexa, but in its current state it requires a local Alexa app server to be running on the same network as the TiVo so it can send the telnet remote commands. Not exactly the easiest setup for the average home user.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

Since kmttg already controls all the tivo's in the house and already handles the handshaking, discovery etc on that side, perhaps this function could be integrated into the remote control portion of kmttg? Or a plugin for kmttg. Just thinking out loud but perhaps you might speak to moyekj and see if there is any use in going that direction.


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## OmeneX (Jul 2, 2016)

Amazon recently offered a survey to some customers - I specifically told them to incorporate Alexa support for TiVo, and to get the TiVo Beta app updated. Whoever is at fault. 

I current just use MS Cortana AI to voice control the TiVo // via Xbox Kinect IR blasters.

Saw your video a while back Windracer.  Good stuff, and deff not a setup for the average consumer.


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## alexb (Jan 4, 2003)

wegotchacovered said:


> Trying to email Harmony did find Works with Alexa so possibly I'm going to order Harmony Home hub and try Hope anybody that tries same will post back here & possibly more will come. At least navigate to Netflix saves a bunch of buttons Harmony and Amazon Alexa


Yes exactly as I said above. I didn't make **** up, I have had this running for weeks. Why ask if you are not going to believe folks. PS you could have simply gone into skills in your Alexa app - the Logitech harmony skill is tight there!


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## mikeyts (Jul 10, 2004)

A little off-topic: I don't use it much, but it'd be cool if you could control Fire TV via an Echo. You can essentially do it with a voice remote or an app on your phone or tablet since the device now incorporates Alexa commands, but it'd be nice if the Echo could do it without my having to reach for a remote.


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## wegotchacovered (Apr 1, 2012)

Mikeyts I thought I read it will control Fire TV ?? OK Amazon ran out of Echo's but started a new division prime now guaranteed 2 hour delivery for paying 10% tip came via uber. Tivo set up for sis in law and didn't realize remote is so small with numbers at bottom & does not lite up for night use grrrr. Going to look at the slide remote as it says lights up .

Got the Harmony hub as logitech lists compatible with Tivo and Alexa so I am hoping says 50 favorite channels can be accessed with Alexa also saying netflix or youtube. Sure could help a lot of people with difficulties if more happens and voice command gets better. Thanks for input and please add to this thread if anybody finds something. My sister has ms and not much use of her hands remotes getting smaller are no help 

Hope to have Alexa with the Echo working right after christmas with the harmony hub so I'll let you know how we do.


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## aphoid (Jul 8, 2013)

I have the Echo, a Harmony Elite (with hub), and it worked mostly with my Series3, and with my Bolt. In the Alexa app, after you add the Harmony skill, when you the SmartHome Discovery it adds your Activities and your Favorites to the smarthome list. Then, you can say "Alexa, Watch TiVo" to start the Activity, and "Alexa, watch ESPN" to tune to that favorite.

It has some trouble when there are multiple things named similarly. "Watch Television" or "watch TV" it'll tell you that kind of thing.


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## wegotchacovered (Apr 1, 2012)

Thank you aphoid I had read elsewhere it will not respond to saying Alexa watch channel 4 but said will respond to Watch NBC not positive it thats true or if it has to be KNBC . But I also read can have 50 favorites I assumed thats channels just not sure how to set it up yet .

Her situation and the Remote Game needing 2-4 Smart TV left her on Netflix she couldn't get back to TV source. Think with Harmony hub and TIVO she can use Alexa app say Watch Tivo and Alexa watch Netflix when movie over say Alexa Watch NBC Or at least I HAVE HOPES & FINGERS CROSSED. Alexa can bring her back Anyone controlling a Tivo with Amazon Echo through a Harmony Hub?

Harmony Site seems more will come or people will come up with a way. Harmony and Amazon Alexa


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## alexb (Jan 4, 2003)

wegotchacovered said:


> Thank you aphoid I had read elsewhere it will not respond to saying Alexa watch channel 4 but said will respond to Watch NBC not positive it thats true or if it has to be KNBC . But I also read can have 50 favorites I assumed thats channels just not sure how to set it up yet .


yes it works, the UI I found on the iOS app is pretty self explanatory, if you finds the UI confusing (and the ui is odd in the app) follow the nicely documented instructions here -> Favorite Channels for the mobile app as for alex you can ask for the fave by name as seen in the UI. as "alexa turn on komo" (komo is my ABC affiliate on 104) - you must say the name as it appears in the alexa ui (see attached picture)

To switch activities just "turn on activityname" and it will switch to that activity - for example i have a netlfix, amazon and tivo activity (with the netlfix and amazon being my vizio TV that has discrete netflix and amazon remote buttons - without discrete remote buttons you will not be able to get harmony / alexa to do what you want - remember alexa is only surfacing the activities that harmony can do - if you can't make what you want to happen with a single button press on a harmony then you can't make alexa do what you want).


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## alexb (Jan 4, 2003)

as an example of what alexa can do, here is my complete list of my actions (this is spread across a harmony skill and the ISY994i skill, all light switches in my house are either zwave or insteon).

whats great is these can be grouped into 'rooms' (think of it like a macro) you can then call the 'room' and it will turn on each of the items in the room.

For lights as an example you can say alexa downstairs 50% and it turns everything in the downstairs room to 50%.

using the bw systems hue bridge you can surface anything that has a rest endpoint as a 'fake hue' and turn it on or off.


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## cwoody222 (Nov 13, 1999)

I found this thread while trying to install Windracer's custom Alexa Skill. Has anyone else given it a try and can offer some debugging help? I think I've come pretty far but I'm stuck now at Alexa telling me there's a "problem with the requested skills response".


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## windracer (Jan 3, 2003)

So what step in the install instructions are you on? Are you proxying the HTTPS traffic directly to your node.js server, or are you trying to use Lambda? Does the internal tester work? Let me know and I'll do what I can to help (or open an issue on Github and we can track it there).


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## cwoody222 (Nov 13, 1999)

Thanks for replying! I put some info over in github. I didn't see that option before (I don't think I had an account yet).

I'm using to use Lambda and getting an error on the tester there. See more info over on Github. Thanks!


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## windracer (Jan 3, 2003)

You opened the issue on the original project instead of my branch, but I'll reply to you there.


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