Build Instructions

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• 1

  Building Custom Alexa Skill

  For working with amazon services you will need to have an account for AWS cloud. I am assuming you have already an account.

  1. Login Amazon developer account and navigate to Alexa developer console.

  2. Click on Create skill.
  

  3. Enter a name for the skill and leave the rest at default as shown in following Figure. (Ensure default language is English (US). Default settings allows us to create a custom skill and use our own AWS lambda endpoint)

  4.  Choose hello world template and click on Continue with template.
  

  5.  Start building the custom skill by

       a. Entering an invocation name – ‘talking home’ is used in this project. This name is required for launching our custom skill.

       b. Adding custom intents and utterances –
  

           We will add a separate intent for controlling each of the device that we want to operate with our voice command. For adding a new intent click on Add Intent

          Put an intent name and click on Create custom intent

           Add all those phrases the user might utter to achieve the intent’s functionality as its sample utterances. (e.g. suppose a user wants to turn on the kitchen light, then the user may ask: turn on the kitchen light, turn the kitchen light, kitchen light on, make kitchen light on etc.)
  

  You can create the intents from the GUI in the developer console shown in the above step or use the provided JSON file (intents.json) and copy paste the contents in the JSON editor tab directly.

      c.  After creating all the intents ‘Save model’ followed by ‘Build Model’ and ensure error free build.
  

      d. Test your model by using ‘Evaluate model’. Entering a sample utterance should invoke the correct intent.

      e. Go to Endpoints -> Choose AWS Lambda ARN. Copy the skill Id. This is required in the AWS Lambda services configuration.

  After creating Lambda function we will get an ARN. We will return to the Alexa developer console and add the ARN of the lambda function we create in Alexa Skill endpoint.

      Refer to Alexa documentation for developing custom skill for more detailed explanation of creating custom skills.
  

• 2

  Configuring the AWS IoT Core service

  Login to AWS console. Go to the AWS IoT Core.
  

  AWS IoT Core requires the following to be set up

  1.       Things - Things refer to a representation of the physical device.

  2.      Certificates - Certificates should be created to ensure secure communication between AWS and the device.

  3.      Policies - you must create and attach an AWS IoT policy that will determine what AWS IoT operations the thing may perform.

  Things Setup

  a. Go to AWS IoT Core service and from the Manage tab click on Things and then choose Register a thing

  b. Select Create a single thing and provide a thing name, keep other thing untouched and click on next

  Certificate Setup

  a. After creating a thing your next task is to create certificate for the thing. For creating certificate click on Create certificate

  b. Your certificate will be created. After creating certificate you need to download all the certificate file. You will required all these for PSoC programming.

  Attaching a Policy

  Now you need to attach a policy for the thing giving necessary access permission

  1. In the AWS IoT console, if a Get started button appears, choose it. Otherwise, in the navigation pane, expand Secure, and then choose Policies.
  2. If a You don't have any policies yet dialog box appears, choose Create a policy. Otherwise, choose Create.
  3. Enter a name for the AWS IoT policy (for example, psoc_policy). Add the json text and click on Create.

  I have already created a policy and added this policy to the thing. 

  From IoT things page you can choose already created policy and then click on Register Thing. You AWS IoT thing will be created syccessfully.

  Follow the instructions in the amazon documentation for more to create things, certificates, policies and attach the policies to certificates.

  Ensure to have same region selected for AWS lambda and AWS IoT core.

  Regions can be selected at the top right corner in both the consoles. N.Virginia (US EAST region was selected in this project).

• 3

  Creating Lambda function

  1. From AWS home page, open lambda services by navigating through Services -> Compute -> Lambda and click on Create function.

    2. Choose to create function -> Author from scratch and Enter a function name.

     Choose Node.js 12.x for Runtime.
  

     3. Leave ‘choose/create execution role’ at default (i.e create a new role with basic lambda permissions).

     4. Once the function is created,  click on Add trigger and choose Alexa Skills Kit. 

    5. Enable skill id verification and paste the copied skill id from the Alexa skills endpoint section.
  

    6. Click on Lambda function name and Scroll down to the code function area and copy the code provided as index.js to the console
  

      7. Modify the lambda function to interact with the ‘thing’ related data in AWS IoT.

          a. Insert Endpoint with your own ‘thing’ endpoint from the IoT AWS core.

          Navigate to Things -> Interact and choose the REST API endpoint in the IoT AWS core.

          b. Change the ‘thing’ name in the lambda function per the thing name created in AWS IoT as shown below.
  

  8. Copy the ARN of your lambda function. Go back to Alexa developer page and add this to the default region of AWS Lambda ARN in the Alexa Skills Endpoint.

                This is required for invoking this lambda function when the user interacts with ASK

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