10/2023
Some spookily good features released this month in time for Halloween! 🎃
📹 Media Library
Over the coming months we'll be adding our own library of audio sound effects and videos for use in your Flows and automations.
Ambient Videos and Soundscapes for Halloween
We've added a selection of Halloween themed ambient videos and soundscapes to help your Halloween home decor come alive.
🎵 Media Library Short-cuts
Access your Media files more easily from within Flows and the API Playground using the "Media Library" shortcut.
⏰ Echo Dot with Clock Character Display
Set the display on your "Echo Dot with Clock" via an API call or via Flows!
Announcement Text on Echo Shows
Now when creating an announcement within Flows you have the option of displaying the announcement text on a screen enabled Alexa device.
08/2023
We released a bunch of new apps this month BUT uptake has been low. So going forward Voice Monkey will be focusing on Flows and helping you automate your Alexa home. Apps will have less focus and not shown to new users from September onwards.
🚫 no_bg Parameter!
We've had feedback that you don't always want our green monkey logo being displayed on your Echo Show screens when an announcement is made. So you can now remove any background within flows or using the no_bg parameter in API calls.
🐵Meet Vomo!
Vomo is our new company mascot. Sooooo cute! Vomo will be making a cheeky appearance here and there, like in our latest video for new users helping them get their devices up and running.
07/2023
July has been all about Flows, Variables and Webhooks!
🌊 New Flow Actions!
Flows create amazing automations that extend your Alexa routines and allow you to do even more! We've added new Flow scheduling options as well as some new actions:
Web Requests - Make HTTP GET and POST requests to another URL - Use this to trigger events in other platforms from within Voice Monkey and Alexa.
Flow Triggers - Trigger other Flows from within a Flow. Create cool parent->child relationships.
Variable Set - Set the value of a variable within a Flow.
Conditions - Create IF/ELSE condition logic based on the value of a variable.
📦 Variables
Variables are powerful little beasts. Create one and set the value via API calls, Flows or via the console.
Variables can then be used within announcement text by using curly brackets e.g. "hello {FIRST_NAME}"
They can also be used within Flows to create IF/ELSE logic. e.g. IF {FIRST_NAME} is "JOE" do this, ELSE do that.
🪝 Webhooks
Wow wow wow Webhooks!
These are awesome. You can now send HTTP requests to a unique webhook URL that triggers an action.
We also save the Webhook's payload and assign it to a variable. This way you can use it in your webhook actions. Actions include:
Announcement - Make an announcement when a Webhook event is received. You can even include some of your payload data within the annoucement itself.
Routine Trigger - Trigger an Alexa routine when a webhook event is received.
Flow - Trigger more advanced functionality by starting a Flow.
05/2023
This is a huge release! It's the next phase of the Voice Monkey journey helping you to make your Alexa smart home even smarter.
Plus, with the release of Flows and Apps we want to help you craft your Ambient Home.
Here's what's new...
🌎 A new website
You're looking at it right now. This new site is quicker and slicker and shows off our new branding. This will be the central location for new helpful guides, tutorials and documentation going forward.
🎖 A new plan
Basic - Our FREE plan is now even better. As well as unlimited virtual devices/triggers + API the FREE plan gives you access to some apps (see below).
PRO - PRO has now been deprecated. PRO was our first ever paid plan. We constantly had feedback from Voice Monkey users on how cheap it was. They were right. It only just about covered running costs of the platform and it didn't incentivise development and further improvements. We have now stopped offering this plan to new users. Existing PRO subscribers can continue using the PRO plan. Not only that, but you now have access to new features such as Flows and basic Apps (see below). Some features such as Media and Schedules are avaiable only on the Premium plan. You can upgrade to Premium at any time.
Premium - Our new plan offers full access to all Voice Monkey features for a low monthly price (cancel any time). With the new features and all the cool upgrades coming soon this plan represents great value. Look out for regular offers too.
🧑🔧 Flows
Flows (Beta) is a new powerful feature which opens up new possibilities for your Alexa smart home.
With Flows you can add Actions that occur in sequence. Actions range from making announcements, displaying videos, playing audio, triggering Routines and more.
You can for example add an "Audio" action which plays an Audio file over your Amazon Echo device. This Flow can then be triggered from an Alexa Routine, an API call, on a schedule or manually through the console.
Flows also replaces the Presets feature, which was very inflexible. Yes/No prompts are now much easier with Flows. Create a "Question" action and then add actions for the Yes+No responses. Easy.
The possibilities with Flows are endless. And there are plenty of enhancements to come.
🐵 Apps
Apps are our easy to use pre-configured experiences.
We're starting small and would love your feedback on the current Apps and new ones you'd like to see.
To start we've launched ambient sounds to help you sleep and focus including White Noise and Fan Noise. We also have some clock sounds like Cuckoo Clock which are designed to chime either each our or every quarter hour.
We have loads more Apps in the pipeline and are excited to share them with you.
⚙️ APIs
We've launched version 2 of the API and made several changes, please read on.
API v1 - The old version of the API is now deprecated. It's still available and will continue to work but will no longer be updated or supported. All documentation will now refer to v2.
API v2 - v2 creates some new endpoints, adds and re-names some parameters, changes the authentication slightly and removes some previous features.
Authentication - Instead of an access and secret token, you now need to provide one "token" parameter either as a GET or POST param or in the header of the request. See the docs for more info.
Announcement API - This is the endpoint to use when pushing content to an Echo device, whether that's making an announcement, playing audio or displaying a video. We've added some new parameters that allow more control over images and video.
Troutine Trigger API - This is the endpoint to use for triggering your Alexa routines.
Flows Trigger API - This is the endpoint to use for starting a Flow.
Playground - The API Playground (found in the console) has been updated. The Presets and Logs functionality has been removed. We may re-instate new logging functionality soon.
Please refer to documentation for more information and use the Playground in the console to test the API.
⏰ Schedules
Both Apps and Flows make use of Schedules.
With Flows, this enables you to trigger a Flow on a schedule. Want to trigger an Alexa routine every hour? That's now possible.
Apps can also run on a schedule. Want White Noise played for 12 hours starting at 9pm each night. Easy.
Schedules are only available on the Premium plan.
🎬 Media Uploads
Often, Voice Monkey users want to play an audio or video file in their requests but up until now it relied on you hosting media on your own servers or Dropbox / Google Drive etc.
With the Media upload feature you can now upload personal files to Voice Monkey and easily get a URL you can use in your projects.
Media uploads are only available on the Premium plan.
Coming Soon
We're working on new features, enhancements to Flows, new Apps, guides, documentation and much more. If you have any feedback or there's a feature you'd like to see please get in touch and let us know.