Include Alexa / Voice Remote as a feature in the Wiim iOS/Android App?

[MatHeb]

Would be super cool if the Voice Remote funktionality also could be included in the iOS/Android App, so have a "remote" tab in the app where you have the buttons and most important also microfone / voice remote feature available.
I do have the voice remote, but still sometimes it would be very convenient to simply use my phone as a remote.

Specially, I use an Alexa Skill from byte.fm (german radiostation) to access the member archive; this works great using the voice remote; but not at all using the iOS Alexa App - besides the Alexa App is the most terrible mess I ever experienced the skill always is run on the iphone and audio is started on the iPhone and not the Wiim. I can start tune in streams on the Wiim using the Alexa App by telling the speaker group or setting it as default, but it totally does not work with the byte.fm alexa skill, this is always handled and played locally on my iphone.

Plus, as I wrote, the Alexa app is a nightmare.

So if I dont have the remote at hand, I'd like to open the WIIM App, and direct a voice command directly to the WIIM like I can do it with the voice remote.

 

[Brantome]

I don’t know if that would be technically feasible tbh. The “Alexa on this Phone” entry in the Alexa app appears as a totally separate ‘virtual’ device, not associated with any particular echo, but can’t be included in a device group to allow skill audio to be diverted to another speaker/device. As you’ve found, you can’t direct skill audio by voice to play on a nominated device, it can only play on the device being asked, in this case “Alexa on this Phone”. The physical remote works as its Bluetooth paired to a particular WiiM device so is seen as part of it (same as an Echo voice remote) and works as if you were speaking to a real echo.

However, you might get round the constraints of such a virtual device by putting your request into an Alexa routine whose ‘hear Alexa from’ setting is set to your WiiM. You might need to use a custom action for the request to play byte.fm. That routine could be invoked by the ‘ask Alexa’ widget from your ios phone.

Edit: Here’s an example routine. I don’t have the byte.fm skill in the UK so chose a random radio skill instead, but I’m sure you can use this as a framework for your radio skill

 

[MatHeb]

I don’t know if that would be technically feasible tbh. The “Alexa on this Phone” entry in the Alexa app appears as a totally separate ‘virtual’ device, not associated with any particular echo, but can’t be included in a device group to allow skill audio to be diverted to another speaker/device. As you’ve found, you can’t direct skill audio by voice to play on a nominated device, it can only play on the device being asked, in this case “Alexa on this Phone”. The physical remote works as its Bluetooth paired to a particular WiiM device so is seen as part of it (same as an Echo voice remote) and works as if you were speaking to a real echo.

However, you might get round the constraints of such a virtual device by putting your request into an Alexa routine whose ‘hear Alexa from’ setting is set to your WiiM. You might need to use a custom action for the request to play byte.fm. That routine could be invoked by the ‘ask Alexa’ widget from your ios phone.

This is why I dont want to use Alexa on the iphone / the Alexa app but simply have a "voice remote" within the WIIM App - the audio could be routed from the Wiim App to the WIIM device the same way as the audio from the voice remote is routed to the WIIM device and processed there - I am sure the voice remote has no real intelligency of it s own, the processing is done on the WiiM. So a plain stupid microphone - audio - send it to the Wiim device where Alexa runs.

 

[Brantome]

This is why I dont want to use Alexa on the iphone / the Alexa app but simply have a "voice remote" within the WIIM App - the audio could be routed from the Wiim App to the WIIM device the same way as the audio from the voice remote is routed to the WIIM device and processed there - I am sure the voice remote has no real intelligency of it s own, the processing is done on the WiiM. So a plain stupid microphone - audio - send it to the Wiim device where Alexa runs.

As I said above, I don’t see it as easy as you suggest due to the way Alexa interfaces/ virtual voice remotes are implemented and authorised. Try the routine method above which you can invoke from the Alexa widget on iOS.