Controlling blinds with Alexa and Loxone

With MFM Voice, you use Alexa to raise or lower the roller shutters and blinds on your Loxone Miniserver, or move them to a position given as a percentage. You address each device by the name it has in MFM Voice. You decide device by device which blinds Alexa may control at all.

The MFM Voice skill currently only works with an amazon.de account and Alexa set to German, so voice commands are shown in German with an English gloss in brackets.

What works

The “Jalousie / Rollladen” (blind / roller shutter) block can do three things by voice:

• Raise. “Alexa, fahre die Jalousie im Wohnzimmer hoch.” (Raise the blind in the living room.)
• Lower. “Alexa, fahre die Jalousie herunter.” (Lower the blind.)
• Position as a percentage. “Alexa, stelle die Jalousie im Schlafzimmer auf 50 Prozent.” (Set the blind in the bedroom to 50 per cent.)

If your device is called “Rollladen” (roller shutter), say “Rollladen”: “Alexa, fahre den Rollladen im Kinderzimmer herunter.” (Lower the roller shutter in the children's room.)

Good names

MFM Voice takes rooms and devices from the Miniserver. For each device, it suggests a voice name based on the room and device name. You can change any name in MFM Voice. Your Loxone configuration stays unchanged.

Choose names that are easy to say and that you actually use in everyday life. If a room has two roller shutters, give each its own name, for example “Rollladen Terrasse” (terrace roller shutter) and “Rollladen Straße” (street-side roller shutter).

After renaming, say: “Alexa, suche nach neuen Geräten.” (Search for new devices.) Only then does Alexa know the new name.

Groups and routines

In the Alexa app, you assign devices and your Echo device to a group, for example “Wohnzimmer” (living room). Add the blinds in that room to this group. All the devices in a room are then in one place.

You can also use shared devices in Alexa app routines. You create routines under “Mehr” (More) and “Routinen” (Routines). A routine can contain several actions, so it can include several blinds.

Ground floor: what to share

A voice assistant does not check who is speaking. The rule of thumb is therefore: only share for voice control what a guest in your house would be allowed to switch.

Take your time to think this through for the ground-floor blinds, which often double as a privacy screen. You share each device individually in MFM Voice. So you can share the blinds upstairs and leave out those on the ground floor.

Two recommendations:

• Create a separate user for MFM Voice on the Miniserver and give it limited rights only.
• Do not share gates and door openers. Otherwise a gate could be moved by voice, and there is no PIN prompt.

Adding new blinds

If you have added new devices in Loxone Config, proceed as follows:

1. In MFM Voice, click “Neu scannen” (Scan again) under “Miniserver”.
2. Share the new devices.
3. Say: “Alexa, suche nach neuen Geräten.” (Search for new devices.)

A device you no longer need sometimes stays in the Alexa app marked “reagiert nicht” (not responding). Delete it there.

The commands for blinds and all other devices are on the voice commands page.