Doorbell-GPIO
connecting a normal doorbell switch to a GPIO pin that would trigger interactions with mycroft. It would provide a semi-automated interaction with visitors, maybe a back end that could connect to the resident, or at least an intercom to alert people who is at the door before they answer
What third party services, data sets or platforms will the Skill interact with?
delivery persons, visitors, maybe the occasional Jehovah’s witness
Are there similar Mycroft Skills already?
I haven’t seen one
What will the user Speak to trigger the Skill?
button press
What phrases will Mycroft Speak?
Hello, how may I help you?
Hello, may I ask who is calling?
ah UPS delivery, is a signature required?
No one is available right now, [come back later] [I can leave a message]
What Skill Settings will this Skill need to store?
a message from caller
if a package was left ( not sure that these first two are setttings)
local recognition of “wake words” like UPS for FEDEX or Mailman or It’s Mom, just open the door.
Great idea, @Wallylama!
What sort of assistance do you think might be needed for this Skill?
First I’ll state my very specific desire for this. Due to the unusual design of my house the front door is at the top of some stair, my wife has difficulty climbing them in a timely fashion, so my main goal is to avoid having her climb the stairs if it is just a package delivery or similar.
There are probably commercial devices available, but to keep it short we are all here because we aren’t exaclty cor-lexa-gle types
Physical:
- a working Mycroft setup - I have many questions about how to best do this and will be asking them in the forums separately
- an opto-coupler circuit - to keep miscreants with a cattle prod from zapping my Pi. either purchased, or work one up myself
- output - voice is the obvious choice, but klaxon, blinky light other alerting in the case that it is an actual visitor
- input - the ability for a human to talk back to the visitor if required
Software:
- ability to answer with local responses - not a true standalone, but speed is important delivery folks will leave a tag and bolt if you aren’t fast enough and a signature is required
- maybe ability to have mycroft speak words input by human basically the current speak skill made interactive like an intercom (this is almost the same as the input bullet point above
What I need to develop this:
- more experience with python (I’m really an old perlie dude)
- time with mycroft to get an understanding of writing skills
- information on calling one skill from another (to subvert the speak skill to my purposes)
There is probably more, but that is as far as I have thought it out.
a side more note:
it seems like an “intercom” skill could be made with 2 mycroft units, multiple voices and an ability to direct the messages back and forth between them.
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Would it be useful to have some one on one time with one of our experienced developers, @forslund, who could provide an introduction to Skill writing given your background?
We also have some introductory information on writing Skills here at;
Short anwer: not yet
tl;dr - I need to get up to speed a bit more before I can really know what questions I have. I’ll read that intro you posted, that is the best starting point. oh and I would recommend that anyone developing a doorbell skill not stop because they think my idea sounds better. I’m quicker with ideas than results 
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my flowchart for this. I think there are some subtleties that are missing, but please let me know of any major omissions or flaws in my thinking about how this can work.
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so this is a vote category, is there a more appropriate category to discuss this?
This is perfectly fine here; our intent is that this becomes an area to discuss design of new Skills 
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