Alexa and multiple Apex units

Tastee · Jan 14, 2020

I currently have a single tank controlled by an Apex 2016 unit integrated with Alexa. I am about to install a second tank in another room and are trying to understand my options controlling it with Alexa. The new tank will have it’s own Apex head unit.

Does anyone have any experience in doing this they could share?
Are there any online resources talking about this?

One option I am considering is to setup both A new Alexa Echo unit and the new Apex against a different account, i.e. another person’s Apex and Alexa, and share control of the two Apex units with each other’s account.

All suggestions and feedback will be greatly appreciated.

SuncrestReef · Jan 14, 2020

It should be possible, but it's unclear how. When you look at the built-in guide for Alexa in Fusion, they mention Change Controllers:

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SuncrestReef · Jan 14, 2020

More info here: https://forum.neptunesystems.com/showthread.php?26883-Shortcut-to-Controlling-another-System

Tastee · Jan 14, 2020

SuncrestReef said:
More info here: https://forum.neptunesystems.com/showthread.php?26883-Shortcut-to-Controlling-another-System

Thanks for this. I did see a mention of changing controllers when I was searching about this today, so I’ll look into the links.

I have to say my initial reaction is this will be too complex. My wife thinks ‘Alexa, tell Apex Fusion to feed the fish’ is the best thing I did to the tank and I‘m pretty keen on it myself. The complexity of telling Alexa to switch between controllers is almost certainly not going to work for her (or the house sitters we get in occasionally). I had hoped I could differentiate between the tanks with different keywords (e.g. Feed the XL fish vs Feed the fish) but this certainly doesn’t seem possible.

Phog · May 6, 2021

RESURRECTION!! I wonder if it's possible to use an Alexa routine to handle the swapping - I also want to be able to issue one command to start the feed cycles on multiple Apex's. I wonder if you could script the whole sequence out with a super-smart routine? I'll mess around with it, but bumping this in case someone's figured it out.