Alexa.ColorController Interface

The Alexa.ColorController interface describes the messages used to change and report the color of an endpoint such as a color-changing light bulb.

Directives
- SetColor
Properties and Events
Additional Sample Code
Related Interfaces

Directives

The control and query directives in this interface are supported in skills that target the following languages:

English - all locales
French (FR)
German
Italian
Japanese
Spanish (ES)

See Develop Smart Home Skills in Multiple Languages for more information.

SetColor

Request to set the color of the light for an endpoint.

User: Alexa, set the device name to color

User: Alexa, set the bedroom light to red

User: Alexa, change the kitchen to the color blue

User: setze Wohnzimmerlicht auf rosa

Example Request:

{
    "directive": {
        "header": {
            "namespace": "Alexa.ColorController",
            "name": "SetColor",
            "payloadVersion": "3",
            "messageId": "abc-123-def-456",
            "correlationToken": "dFMb0z+PgpgdDmluhJ1LddFvSqZ/jCc8ptlAKulUj90jSqg=="
        },
        "endpoint": {
            "scope": {
                "type": "BearerToken",
                "token": "access-token-from-skill"
            },
            "endpointId": "appliance-001",
            "cookie": {}
        },
        "payload": {
            "color": {
                "hue": 350.5,
                "saturation": 0.7138,
                "brightness": 0.6524
            }
        }
    }
}

Payload details

Field	Description	Type	Required
`color`	Describes the color to set for the light. Specified in the hue, saturation, brightness (HSB) color model.	color object	Yes

Important: The brightness value of a SetColor directive will align to the customer's requested color, however, for the best customer experience when you make a color change, you should maintain the current brightness setting of the target endpoint. For example, if a bulb is set to white at 50% brightness (0.5), and a customer requests a color change to red, the SetColor directive provides hue, saturation and brightness values of 0,1,1, respectively, which indicates full brightness. In this case, you should ignore the brightness value in the directive, and maintain the current brightness setting of 0.5.

Properties and Events

For this capability, you must either reply:

Synchronously, which means you send a Response event to Alexa from the Lambda function.
Asynchronously, which means you send a Response event to the Alexa event gateway. When you reply asynchronously, you must include a scope with an authorization token to identify the customer, and a correlation token to identify the directive you are responding to.

When you send a Response, you should include the state of the interface properties in the context of the message.

For lighting endpoints that support the ColorController and ColorTemperatureController interfaces, report the state of color when an endpoint is set to a color, and report the state of colorTemperatureInKelvin when an endpoint is set to a shade of white.

Properties

Property Name	Type	Description
`color`	Color	Describes the color to set for the light. The value is specified in the hue, saturation, brightness (HSB) color model. Report the `color` property only when the bulb is set to an HSB color.

Response

If the SetColor directive was successfully handled, you should respond with an Response event and include the state of the color property in the context of the message.

Example Response

The following example shows a response for a endpoint that supports HSB colors or for a endpoint that supports HSB colors and color temperature, but is currently set to an HSB color.

{
    "context": {
        "properties": [ {
            "namespace": "Alexa.ColorController",
            "name": "color",
            "value": {
                "hue": 350.5,
                "saturation": 0.7138,
                "brightness": 0.6524
            },
            "timeOfSample": "2017-02-03T16:20:50.52Z",
            "uncertaintyInMilliseconds": 1000
        } ]
    },
    "event": {
        "header": {
            "namespace": "Alexa",
            "name": "Response",
            "payloadVersion": "3",
            "messageId": "abc-123-def-456",
            "correlationToken": "dFMb0z+PgpgdDmluhJ1LddFvSqZ/jCc8ptlAKulUj90jSqg=="
        },
        "endpoint": {
            "scope": {
              "type": "BearerToken",
              "token": "access-token-from-Amazon"
      },
            "endpointId": "appliance-001"
        },
        "payload": {}
    }
}

ErrorResponse

You should reply with an error if you cannot complete the customer request for some reason. See Alexa.ErrorResponse for more details.

Additional Sample Code

See the sample request and response messages in the Alexa smart home GitHub repo:

ColorController

Interface	Description
Alexa.ColorTemperatureController	Sets the color temperature of a tunable light endpoint.