Proactive Events in Alexa Skills

From the Alexa Skill Developer news feed, of interest, with an example:

Send Timely Information to Your Alexa Skill Customers with the ProactiveEvents API   By June Lee

We are excited to announce the availability of the ProactiveEvents API. With the API, you can enable your Alexa skills to send notifications to customers who have granted permissions. By providing timely, relevant information, you can keep your customers engaged and retain them effectively. The Gomi Maru skill, which helps with recycling and garbage collection in Japan, is a great example. “The garbage collection schedules in Japan are different every week, and that makes it difficult for customers to remember when it’s garbage day. Thanks to the ProactiveEvents API, we built a skill that proactively sends notifications to customers on the garbage collection days. It helps customers avoid having to keep garbage in their houses for a long time,” says Shinya Terasaki, Principal Engineer at Shaxware Inc.  ... " 

Amazon Alexa will Deliver Skill-Based Notifications

This does not sound like much, but it is a considerable thing.   You still have to ask for the notification. Which could cause a problem depending on how many notifications you have.  It seems it would also be useful to allow a skill to take the initiative and directly notify you by voice,  or ask for information. With your opt-in permission of course.

Imagine Alexa asking for some key information that might drive an analytical model.  And inserting that into a process flow.  That's real assistance.  Connect to an IFTTT?   In CNet:

"Alexa, what did I miss?" Amazon introduces voice notifications
Soon, Alexa users will be able to turn on notifications for Amazon shopping updates and select skills, including the Washington Post and AccuWeather.

Tuesday, Amazon announced that it's giving Alexa the ability to notify you of shopping updates or alerts from your favorite skills. When a new notification comes in, the light ring at the top of your Amazon Echo or Amazon Echo Dot will turn green and you'll hear a chime. To hear the notification, just say "Alexa, what did I miss?"   .... ' 

For links to my coverage of many virtual assistants.

Beacon System for Push Notification

A very simple idea, a small device that can generate an alert for a push notification based on context and location. .  Note this is unrelated in function to the Amazon Dot, even though it looks similar.

Seeing this more generally as a way to construct an IoT network in a smart home that can react intelligently to its inhabitants and mobile devices.

In FastCodesign:  This $20 Dot Makes Push Notifications Way Less Annoying ... Now on Kickstarter, these small Bluetooth beacons contextualize how your smartphone behaves based on your location.

" ...  GPS just doesn't have the granularity to determine whether or not you're in your bedroom or your home office, which is why companies like Apple use supplementary hardware called iBeacons to provide customers contextual information throughout their stores. Google has a similar project, called Nearby, that pings users in public places like museums and stores.

Dot is a set of beacon-like devices for your home and other personal spaces that allow you to contextualize your push notifications. A Dot is essentially a Bluetooth beacon that you stick on any surface. As your smartphone gets closer, it can detect the exact distance based upon signal strength, and send a push notification when you get within a certain distance. What's cool about Dot is that you can program that notification to contain anything, through an app inspired by popular internet recipe-making platform IFTTT (an acronym for "If This, Then That"). A Dot can just as easily be programmed to remind your roommate to take out the trash as it can turn on the smart lights to your bedroom when you walk in the room. ... "