Alexa Smart Home Skill API v2/v3 compatibility reference

Question

I am working on the project related to Amazon Alexa. I develop skills for smart home devices like cameras, sensors, etc. Currently Alexa API version 2 is used everywhere in the project. But our management plans to migrate from Alexa API v2 to v3. Obviously, such transition will be not smooth as desired due to changes in payload format between v2 and v3. So I am searching for Alexa API v2/v3 compatibility reference.

I've already found Smart Home Skill API Reference. Unfortunately, all smart home calls examples in that article are pointed to v2 (this is claimed in the first Note section), only skills for entertainment devices are targeted to v3.

I've already found the list of changes. But seems that the list is continuous, e.g. it's not about API milestones.

I'm not asking for the link (actually I've googled a lot for it). But could you please help me with understanding the difference between v2 and v3 of Alexa API for smart home devices? May be API v3 for smart home devices doesn't exist (or planned to be released in the near future) at all?

Answer 1

V2 has been deprecated. V3 is not backward compatible.

Updated reference material is here:

https://developer.amazon.com/docs/smarthome/smart-home-skill-api-message-reference.html

And a guide to v2/v3 migration is here:

https://developer.amazon.com/docs/smarthome/smart-home-skill-migration-guide.html

Answer 2

In Sept 2017, Amazon completely revamped the developer documentation for the Alexa Smart Home Skill API. You can find the updated landing pages with overview info here:

https://developer.amazon.com/alexa/smart-home/build

Updated reference material is here:

https://developer.amazon.com/docs/smarthome/smart-home-skill-api-message-reference.html

And a guide to v2/v3 migration is here:

https://developer.amazon.com/docs/smarthome/smart-home-skill-migration-guide.html