bmercier

You can retrieve status for locks and thermostats, but not for regular devices. Amazon unfortunately has not implemented that. There's an API to report the state of a device, but Amazon does not make use of it for voice requests. It's used only for the mobile device app. Maybe this will be available eventually. All that Amazon would need to do is implement the vernacular, and use the ReportState API.

The maintenance is now completed. Benoit

Hello everyone, We will have a maintenance this Sunday 05-13-2018 at 5:00 AM PDT which will last 1 hour. During this period, the node server component (occupancy) is expected to be interrupted for a few minutes. Changes - Installation of the Occupancy V2 Beta. More details to come on this new feature. Benoit

It has nothing to do with your existing lights. All that it does is create a new Alexa device. When you will ask to turn on/off this device, or set it to x%, it will set the variable, that’s it. Then it’s up to you to create a program which will react to the variable, such as turn on the sprinkler, and every minutes decrement the variable until 0, and ultimately turn the sprinkler off. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

In the admin console, create your state variable. On ISY Portal, connectivity/Alexa, click Add variable. This will create an Alexa device which will set the variable based on the percentage. Benoit

Another alternative could be to simply use a state variable to hold the timer. "Alexa, turn on sprinkler station 16 to 20 percent" could set a state variable to 20, which you use in programs as a countdown to 0. Not as friendly, but at least, you would not have to create tons of programs and corresponding spokens. Benoit

Hello everyone, Maintenance is completed. Benoit

Hello everyone, We will have an ISY Portal maintenance this coming Sunday, from 5am to 6am, Pacific. During that period, Your ISY access will have a short downtime of 1-2 minutes at most. The purpose of the maintenance is to install a fix on the proxy servers. Thanks, Benoit

Most likely you had both the old ISY Smart Home Skill which has been sunset recently, and the newer Smart Home Skill V3. Please disable the skill named "ISY Optimized for Smart Home". You will also have to either remove those offline devices one by one, or Forget all and redo a discovery. Benoit

Look in the Alexa app, web version, go to the list of devices. Do you see any of them marked as offline? If so, please forget them. I would also look at your list of skills. Which smart home skills do you have? Benoit

Thanks for the details. This is the expected behavior. ISY scenes do not have a status. When Alexa queries the "device", the skill knows it's a scene and will return an error as the status is unknown. This is the drawback to exposing scenes as devices. Regarding the turn off not working, it's also expected. If Alexa think it's off, when you press the button, it will send a turn on. But after turning it on, it queries the status... which returns an error. So it is considered off. If you would like a work-around and get a status, you could wrap your scenes inside a program. Programs do have a status. So if you use Alexa to turn on a program, which turn on the scene, then the status returned will be on (program status will be true). But, if the scene is activated outside the scope of the program, or if your light is manually turned on/off, then the status of the program won't match the device. You could go a step further by adding an if your program. Example: If device is not off turn on device else turn off device. This way, the program status will always reflect the status of the light. Benoit

Can you try to forget the device in the Alexa app (web version), then re-discover it? Benoit

Do you see the on/off buttons? If so, does it work when you click on them? Are you saying it's not working due to an error message at the top? If so, this is normal. This is due to the fact that scenes don't have a status. This is the drawback to expose a scene as a device. But still, you should be able to controle them, include them in groups and routines. Benoit

Do you see the device under "devices"?

What's the issue then?

There's nothing in the skills API to allow us to do that programmatically, at least for now.

Did you ask "Alexa, discover my devices"? Then in the app, refresh the screen. Under smart home, you should no longer see the scene under "scenes". It should appear under "Devices". Benoit

Scenes now work a bit differently, and they are as Amazon would expect them - not controllable from the app. If you want to control them from the app, you should expose them as devices to Alexa. To do this, go to ISY Portal, open up the scene, and under "Alexa Category", choose Light instead of Scene. Then ask Alexa to discover devices. The scene will disappear from your scenes, but you will now have a device which you can control and add to your group. Benoit

All, The only recent change to the skill is related to ISY scenes exposed as Alexa scenes. The change was to enable the capability to use scenes in Alexa routines. If your Alexa routine is exposed as a light/outlet/switch, there's no change. Benoit

When using a group, Alexa will send indivudual turn on/off for each group members. If one fails, such as when the device no longer exists, an error is returned to Anazon. Then, it's up to Amazon to decide what to do if a few are successful and one fails. Benoit

Hello everyone, From now on, you should be able to use Scenes in Routines. You no longer need to expose them as a device. This was due to a work-around we had for scenes related to the fact that ISY scenes are dimmable, whereas scenes from other manufacturers are not. There was initially a bug at Amazon that prevented the use of dimmable scenes, but this has been fixed since then. I was therefore able to remove the work-around. Benoit

If the routine says to turn on a scene exposed as a device to x percent, the scene will simply be turned on as long as x > 0. Otherwise, the scene will be turned off. Benoit

Some names may not be recognized correctly by Alexa. Try common input names like "game" or "cable". Benoit

You can find it in the ISY SDK here: https://www.universal-devices.com/isy-developers/ Benoit

The update is now completed. Benoit