madcodger

Ditto

ditto

Stu - Have been traveling so can't check until weekend. Not easy on this fan though, due to the canopy design. Essentially have to disassemble much of it. Bambam16 - This is my basic working hypothesis. In fact, I am wondering if the fanlinc simply cuts power to the fan for a fraction of a second, varying that rate based on desired speed. I installed the fanlinc to be able to turn off the fan when no one was in the room (we tend to forget about them), and other than turning it on from my bedside iPad rather than get out of bed and walk a few feet, get no other benefit from it. If I cannot resolve this, I will likely just remove this fan and put it in another room (probably without the fanlinc), and install a better fan guaranteed to be quiet, with a different control. Fan noise in a bedroom is one of my pet peeves, so I have no problem spending more for a better unit. I just wish a better unit was more easily obtained! The "box" stores just don't cut it, but I find that increasingly true for most of their products.

Thanks for the thoughts, all. So, I have installed many ceiling fans, but only this one on a fanlinc. The noise is definitely much worse than any I've ever owned or installed. It is possible that I have somehow allowed the manual control to be placed on medium, but it does not seem to behave as such in terms of its speed settings. That's a good thing to check, though. There are no electronic controls on the fan - just the three speed + off pull chain. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

As warm weather approaches we have been using a bedroom ceiling fan (Hunter, from a big box store - no idea as to model) connected to a fanlinc and controlled by a KPL. I notice that on low - and especially on medium - the fan produces a "hum" sound that cycles about every half second or so. The effect is a low frequency sound that I can only describe as "wum-wum-wum", continuously and, to me, annoyingly. Is anyone else experiencing this? Any ideas on how to resolve? This is our only fanlinc, and I'm ready to replace anything necessary to get rid of that annoying low frequency sound. Thanks in advance for input.

Modest increase in delay this evening, but have not tried a anything extensive. Do wish they would stop messing with things "randomly" at Amazon, though. A predictable release cycle would be nice.

And for our house, we want to voice control Sonos for whatever room we're in, by saying, for example, "Tell Izzy to play [artist] on Pandora." That could easily run a program on a Pi (or substitute Izzy with Homeseer, although I'd rather not). I oppose the multiple account workaround because I frequently make use of the shopping list and to do list throughout the house, and want them all fed to the same account. It also makes it easier to control devices if the specific Echo ID is passed through to a smarthome device, for the reasons Stu notes. I admire his clever workaround. I just don't want Amazon to force us to use a workaround!

Stu, We will just never agree on this one, although I respect your workaround. I maintain that having to create multiple accounts is just not a solution that works for many (including me), and that having to remember which device has which name removes much of the functionality of the Echo/Alexa as a control system. I continue to press for Amazon enabling passthrough of the device (or instance of the app, with this latest suggestion) that is making the request. That enables true voice control within a connected home. Other solutions - admirable as they are as workarounds - are less than the HA community needs. They also limit the future potential of the Amazon solution dominating as others come to market. And Amazon is sooooo close on this... Just barely out of reach.

I think voice enabling the app is genius, and it would have no effect on my purchase of the hardware (I have four Echos already). In fact, if they would create the ability to specify WHICH Echo _ or the app- were receiving instructions, this would only further my dependency. I already find Alexa 10x better than Siri, and often wish I could add to my to do list or shopping list in the app - using voice - while out and about.

Updated last night. In master bedroom - at 3:51 AM!!! I thought, "What in blue blazes??" Quite literally, as it was BRIGHT. No Dot ordered, and I have four Echos, but ONLY the one updated. Update (morning 3/29): Checked again this morning - still no additional Echos updated (just the one in MBR). Interesting that this unit abruptly offered to do Bluetooth pairing when I was in Alexa app this morning, but I was doing nothing that should have caused this. The mystery of the Amazon has taken on a whole new meaning.

We can only hope. Sooooo close to a perfect system. Yet the gap is significant.

Personally, I could do without knowing what is playing because I'll soon enough hear it. I continue to wish we could pass the specific Echo identity making a request (which of several within a home/account) to ISY, as that would allow for much more control within the home, including control of specific Sonos speakers. There are 2 or 3 Echo > Sonos controllers written and available (a decent one on Github) but in a multiple Echo household they become largely unworkable without the ability to specify WHICH Sonos should play. One could specify in the phrasing in a program name, I suppose, but that quickly becomes tiresome and prone to error. If "Alexa" were able to pass along the specific Echo from which a command was made, the existing Sonos controllers could likely be easily modified, and we would have a much sought after solution. I have written Amazon about this (there is much application other than for Sonos) and received no reply other than the standard acknowledgement of receipt.

They've gone to just plain annoying. Talk about squandering an opportunity to please customers, simply by allowing us to pick a response from a short list.

OK, I just have to share two recent experiences that might shed some light on this: 1) HS released an update recently to HS3, so I ran it earlier this week. Not a beta, but an update that was pushed out to me (I had to run a beta earlier if I wanted to try some capabilities related to the Echo). Now, HS relies heavily on "plugins", and I had about a half dozen running (much decreased from years past, as I have pared them down in pursuit of reliability). Only two were really critical to me as they work together to accomplish the one remaining thing on which I count on HS to handle. So what happened when I ran the update? It disabled all the plugins at restart. Yeah, that's just brilliant. No warning, and I discovered the problem when, of course, that one important function failed. Thanks, Homeseer... 2) I just read through a thread on their forum about an upgraded Echo skill. When users reported a problem with running events via the Echo, one of the suggestions from what I believe is one of the people responsible for the upgrade was to use your PHONE to issue voice commands as a handy alternative. Huh????? Sure - that must be the reason I installed four Echos - to use my phone because the skill doesn't cut it. I'll just say it (and I have no affiliation with either company except as a customer of many years): The ISY JUST WORKS, and does what the company says it will do, reliably. It is not as easy to expand and do as many things as Homeseer, and goodness knows I've beaten Michel up about that here and there. But it is a reliable core for control of my home. I have come to trust it. Homeseer, on the other hand, has become the program that I grudgingly tolerate only because I have not yet taught myself to write python for the one or two things that I am forced to have Homeseer do. But one day, a Pi and python will make it go away. The ISY will remain, talking to the Pi. So there's some additional elaboration on one user's real world experience.

I have used HS since v1 and it once ran our entire home; I now have HS3 running. I started with an ISY 99i years ago, and now have the 994, of course. I have an Elk security system and we have four Echos in our home. I find the ISY handles just about everything, without issue. Homeseer, meanwhile, is down to helping me communicate with one of the Nest thermostats and monitoring some odds and ends of Oregon Scientific stuff. Reliability was the big thing for me, as the ISY often sits for months, just working. I had a terrible time with HS2, and still more issues with HS3. It's stable now, but I learned my lesson, personally. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

I just noticed this, but it happens when they are on the same account, as well. We have only one spot in our house where this happens, as the four Echos are on three levels. But if I stand in one spot, the two on the same level can each hear me. I guess one of them "grabs" control, and the other doesn't know it. Interesting... BTW, my wife now uses Alexa as much as me, mostly for weather and music. Sweet!

Hi Everyone, I have mentioned in some other threads that I thought it would be helpful if Amazon would enable Connected Home devices to know the specific Echo device from which a command was being issued. Some have noted that the use of sub-accounts is a workaround for this, but I find that to be an unsatisfactory solution that does not allow for full integration of the Echo/Dot into a truly "Connected Home". So, I wrote to Amazon today to make my case for this. Here is the text of my note to them: It would be very helpful if, when using Connected Home, each Echo device was able to tell Connected Home device(s) its identity when mutliple Echos exist in the home. My use case is that I want to be able to control Sonos devices using the Echo. I know you don't connect direclty to Sonos, but dI don't need a Sonos interface to do this, as I have an ISY device and Homeseer, either of which could accomplish this. But commands such as "Play ____ on Sonos", or even using a skill command such as "Tell Izzy to play ____ on Sonos" can't work UNLESS the specific device ID is passed through to the Connected Home device, because the Connected Home device has no way to know which Echo the speaker is using at the moment. Please understand, we love our Echos (I have four, already). But the sound quality is nowhere near that of a Sonos device... However, you could easily make Sonos control (or almost ANY location-specific control within the home) very possible for those of us with home automation systems, IF you would just pass the ID of the specific Echo (Kitchen, Living Room, etc.) through to the Connected Home device so that we didn't have to make our voice commands overly long, by having to state the location we are trying to control via the voice command. There are many other applications besides the one I reference here, that would allow for control of, say, the lights in a specific room by just saying "turn on the lights". The Connected Home device would know the location of the speaker, and turn on the main lighting for that room. So, if you want to sell even more Echo (or Dot) devices, I suggest this be adopted soon. It would encourage customers to purchase and place multiple Echos / Dots throughout a home, and help to take your fantastic technology from a novelty to an integral part of the modern "smarthome". Please feel free to contact me if you need someone to help beta test this, as I can do so across two different automation platforms that work with Connected Home, plus Sonos, if desired. If others also desire this, I encourage you to use the Alexa app to provide your feedback. The "General Feedback" link is found at the lower part of the left-column menu. If we had this capability, it would allow for much easier integration of the Echo/Dot into our systems, as commands such as those I note above could be more easily accomplished. Just thought I'd post here, in case others are interested.

And do you use different login info compared to your ISY? Perhaps it just tried the same info, and it worked?

I was mostly ribbing you guys because the change caused quite a flurry of discussion. As you and others have mentioned, a choice would be great. In fact, it might be nice if Amazon allowed one of several USER-selectable settings: OK Tones No response (action just happens) Random (Ok / You got it / As you wish / etc) None of these should be hard, as all are just acknowledgment of a command. The last one really gives Alexa additional personality. Oh, and I STILL think being able to have room-specific Echos / Dots would be THE big improvement, without this sub-account / multiple account nonsense. Just throwing that in...

Hmmm... I rather prefer the tones. Would you prefer I not vote?

The sub-account route is not, in my view, acceptable. It is a kludgy workaround to something that Amazon could easily address for its Connected Home feature set.

Having a house full of Sonos Play 3's (with no input jack) and four Echos, I can't find a use for the Dot. I still just wish they would focus on making it easy (even possible) to have any of these devices know the room it is in, and respond accordingly.

I no longer worry about being politically correct. Amazon should know better!

Appreciared - Thank You. But still want Amazon to address these issues.

Thank you. This seems to be the best we ISY users can do for now, but it's still FAR from ideal from a home automation / usability perspective. I have four Echos, so having four Amazon accounts is just not practical. I want to USE my Echos to do things like create shopping lists (much of which might be fulfilled by Amazon), reminders, to-do lists, etc. Three of my Echo devices will be useless for this, as they will be connected to the "wrong" account. That is not UDI's fault - it is Amazon's - for failing to consider the fact that some households might actually want to use Echo for something more than a party trick. Amazon needs to think about "power users" (for lack of a better term) who want to embrace their Echo devices - and thus their use of Amazon services - as an integral rather than occasional element of how their home functions. Requiring the use of multiple Amazon accounts does nothing to facilitate this, and in fact hinders it. I appreciate UDI and ISY users for the ingenuity shown here; however, this is a kludgy, cobbled together workaround that we are forced to attempt because Amazon is focusing on novelty dabblers rather than ALSO making relatively simple changes that would make the Echo a truly useful household tool instead of a goofy little device in a bad TV commercial. Echo has breakthrough potential in the way voice is used within the home, and from an engineering perspective it is truly a marvel. But that potential is not being adequately developed because Amazon is thinking in terms of how their customers might use their Echo (one) device rather than multiple Echos placed strategically around a home. This is a major misstep on the part of an ill-prepared product marketing/launch team at Amazon that failed to consider that the Echo would be anything more than a novelty at launch. I'll admit that their primary need was to promote product trial, to gain users. But one of the key things such a team must also consider is, "What if it works"? The Amazon team has thus far failed in that regard, and they need to correct it NOW. Otherwise, there will soon be a fair number of second-third-etc Echos on Ebay, and a bad taste in the mouths of what would otherwise have been especially loyal Amazon customers with reasonable levels of disposable income. The ball is in your court, Amazon, but early adopting power users are not known for their patience.