Two Echos in two different homes with two different ISY

[gduprey]

Howdy,

 

I split my time between two homes (50%/50%) and I've equipped both homes with an ISY for automation and an Echo.  

 

Both Echo's are linked to my Amazon account and I'm going to have the ISYPortal on both ISYs

 

How would I approach setting this up so that commands issued to the Echo at one house control only that houses ISY and vice versa?

 

Thanks!

 

Gerry

[larryllix]

How would commands for house get to the other house?

[gduprey]

I actually am not looking to "cross the streams" -- I want the Echo in House A to command the ISY in house A and the Echo in House B to command the ISY in house B.

 

But when I setup things in the Alexa/Echo ISY portal, there doesn't seem to be a way to connect commands heard at Echo A to ISY A and commands heard at Echo B to ISY B.  Right now, what I think would happen is commands to Echo A or B would have the same commands from  ISY A and likely command to either Echo would cause ISY A to respond and ISY B to do nothing.

 

It might be easier if I had each Echo on it's own account and two separate ISYPortal accounts (not sure if I need that, but), but then I can do amazon ordering or share my music collection between the two, which sucks a lot of value out of the Echo

[DennisC]

 

It might be easier if I had each Echo on it's own account and two separate ISYPortal accounts (not sure if I need that, but), but then I can do amazon ordering or share my music collection between the two, which sucks a lot of value out of the Echo

I think you would be able to share some ordering and music collection. Amazon allows you to add family members to your account, or at least Amazon Prime does.

 

You might want to look in to that.

 

Dennis

[Xathros]

Howdy,

 

I split my time between two homes (50%/50%) and I've equipped both homes with an ISY for automation and an Echo.  

 

Both Echo's are linked to my Amazon account and I'm going to have the ISYPortal on both ISYs

 

How would I approach setting this up so that commands issued to the Echo at one house control only that houses ISY and vice versa?

 

Thanks!

 

Gerry

I too am interested in this.  I have an ISY at the office and one at home.  While both ISYs do communicate for some things, I'd rather have the Echos linked only to the local ISY.  I kmow I can tell the skill which ISY to address but I don't believe that affects the connected home aspect.

 

Is there or will there be a way to address certain spoken entries in the portal to a specific ISY?

 

Thanks.

 

-Xathros

[KMan]

I think you would be able to share some ordering and music collection. Amazon allows you to add family members to your account, or at least Amazon Prime does.

 

You might want to look in to that.

 

Dennis

 

I have 2 "profiles" (users) on my echo, and it seems to be more of a headache than it is worth.  The Connected Home aspect seems to be entirely separate between the 2 profiles.  I believe you'd have to do "discover devices" in both profiles, and I'm not sure you can link both profiles to the same ISY.  And if you're using ifttt, I believe you'd need to 2 separate sets of recipes for each profile.

 

And the music collections aren't shared, you only get the music selection that is associated with that profile.

 

I only use one of the profiles now, never switching between them.

[gduprey]

I have 2 "profiles" (users) on my echo, and it seems to be more of a headache than it is worth.

 

That hass been my impression too  While it "works", it does not work well and is both confusing (which profile is active?  Do you want to query Echo before every command?) and there is lots of stuff you can't share and/or requires excessive duplication of effort.  Plus it works against the whole concept of Echo being easy to use and "just working".

 

I'll be curious what UDI has to say on the topic.  As the Echo takes off, you're going to get more and more cases where a person owns multiple echos.  Several of my friends have them in their house and their office.  You wouldn't want inadvertent commands at the office to do things like opening garage doors, unlocking locks, etc at home.  They would need to be separate while being able to share the same Amazon account.

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi gduprey,

 

With ISY skill (tell izzy to), you can simply say:

Alexa, tell izzy to switch ISY

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[gduprey]

Howdy,

 

That sounds great!  Will each Echo remember what ISY it was "switched" to?  Are there any conditions where it might "revert back" (power loss, etc)?

 

Thanks!!

 

Gerry

[Xathros]

Hi gduprey,

 

With ISY skill (tell izzy to), you can simply say:

Alexa, tell izzy to switch ISY

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

Awesome!

 

Just tested this and it works perfectly.

 

Thank you!

 

-Xathros

[Xathros]

How would commands for house get to the other house?

Via the UDI Portal and Amazon cloud.  Intra-cloud communication.  I have tested both pointing the local echo at the local ISY as well as at the remote ISY and both work equally as well.

 

-Xathros

[larryllix]

Via the UDI Portal and Amazon cloud.  Intra-cloud communication.  I have tested both pointing the local echo at the local ISY as well as at the remote ISY and both work equally as well.

 

-Xathros

I was  more attempting to resolve the crossover complaint by asking  questions in order to understand how it could happen in the first place and help the OP's awareness, and mine.

 

If the mechanism is known there should be an apparent resolution to it. It sounds like it is but would sacrifice some other shared features that may be wanted.

[gduprey]

How does the connected home part of this work?  

 

After I tell an echo which ISY to use, would I then fire up the Echo app ad "discover" devices associated with that ISY?

 

Or in this case (two echo/ISY), would I only be able to use the ISY skill?

[Xathros]

How does the connected home part of this work?  

 

After I tell an echo which ISY to use, would I then fire up the Echo app ad "discover" devices associated with that ISY?

 

Or in this case (two echo/ISY), would I only be able to use the ISY skill?

It's a bit odd.  Select the first ISY, discover devices, test.  Select second ISY, discover devices, test.  All good so far.

 

Now, when I look at the Alexa app, I see devices and programs listed from both ISYs but the deselected ISY's devices and programs show as offline.  Telling Alexa to turn On/Off an item from the selected ISY works as expected.  Telling Alexa to turn On/Off an item from the deselected ISY results in an "Ok" but the device/program on the deselected ISY does not respond to the request.  I think we should receive an error like "This device does not exist on the selected ISY" or something similar in this case.

 

-Xathros

[gduprey]

Wow!  Thanks for testing that.  

 

I'm only at one house so playing with this is difficult to do right now.

 

The Echo app seems very "global" in nature.  As such, consider this case:

 

- at Echo "A" I select ISY "A"

- at Echo "B" I select ISY "B" and then discover devices

- Launch Echo app -- what connected house commands will list? (my guess both, with "A" commands disabled)

- Will connected house commands to Echo "A" still work for ISY "A" or are connected house commands limited to one ISY (last one discovered)?

- If there are duplicate spoken names between Echo/ISY "A" and Echo/ISY "B", what happens when that command is issued at Echo "A"?  At Echo "B"?

 

So far, from my ***very*** limited testing, it seems that if you have this case (2 Echos at two locations each talking to their own ISY), you really can't reliably use connected house commands and you'll need to use the skill only.

 

I'll have to do some additional testing once I get to the other house.

 

Gerry

Edited January 13, 2016 by gduprey

[Xathros]

Wow!  Thanks for testing that.  

 

I'm only at one house so playing with this is difficult to do right now.

 

The Echo app seems very "global" in nature.  As such, consider this case:

 

- at Echo "A" I select ISY "A"

- at Echo "B" I select ISY "B" and then discover devices

- Launch Echo app -- what connected house commands will list? (my guess both, with "A" commands disabled)

- Will connected house commands to Echo "A" still work for ISY "A" or are connected house commands limited to one ISY (last one discovered)?

- If there are duplicate spoken names between Echo/ISY "A" and Echo/ISY "B", what happens when that command is issued at Echo "A"?  At Echo "B"?

 

So far, from my ***very*** limited testing, it seems that if you have this case (2 Echos at two locations each talking to their own ISY), you really can't reliably use connected house commands and you'll need to use the skill only.

 

I'll have to do some additional testing once I get to the other house.

 

Gerry

Hmmm.  I won't be able to test for that until my second echo arrives.  Quite interested to see what you find. I would hope and expect that the selection of ISY is local to the echo and not the Amazon cloud.

 

-Xathros

Edited January 13, 2016 by Xathros

[Michel Kohanim]

Hello all,

 

Unfortunately you won't be able to have each Echo only communicate with one ISY unless you have different accounts. Currently all Echos communicate with one Portal account.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

[Xathros]

Hello all,

 

Unfortunately you won't be able to have each Echo only communicate with one ISY unless you have different accounts. Currently all Echos communicate with one Portal account.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

Thats a bit disappointing.  Is this a limitation of the Echo or of the portal?    Would it take multiple Amazon accounts, multiple portal accounts or both to make this work?

 

-Xathros

[stusviews]

Multiple portals and multiple Amazon accounts with one ISY would be ideal for me. All Echos would have access to all device, program and scenes, but each could be restricted, as desired. One portal would be even better, but I don't see a way to add more than Amazon account to the portal..

[dywicked]

Along the same lines, it would be great if you could define "local" spoken fields to different echos somehow - for example, if a I am in one room and I say: "turn off the lights", it turns off whatever scene/device "lights" is mapped to for that particular echo. I doubt the particular echo identifies itself to UDI in any way, but I can dream right?

[stusviews]

I'm using three Echos within one home, one portal, one Amazon account. All Echos have identical responses, so each light needs to be identified, for example, bedroom light, living room light, etc. I'd need at least one Amazon account and, as I read it, another portal to separate two Echos. I don't know what the fee is for additional portals.

[Xathros]

I'm using three Echos within one home, one portal, one Amazon account. All Echos have identical responses, so each light needs to be identified, for example, bedroom light, living room light, etc. I'd need at least one Amazon account and, as I read it, another portal to separate two Echos. I don't know what the fee is for additional portals.

I believe a single ISY cannot support multiple portals hence the choice between the UDI and MLConnect portals.  I do see that my Echo has a name.  I suspect my next echo can have a different name.  I wonder if the connected home interface and/or skill have access to the Echo name.  If so, it may be possible to restrict certain devices/scenes/programs to a specific Echo.

 

-Xathros

Edited January 15, 2016 by Xathros

[ScottAvery]

I believe a single ISY cannot support multiple portals hence the choice between the UDI and MLConnect portals.  I do see that my Echo has a name.  I suspect my next echo can have a different name.  I wonder if the connected home interface and/or skill have access to the Echo name.  If so, it may be possible to restrict certain devices/scenes/programs to a specific Echo.

 

-Xathros

We definitely need a method to distinguish multiples.

[gduprey]

So if I have two homes each with their own Echo and each with their own ISY and I don't want to "cross connect" either (i.e. both independent), which of the following would I need to do:

 

1) Two different amazon accounts (each echo connected to a different account), one ISY Portal account (with both ISYs associated with that ISY Portal account and each ISY within associated with a different amazon account)?

 

2) Two different amazon accounts and two completely separate ISY portal accounts (one ISY per ISYPortal account)?

 

I know the ISY portal can have multiple ISY's listed in it, but reading things over, it's unclear if I can link each separate amazon account to a different ISY if both ISYs are under the same ISY Portal login/account?

In short, do I have to have 2 Amazon Accounts and 2 ISY Portal Accounts or can I just use one ISY Portal account and bind each ISY registered with the portal to a different Amazon account?

Thanks,

 

Gerry

[Michel Kohanim]

Hi Gerry,

 

At the moment, that's correct. This said, I know you can associate "one account" with multiple ISYs and then say "Alexa, ask izzy to switch ISY".

 

I am certain that if there are more requests for multiple ISY/Amazon account linkages, we'll definitely consider implementing.

 

With kind regards,

Michel