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Some Echo connected home voice commands suddenly not recognized...

ahwman

By ahwman
in Amazon Echo

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ahwman Advanced

ahwman

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I don't think it's a coincidence that this happened the same time as the announcement for the Connected Home enhancements.

Wonder what word to replace phone with? Alexa turn on the effem phone!

I have a strange one. The voice command 'turn on floods' works but the command 'turn off floods' doesn't work. However the 'turn on/off' commands work on other devices.

 

I've noticed this behavior with several keywords. Amazon has to fix this ASAP... I've sent feedback to Amazon, however has anyone called them and spoke with a tech about this?
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garybixler Advanced

garybixler

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I've noticed this behavior with several keywords. Amazon has to fix this ASAP... I've sent feedback to Amazon, however has anyone called them and spoke with a tech about this?

Monday I did call about my group name suddenly not working and after all the normal trouble shooting he said that he would pass the information on. I found another word that allowed it to work again. But since than other device command words have stopped working one by one. Today I did send a feedback complaining about this issue.  

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ahwman Advanced

ahwman

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Hello everyone,We were just given access to the V2 API and Amazon is setting up our account. It may take a few more days. I am speculating, but I think all the changes on the Amazon side have caused all these disturbances.With kind regards,Michel

Michel,

 

Do you think these issues will get ironed out and that we will regain the use of the device names we have been using prior to this transition? Or, does it appear that Amazon for some crazy reason has eliminated the use of various device names going forward? By the way, I'm also noticing that my Echo's are not recognizing several device names as accurately as they used to...

 

Thanks so much for you hard work!

Chuck

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ahwman Advanced

ahwman

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Hi Chuck,Unfortunately I have no idea. This said, if you we can compile a list of all the names that Echo has problems with, then I would be delighted to send it to our contact at Amazon and see what they say.Perhaps a Google Doc?With kind regards,Michel

Michel,

 

That would be very helpful as I'm eager to hear Amazon's response to this frustrating situation. I've never used Google docs so I could either attach the names here or use guidance as to how you would like them submitted.

 

On a side note, here are two questions I would like to have answered:

 

Asking the Echo to "Turn on phone" fails with a short tone, however using the phrase "Dim phone" is understood. Why would the phrase "Turn on" fail, yet "Dim" work for the same word?

 

Also, what is the purpose of the tone after issuing a non working command?

 

Thanks Michel,

Chuck

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btreinders Advanced

btreinders

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Hi Chuck,

 

Unfortunately I really do not know the answer to any of these questions.

 

Please append to the end of this list:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1arLBHc7-ffvjyXiSJ-TyZB9d7TrkVA0aXXjSurcrpGM

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

 

Here is my list of commands that do not work anymore.  Michel, can you add this to the document?  It is read only.

 

skip
commercials
menu
list
guide
page down
page up
christmas (christmas light and christmas tree do work)
elk voice
fast forward
halloween
manual override
override sprinklers
rewind
game
fox
h bee o
nfl
usa (tries to play a song now)
cnn (plays cnn from tunein now)
fox news (plays fox new from tunein now)
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Teken Advanced

Teken

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Here is my list of commands that do not work anymore.  Michel, can you add this to the document?  It is read only.

 

skip
commercials
menu
list
guide
page down
page up
christmas (christmas light and christmas tree do work)
elk voice
fast forward
halloween
manual override
override sprinklers
rewind
game
fox
h bee o
nfl
usa (tries to play a song now)
cnn (plays cnn from tunein now)
fox news (plays fox new from tunein now)

 

 

I won't lie until I sounded out the phrase I had no clue why anyone would need a word like this . . .

 

LOL: HBO . . .

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gilkman Newbie

gilkman

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OK, I posted earlier about these commands not working:

 

"Alexa, turn home on"  (and off)

"Alexa, turn party on"   (and off)

"Alexa, turn ambient on"  (and off)

 

I added the word "light" to the end of each command (as in, "Alexa, turn on ambient light" and now they are all working again...weird...

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btreinders Advanced

btreinders

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OK, I posted earlier about these commands not working:

 

"Alexa, turn home on"  (and off)

"Alexa, turn party on"   (and off)

"Alexa, turn ambient on"  (and off)

 

I added the word "light" to the end of each command (as in, "Alexa, turn on ambient light" and now they are all working again...weird...

 

Thanks!  Works here too.  I can use this as a workaround for now.

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mapeter Experienced

mapeter

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Riddle me this, I have a command called "Private", which I use to open and close all of the shades.

Not all variations of on and off are working as expected.  To turn on, I have to say "Turn on Privacy", however, to turn off, I have to say "Turn Privacy off" -- On and Off are in different parts of the phrase.

If I say "Turn Privacy on", I get the double beeps indicating that the command wasn't understood.  If I say "Turn off Privacy", she does not provide any acknowledgement and nothing happens.

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ahwman Advanced

ahwman

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Riddle me this, I have a command called "Private", which I use to open and close all of the shades.

Not all variations of on and off are working as expected.  To turn on, I have to say "Turn on Privacy", however, to turn off, I have to say "Turn Privacy off" -- On and Off are in different parts of the phrase.

If I say "Turn Privacy on", I get the double beeps indicating that the command wasn't understood.  If I say "Turn off Privacy", she does not provide any acknowledgement and nothing happens.

I've noticed this very same thing. I'm really hoping that Amazon is working behind the scenes to correct this. I spoke with a customer service agent this afternoon who happened to be very nice, however didn't seem to have the slightest grasp as to what I was talking about even after a great deal of explanation. That said, I spent several hours this evening crafting new device names which Amazon apparently deems as acceptable. Sadly however, some are out of context due to these crazy limitations. My favorite new hickup is issuing a command that used to work and now instead plays a song from Amazon Prime .

 

Crossing my fingers these issues get ironed out as I've grown to love my Echo's...

Chuck

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ahwman Advanced

ahwman

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Thank you. I have saved the updates.Any others?With kind regards,Michel

Please add the following to the list:

 

• Forward

• Reverse (now plays song called reverse)

• Guide

 

Thanks so much Michel. You guys do such a great job!! You certainly get an A+ in my book for superb support of your products and services...

 

Chuck

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mapeter Experienced

mapeter

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Thank you. I have saved the updates.

 

Any others?

 

All of these execute programs:

 

Turn on Showertime

Turn on H G T V

Turn on Channel 11

Turn on Channel 4

Turn on Master Ceiling Fan Low

Turn on Master Ceiling Fan Medium (Strangely, "Turn on Master Ceiling Fan High" works just fine)

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stusviews Advanced

stusviews

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All of these execute programs:

 

Turn on Showertime

Turn on H G T V

Turn on Channel 11

Turn on Channel 4

Turn on Master Ceiling Fan Low

Turn on Master Ceiling Fan Medium (Strangely, "Turn on Master Ceiling Fan High" works just fine)

 

Try deleting "ceiling" in the spoken.

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ahwman Advanced

ahwman

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All of these execute programs:

 

Turn on Showertime

Turn on H G T V

Turn on Channel 11

Turn on Channel 4

Turn on Master Ceiling Fan Low

Turn on Master Ceiling Fan Medium (Strangely, "Turn on Master Ceiling Fan High" works just fine)

I was able to get my tv channels working by appending channel to the name without a space. Example: Turn on HGTVChannel" works fine for me...

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MikeB Advanced

MikeB

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I had been limping along with my Hue Emulator setup until last night.  Some phrases that had worked long ago stopped working over time.  Yesterday I finally took the time to migrate over to the ISY Portal and love it so far, but it did not fix the spoken word recognition issue.

 

Long ago "turn on pink floyd radio" worked to initiate a SONOS playlist, but stopped working a while back.

Just recently "turn on goodbye" and "turn on goodnight" worked but stopped probably with this last update.

 

Using the keywords "music" or "radio" seems to be a problem.  For example, "office music" worked but "kitchen music" did not, so for consistency I had to change to something else.  I am using these:

 

"office sonos"

"kitchen sonos"

"living room sonos"

"floyd sonos"

"classic sonos"

...etc.

 

Hopefully it stays working.  Spoken word changes are tough to digest, especially for other family members that get used to saying certain commands and now have to change.  Really hurts the WAF.

 

For "goodnight" and "goodbye", oddly enough changing the spoken words to "good night" and "good bye" seems to work!  I hope it stays working.

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barrygordon Advanced

barrygordon

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My pool has a waterfall feature. It was working fine with commands "Alexa, turn on|off the waterfall" it no longer responds to Alexa, turn on the waterfall, Alex choosing instead to play the song waterfall by Chris connelly.

 

Amazon has to straighten out their verbs and restrict them to avoid this. They need to publish a list of action words and what they do. IMHO turn on / Turn off should not play music, but the action word "Play" should be used to play things such as music, videos, etc, perhaps with a modifier like music, movie, slideshow, video, etc. perhaps some day there will be a song named kitchen lights which should really highlight the issue.

 

I have contacted Amazon on this but the squeaky wheel . . .

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