Multiple Echo's and possible Bug

[barrygordon]

Originally I had only 1 account and 5 Dots.
I then changed it to two accounts, call them A and B. Account A has 4 Dots and 103 devices. Account B has 1 Dot and 27 devices.  The account B devices are a subset of account A with different spoken phrases.  All was working fine.

I then tried to play some music from my "Amazon Prime" account using the DOT in account B. It told me I couldn't because there was no "Amazon Prime" associated with that account, account B. Alexa/Amazon wanted me to buy a music subscription for account B for $3.99/month, or a second Prime membership for account B.

I did some research and then determined that I should set up a household under account A which has the "Amazon Prime". I did that.  I now have a household set up under account A that has account B as a member of the household. Music now works as it should. The household has 2 members, account A and account B.

HOWEVER:
The single Dot in account B will no longer recognize the 27 devices associated with that account with the simplified spoken phrases I had set up.  It now recognizes the 103 devices set up in Account A and the spoken phrases associated with them. The Dots in account A work with the 103 Devices I set up with account A.  It seems as if the Dot in account B is now associated with The "Household master account" which is account A.  Not what I want. If I look at the Alexa App under "Smart Home", all appears correct.  The single DOT in account B has discovered 27 devices correctly and the 4 Dots in account A have 103 devices associated with them.

Is this a bug in that the portal is associating the single Dot in account B with the Household as opposed to associating it with the correct account, account B? If it is not a bug what have I done wrong? To get all the capabilities I desire I need to use the household capability to get the music I want at minimum cost; and need to have a Dot associated with the spoken phrases of the account it is registered under, not the household account of which it is a member.  Will this be corrected?

[stusviews]

I'm not sure what you're asking. I have four accounts, two of which are Household. The portal treats each Household account independently. It is not aware the they're in the same Household account. The Alexa app Smart Home folder also considers them as different accounts. Only the Settings folder for the primary account can "see" all the devices in both accounts, but that has no effect on how the separate accounts function.

[barrygordon]

I double posted this since I thought it was not getting any traction.  I replied in detail to what you commented in the other posting.  My performance seems to be different than yours.  The problem is (to me at least) when I added the second account to the first accounts household, it operates as if there are no spokens for the second account but rather it uses the spokens set up for the account that owns the household account. There is a spoken in the main account , the house hold account, that states "Guest Bedroom Lights"  There is a spoken in the second account that is a member of the household for "lights". The spoken for "lights" no longer works on the Dot in the second account for the household; however "Guest bedroom lights" does work.  The thing I will investigate tomorrow is to redo the spokens for the second account , it being a small number.

[stusviews]

You need to add the second Amazon account the the portal as a sub-account and add device, scenes and programs exclusively to the second account. The ISY portal configuration will show each account separately.

 

 

Edited February 25, 2017 by stusviews

[barrygordon]

Stu, Thanks for working with me on this.

 

I that was what I did.  I have to leave this activity for a while (family visiting) but will get back to it next week.  Thanks for the replies/comments/advice. 

 

My goal is to get it set up so that each Dot is in a separate sub account with a common set of spokens, the same for each Dot; and some spokens unique to that Dot which are a shorthand e.g. "lights" in addition to "Guest Bedroom Lights" for the Dot in the Guest Bedroom. I want all of the sub accounts to be in the same Amazon household so they can all play the same music from the Amazon Prime Library.  

 

This is the order I plan to do Things:

1- Set up all the accounts on Amazon. There will be 5 sub-aacounts and one master account.

2- Register each Dot (6) with the appropriate Amazon sub-account. One sub-account (Kitchen, a very large area) will have 2 Dot's.

3- Assign in Alexa app each sub-account as a member of the household which is owned by my master Amazon account which has Prime membership.

4- Setup the ISY portal to be knowledgeable of each of the sub-accounts.

5- Set up the correct set of spokens for each Dot/sub-account by adding a second spoken for the devices physically located in a room associated with a Dot. As an example; the guest bedroom will have the common spoken of "guest bedroom lights" and a second spoken for the same ISY scene as "lights"

 

I know I can export the spokens for each sub-account, but there is no quick import capability so I guess I am going to have to do a lot of repetitive typing. The common set of spokens is currently for 103 devices.

 

Do you know if any shortcuts to this process and is the order of performing the overall task correct?

 

TIA,

 

Barry

[stusviews]

1. There's no practical difference between a main account and a sub-account. The main account is the first one added and from which additional accounts are created. The portal is capable of supporting a total of five accounts including the main account. Each account is completely independent. See point 4.

 

2. I'm not aware of any limit to the number of Echo devices that can be on an account, but only one will respond to any command. We use a wall mount for our kitchen Dot.

 

3. An Alexa Household has a limit of two accounts. The only commonality is the ability to share lists and purchased media. There is no sharing of portal accounts.

 

4. The main account is aware of all user accounts. User accounts are not.

 

5. That's similar to our set-up. The portal allows up to five spokens for each device/scene/program. I limited the number of devices in each account. For example, there's no need to control the front bathroom from the bedrooms which are in the back of the house (and have a separate bathroom). We don't need to control the garage's from the media room.

 

Finally, each device/scene/program for each account needs to be set up individually including those in the Household accounts. Nothing in the portal is common with another account.

 

BTW, you can switch between Household accounts using a voice command, "Alexa, switch accounts," and you can ask Alexa, "which account is this?"

[barrygordon]

Interesting, I am using a ceiling mount on a Dot in the kitchen.

 

Are you sure that a household can only have two accounts?  I thought that a household can have as many accounts as desired.  I will double check with Amazonas that means I will have a problem with the accounts all being able to access the prime music of the main account and may need to get a prime subscription for more than one account which I do not want to do.

[stusviews]

Actually, you can have two adult and four child accounts, so you may be OK. See: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201806360

[barrygordon]

Yes you are right.  I will be playing with that this coming week.  Thanks again

[barrygordon]

I spoke to Amazon customer service today. They said that Prime music may not be shared, only used by the Prime adult member of the household. That is a bummer.

 

When you set up the sub accounts which required additional accounts in the Amazon household; did you do that directly through Amazon under account management or through the Alexa app? It appears that the Alexa app only allows you to set up adults in the household, but I believe that is your case as you indicated earlier.

 

I have two adults  and 4 children in the household now all setup through the Amazon account management.  When I look at the Alexa app under settings only the adult household members are shown and since there are already two, it will not let me setup any more members into the household.

 

By the way, thanks for all the advice / help on this.

[stusviews]

I set up three additional accounts on Amazon first. Then I created the portal sub-accounts.

[barrygordon]

I was going a little crazy until I found out that Amazon had a major east coast outage.  Now at least the Alexa app is running correctly

 

I have two accounts set up for the Portal. Four of the five Dots are registered to the main account. One is registered to the sub account.

 

If I log into the main account with the Alexa app, I see all my Dots (5 of them). four show as registered to the main account and one to the sub account. If I look at Smart Home I see 108 devices with their spokens and all is correct.

 

If I log into the sub-account with the Alexa app, I see all my Dots (5 of them). four show as registered to the main account and one to the sub-account. If I look at Smart Home I see 22 devices with their spokens and all is correct.

 

If I look into the portal I see the correct devices and spokens with the correct sub-account. When I entered the spokens for the sub account I was logged into the sub account 

 

The Problem is when I am talking to the single DOT registered to the sub-account. That Dot will not recognize any spokens that are only in the sub-account. It will recognize any spokens that are in the main account. 

 

I do not know what to try next.  It all looks correct, however it is not working for me as it should, and as it works for you.  I am thinking about filling a "Bug" report with Micheal.

Edited February 28, 2017 by barrygordon

[stusviews]

Did you happen to discover all devices before creating separate accounts? If you did, then you need to forget them all and rediscover. You can forget everything by scrolling to the bottom of the Alexa Smart Home panel.