Alexa Context/Location specific duplicates

[robl]

Sorry if this has been covered elsewhere, I spent ~20 minutes digging, but didn't find anything that quite matched.

 

Here's what I'm trying to do: I have ~5 Amazon speakers around the house. Docs say I should be able to say "Alexa, turn lights on" and have it work for just that location.

 

Has anyone been able to make this work?

 

Here's what I've tried to do:

 

• Created an Alexa device group that contains that specific echo device and optionally one or more devices.
• Went to the ISY portal and tried to create the same spoken "lights" for multiple ISY devices, so I could then associate each ISY device into the appropriate Alexa device group.
• ISY portal complains - "spoken is already used".

Ok, how does one associate multiple devices with the same spoken and assign them to different locaitons? (alexa device groups)

 

I have ~104 entries already in the ISY/Alexa integration, and hope I can do just the bare minimum of configuration for these special devices and locations ...

 

Thanks for any help!

 

Rob 

[bmercier]

Location specific requests like asking an Echo "Alexa, turn lights on" works with Alexa groups. As you guessed it, you need to have a group that contains your echo device, and the related lights.

 

Now, all that allows you to do is to turn them all on or off. "Alexa, turn lights off" will turn off the light devices from that group only.

 

Currently, there is no way to have the same spoken recognized using different groups. Whenever you request to turn on/off a specific device, the scope is not limited to the group the Echo is in. As an example, if you ask "Alexa, turn off bedroom", it will turn off that device, regardless of the group the device is assigned to, and regardless of the group in which that echo is.

 

Benoit

[larryllix]

For some Canadians....this may not be possible yet as there is no Amazon devices you can link into groups...stand by. (I don't have Join-In available yet either)

[robl]

Awesome, thank you Benoit!

 

Sounds like "light" or "lights" is a special magic keyword. Are there others I can use? Can I create some? For example, I have a whole house audio system, and next on my list is to play with the AV devices. It would be nice if the Alexa in each zone could control the AV device for that zone using the same name. Do you think that might be possible, or am I just dreaming?

 

For others going down this path, Amazon is a little buggy right now (Nov 2017):

 

• The web-based Alexa app can't associate Alexa devices with a device group. Use a phone or table app and it will be there.
• I had already associated lights in my groups with devices, but it didn't work. "many devices share that name lights, which one did you want?". Somehow my group got corrupted, either by using the web app or by forgetting and rediscovering devices. To fix it, edit the device group in the Alexa app on a tablet, and then save. It still knew about my light devices, I didn't have to reselect them. Odd.

Thank you for the quick responses and suggestions!

[Goose66]

Sounds like "light" or "lights" is a special magic keyword. Are there others I can use? Can I create some? For example, I have a whole house audio system, and next on my list is to play with the AV devices. It would be nice if the Alexa in each zone could control the AV device for that zone using the same name. Do you think that might be possible, or am I just dreaming?

 

It appears that Alexa keys this functionality off the displayCategory reported for the device  from the v3 ISY Smart Home Skill. This suggests that it will be limited to the category values for that field defined by the API, which are currently:

 

ACTIVITY_TRIGGER

CAMERA

DOOR

LIGHT

OTHER

SCENE_TRIGGER

SMARTLOCK

SMARTPLUG

SPEAKERS

SWITCH

TEMPERATURE_SENSOR

THERMOSTAT

TV

 

So maybe "Alexa, turn off the TV" or "Alexa, what is the temperature" may work if you have a TV device or a thermostat device in the Group, but I don't have the capability to test that and I haven't seen anything online other than "turn the lights off."

 

I had already associated lights in my groups with devices, but it didn't work. "many devices share that name lights, which one did you want?". Somehow my group got corrupted, either by using the web app or by forgetting and rediscovering devices. To fix it, edit the device group in the Alexa app on a tablet, and then save. It still knew about my light devices, I didn't have to reselect them. Odd.

 

 

For the "many devices share..." error, is it possible that you still had a device or scene defined in the portal named just "light" or "lights?" If there is one or more devices named "light" or "lights," Alexa seems to favor this over the implicit targeting feature.

[robl]

Thanks, Kingwr!

 

FYI, having 4 thermostats (honeywell not insteon), I associated each with a device group. Asking "what's the temperature inside?" gives me the usual prompt about you have more than 1 thermostat. It might still work, but I may not know the secret question to ask.

[Goose66]

Thanks, Kingwr!

 

FYI, having 4 thermostats (honeywell not insteon), I associated each with a device group. Asking "what's the temperature inside?" gives me the usual prompt about you have more than 1 thermostat. It might still work, but I may not know the secret question to ask.

 

Man, that's a bummer. I just don't think they have this implicit targeting thing fully thought out yet. After all the howling from the community about multi-room support, It is a step in the right direction, but too short of a step, IMO.

[robl]

Confirmed today - as expected, if you use alexa to "delete all devices" then discover devices, one has to edit then save (with no changes) each Alexa device group (or room) to make them work again.

Not surprising it gets hung up by the device going away and coming back. But since we don't have to manually add it back in, it would be nice if they handled that during discovery.

Just running discover devices doesn't cause any problems.

 

Rob

[Goose66]

I just added thermostats last night and also confirm that the "implicit targeting" does not seem to work for thermostats. That's just ridiculous - I can't imagine implementing the functionality and only making it work for "LIGHTS." It would have been embarrassingly easy to extend it to THERMOSTATS.

 

EDIT: Alexa support is clueless on the issue. All the documentation and announcements have language that makes it sound like it should work for more types of devices than lights, but the only example given anywhere is "Alexa, turn off the lights." I will put in a feature request, but that will likely take many months.

Edited January 6, 2018 by kingwr

[stusviews]

kingwr, I'm unsure what "embarrassingly easy," means, that'll take less than an hour to code and troubleshoot, less that a few hours or something else. And what's the necessary code?

[Goose66]

Not that it really should require any explanation, but it means so easy that it’s embarrasing that they did not include it.

[stusviews]

So, you don't know and you are too embarrassed to so state

[Goose66]

They were already coding, testing, and deploying the implicit targeting feature, they had to go through all the semantics on how to interpret requests when the Echo device is in a group with other devices, the Alexa clearly understands that the request is a thermostat request and there are multiple thermostats - even you can see that a single if statement to check the group for a thermostat before issuing the “You have more than one thermostat”

error is all that would have been required and it would have been implemented in code they were already changing.

 

Regardless, what’s embarrasing is that they would roll out the implicit targeting feature without considering this additional device types - especially something as ubiquitous as a thermostat. It says if you have your Echo in a Smart Home group, it can intelligently respond to your request. Do you think asking for what thermostat you mean when it is in the group with your Echo device is intelligent?