Asking Alexa v3 for Device/Scene Status

[elliott9]

For the past year I have been using the Alexa v2 Smart Home skill to set most of my devices with the "Alexa, turn on X" or "Alexa, turn off Y". Whenever I wanted the status of something I had the normal ISY skill installed and I would ask for it by "Alexa, ask Izzy for status of X" to which she would respond On/Off. 

I have since replaced by Alexa v2 Smart Home Skill with the Alexa  v3 Smart Home skill and I can turn devices on/off with no problem. However I have lost my ability to get the status of anything. The old ISY skill delinked itself with the my.isy portal and attempting to relink it says the ISY Skill obsolete. In the my.isy portal I have enabled Live Update feature and then tried things like "Alexa, what is the status of X" and "Alexa, is Y off?" but none of that works.

So two questions: 

1. Can I still use Alexa to retrieve the status of ISY devices and scenes? Is so...
2. What is the phrase I should use to do so?

[Tim McDermott]

It is my understanding that the "custom" ISY skill, which provided the Status functionality has been removed by Amazon as v3 provides nearly everything it did. I, too miss the Status command, along with the ability to request that my Z-Wave lockset Unlock. I understand the reservations with the Unlock command, but nothing required one leave the custom skill active and there is no telling if or when Amazon will implement a PIN activated unlock. I guess this is "Progress."

[bmercier]

On 12/05/2018 at 2:00 PM, elliott9 said:

1. Can I still use Alexa to retrieve the status of ISY devices and scenes? Is so...
2. What is the phrase I should use to do so?

You can retrieve status for locks and thermostats, but not for regular devices. Amazon unfortunately has not implemented that. There's an API to report the state of a device, but Amazon does not make use of it for voice requests. It's used only for the mobile device app.

Maybe this will be available eventually. All that Amazon would need to do is implement the vernacular, and use the ReportState API.

[elliott9]

Well now I am a sad panda. It seems like Universal Devices could had overcome this Amazon shortcoming with an Alexa Skill. Now a Smart Home skill, just a normal skill so you can use the phrase "Ask [skillName] for status of [thing].

I guess I'll live.

[blueman2]

Alternative is to use the 3po Responder skill to create customize status responses.  It is a lot of work to get set up, but it does allow significant customization.  I can get the status of anything I want using any words I want.  For example, "Alexa, Tell Me Pool Status" gives me pool pump speed, water temperature, salt parts per million, and solar panel status.  But I had to do all the programming on the ISY to send the right information to the Responder Skill to make it work.  There is a thread on this.