Alexa Groups Not Working for All Devices

[Bryan Young]

I have an ISY994i/IR Pro, insteon PLM, and my.isy.io portal. I have several Alexa devices as well. I have grouped the Alexa devices with the insteon devices in the same room. For 2 of the rooms, everything works fine (e.g. Alexa turn on lights will turn on the devices of type light in that room only). The other 2 rooms when I say the same command Alexa responds "a few things share that name, which one did you want?" The setup in the ISY, portal, and Alexa app looks the same for all rooms and devices. Any idea why some would not work?

[Bryan Young]

Some additional info...if I add the light from the broken Alexa group to a group that works, the newly added light works. If I add a light from a group that works to a broken group, that group still doesn't work. It appears to be device specific.

[Tuckerdude]

Hi Bryan,

I have the exact same issue. It's strange too because the first room-grouping that I did worked the very first time...but every other new room (and it's associated lights) just don't respond, and I get the exact same voice message from Alexa.

I'm hoping someone on this forum has a suggestion or solution

[bmercier]

On 10/13/2018 at 9:19 AM, Bryan Young said:

I have an ISY994i/IR Pro, insteon PLM, and my.isy.io portal. I have several Alexa devices as well. I have grouped the Alexa devices with the insteon devices in the same room. For 2 of the rooms, everything works fine (e.g. Alexa turn on lights will turn on the devices of type light in that room only). The other 2 rooms when I say the same command Alexa responds "a few things share that name, which one did you want?" The setup in the ISY, portal, and Alexa app looks the same for all rooms and devices. Any idea why some would not work?

I would try a different room name.

This message meands that the group name is similar to another group, or to one of the devices.

Benoit

[Bryan Young]

In this case I'm not saying the group name, I'm just in the room with the echo device and I say "Alexa turn on lights." In the groups Master Bedroom, Master Bathroom, and Kitchen it works. In the groups Sunroom, Office, and Camden's Room it does not work. 

Your suggestion gave me an idea for a new test, though. The group Master Bathroom works with device Master Bathroom Lights, but I deleted this group and the Camden's Room group and switched the echo dots. Now Camden's echo dot is in the bathroom and the bathroom exho dot is in Camden's room. Now Camden's Room works and Master Bathroom does not. It is definitely the echo device that is the issue.

[Bryan Young]

I'm on the phone with Amazon support. I demonstrated it live that I can add Camden's echo dot to any working group and it breaks the functionality. The Alexa app is able to control them just fine. So far 1 echo show and 2 echo dots work no matter what we change, and 2 echo dots and 1 echo show don't work no matter what we change. Doing factory resets now. 

[Bryan Young]

Factory reset did not work. The devices that did not work before still don't work after factory reset. The devices that worked before still work even when I delete all groups and recreate them with a different mix of lights. The devices have the same software version on them so they should work the same. They are escalating it to the engineering team.

[Bryan Young]

Still no word back from Amazon support. I set up the rest of my ech devices. There are 10 total: 2 echo shows, 1 echo, and 7 echo dots. Out of those 10, five work properly: 1 echo show and 4 echo dots. So what I will do is swap the working devices around so they are in rooms where I need Alexa groups working, and see if Amazon can swap out the broken ones at a later date.

[Tuckerdude]

Hey Bryan,

So...do you think there's something actually broken on the devices? I'm just wondering if I have the same issue?

I also did the same set of steps you outlined above, but with similar results

Thanks!

[Bryan Young]

I'm not sure why or how something would be wrong with the device itself, but the only common element is the echo device. One echo dot in the group works, then I swap a different echo dot into the group and I get the error message. They both have the same software version 618571720. Same with the two echo shows...one works, the other doesn't. I ordered 4 replacement echo dots today, and if any dont work, I'll keep sending them back until I get some that do.

[nadler]

Perhaps trying resetting the echo device and then running setup for that echo device with an entirely different name.  Ask the echo to find the devices again.  If that doesn't work.  Try deleting all your devices from the Alexa app and finding them again.  This worked for me a while ago.  

[Bryan Young]

Thanks! That's a great idea...I'll try that and report the results. 

[Bryan Young]

Unfortunately even with a factory reset and a brand new name, deleting devices and rediscovering them, creating new groups, the same devices still dont work. 

[Bryan Young]

Alexa support got back to me today. They said the engineering team changed some settings on their end and wanted me to try the test again. No luck there.

But, my 4 new echo dots arrived today and all 4 work with groups. So now the conversation with Amazon will be about getting refunds for the devices that don't work. Those were purchased over the last few years so I'm not sure how that will work. But the important part is that I have a working device and group in each room and I can just say "Alexa turn on lights" and the appropriate lights come on.

[Tuckerdude]

Hey Bryan,

Thanks for the update! Kind of not the news I was hoping for as I really don't want to have to replace my echo dots. I guess I will if it's the only route to fixing the issue...but it's not the ideal solution. You'd think it would be something a firmware update could solve.

In any case, appreciate the follow up here on the forum!

[Bryan Young]

Yeah I was disappointed too...replacing the echo dots was painless, since I got refurbished ones at a discount, but I still have an original echo and an echo show that arent working (I realized it's not just groups that dont work...they dont recognize any device names). That's a few hundred bucks of equipment I'm not sure they will replace or refund. I'll post an update on how that works out though. 

[trevorst]

I had an issue adding my existing echo devices to speaker groups when I picked up a couple of the latest dots. I traced it down to wifi issues. Even though all devices were on the same wifi they could not be added, Removing the devices that could not join groups from my sccount and then re adding it solved my issue. 

[Bryan Young]

17 minutes ago, trevorst said:

I had an issue adding my existing echo devices to speaker groups when I picked up a couple of the latest dots. I traced it down to wifi issues. Even though all devices were on the same wifi they could not be added, Removing the devices that could not join groups from my sccount and then re adding it solved my issue. 

You are a genius! That worked! While Amazon support had me do a factory reset on the device, they did not tell me to remove it from my account. I went to devices->echo and alexa->[broken echo name]->deregister, then did setup again and now it works!

[zerreissen]

Wow, I've been plagued with the same issue and have been struggling for weeks trying to figure out how to fix it. De-registering and re-registering worked! Thanks!!!

Unfortunately it doesn't appear that non-Amazon echo devices (Sonos One, for example) can be added to groups though

Edited October 21, 2018 by zerreissen