Today I discovered that the Open Curtains command to Alexa didn't work.  Normally my curtains open an hour after sunrise and close at sunset automatically.  When I got up today, they weren't open (most likely because my somfy setup became confused because I rebooted my router before going to bed last night).  So I told Alexa to open the curtains like I normally do when there's a hiccup in the automatic setup.  Alexa responds with "Curtains doesn't support that".  Is this a portal issue or did Amazon change something on the Alexa side recently?  Unfortunately, I can't pinpoint exactly when this stopped working because normally the automatic open/close works and I can't remember when the last time was that I had to ask Alexa to do it.

Edit: Tried "Turn on/off curtains"  and that works

Edited November 28, 20186 yr by Brad

3 hours ago, Brad said:

Today I discovered that the Open Curtains command to Alexa didn't work.  Normally my curtains open an hour after sunrise and close at sunset automatically.  When I got up today, they weren't open (most likely because my somfy setup became confused because I rebooted my router before going to bed last night).  So I told Alexa to open the curtains like I normally do when there's a hiccup in the automatic setup.  Alexa responds with "Curtains doesn't support that".  Is this a portal issue or did Amazon change something on the Alexa side recently?  Unfortunately, I can't pinpoint exactly when this stopped working because normally the automatic open/close works and I can't remember when the last time was that I had to ask Alexa to do it.

Edit: Tried "Turn on/off curtains"  and that works

Amazon has no specific vernacular to control curtains.

It has to be done through:

"Alexa, turn on <device>" or "Alexa, turn off <device>"

Some users have been able to use "Alexa, close <device>", but this is highly dependant on the naming of the device, and likely to not work.

"Alexa, open ...." is normally used to "open" a custom skill, so I doubt you will have success with it.

So, I would suggest to first try with turn on/turn off, although it may not be as natural.

To find out the device name, look at the devices in the Alexa app. You could also find it in ISY Portal, under Connectivity | Amazon Echo.

Benoit

 

In January, when I first installed my somfy curtains, I didn't think the open/close would work for that exact reason, but I tried it for giggles.  It worked!  I was surprised and assumed Amazon was being smart about curtains.  But something changed within the last few weeks and now it's not working.  The "turn off/on" does work as it always has.

Fixed it by adding "open/close curtains" as a routine.

 

I use Google Home and structurally it has the same issue as Alexa whereby the action words to open and close my automatic curtains are ON and OFF. However, Google Home allows you to create Shortcuts and I have created such shortcuts whereby Open Curtains and Close Curtains are translated by Google Home to mean OFF and ON.

I believe that Alexa has a similar way to create Shortcuts or Routines.