wedel456 Posted January 6, 2020 Posted January 6, 2020 I used to be able to say "Alexa 'xxx' Lights Off" (i.e. Alexa Office Lights Off); however, I can no longer do so. Has something changed? I can turn them on with "Alexa Office Lights On" but when I say "Alexa Office Lights Off" it responds with "I don't know how to set Office Lights to that setting". This happens to *every* scene that I have configured. I have tried to remove the scene from the Office group (or what ever light the light I am trying to control in a specific group) and that does not have any effect on the issue. Any ideas?
larryllix Posted January 6, 2020 Posted January 6, 2020 I used to be able to say "Alexa 'xxx' Lights Off" (i.e. Alexa Office Lights Off); however, I can no longer do so. Has something changed? I can turn them on with "Alexa Office Lights On" but when I say "Alexa Office Lights Off" it responds with "I don't know how to set Office Lights to that setting". This happens to *every* scene that I have configured. I have tried to remove the scene from the Office group (or what ever light the light I am trying to control in a specific group) and that does not have any effect on the issue. Any ideas? I found those syntaxes flakey since inception. Use 'turn on/off xxxxx' or 'set xxxx to 50 percent' Even my amp I use.... Turn on louder. Turn on softer Sent using Tapatalk
oberkc Posted January 6, 2020 Posted January 6, 2020 I am also having mixed luck with this. While I can tell Alexa to turn "on/off office lights" or "office light on/off", it does not limit itself to the lights. Such commands also turn off the TV that is in the office. Getting this Alexa thing to work for me has, and continues to be, tedious. I have trouble recommending Alexa to anyone who is looking for an easy-tp-set-up solution to lighting control. Still, on my alexa, the "office lights on/off" still responds. Perhaps my "office" lights are set up in Alexa differently than yours. My "office" represents an Alexa "group" rather than a scene.
dbwarner5 Posted January 7, 2020 Posted January 7, 2020 I have had great success with Alexa. But have found you crate have similar names across groups and scenes and devices and routines. Try renaming your office group to something like upstairs office. I generally don’t use Alexa groups for this reason An example of my crazy naming sequences.Alexa routine : “shut the garage doors” initiates an ISY Portal voice command called garage doors shut alll which is linked through the ISY portal to the program or scene that initiates my garage door sequence If I had used the portal voice command of shut the garage doors I get error message of “I don’t understand “ since shut is an Alexa verb that can’t be applied to this situation but also part of the voice command I want to give. This is an example of the workaround So yes it’s a bit convoluted for sure but once you get it set up (I use voice activated routines in Alexa for a very large number of Alexa actions) it is fabulous Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
oberkc Posted January 7, 2020 Posted January 7, 2020 1 minute ago, dbwarner5 said: I have had great success with Alexa. It sounds to me that the success you have had with Alexa is based, in part, on your willingness to memorize the correct verbiage for each action you desire to implement. I reject that I should have to do this, and certainly would not convince others living in the house the value in doing so. Certainly, one can get consistent results with this approach, but I would rather press a light switch than having to memorize exact syntax of commands, many of which I might only use a few times a year. Until I can cease to worry about whether I say "shut" versus "close", or "turn on the lights" versus "turn the lights on", or "turn up the volume" versus "tell harmony to turn up the volume" I will continue to view alexa as little more than an interesting hobby. In my alexa, I cannot even say "alexa, turn the lights on" without getting an error response...or telling alexa to "turn on the office lights" and having the TV come on. This is despite the fact that the alexa is assigned to a room (or group) and certain devices (called lights) are assigned to that same group and that the TV is not a light in that group. Don't even get me started on the fact that I can only have a single harmony hub assigned to the alexa and that telling alexa to turn on the TV in one room will often result in the TV of another room turning on. Yes, you might be able to get it to work with enough effort, workarounds, crazy naming sequences, and patience, but I suspect you are a small minority that find the effort worth the reward. Hopefully, it will get better over time.
dbwarner5 Posted January 7, 2020 Posted January 7, 2020 Understand your point. Shut the garage doors on this example is pretty much the only natural thing to say. For other situations where there are multiple natural words I will add several voice options in the portal for the Alexa command or in some cases 2 or 3 routines with different but similar voice commandsMy wife is my natural tester. And as you would guess I hear about anything annoying pretty quickly lol. And currently she loves what we have done with Alexa and has good enough luck with it that she not only doesn’t complain but even shows it off. Lol But again I understand your point Lots of time and patience to get to the level of use that I have with itBut I wouldn’t do with out it Cheers Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 1
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