Best Practices for most efficient Alexa response time

[PB11]

Greetings

I'm hoping someone might have some insight regarding best practices with Alexa.

I have a fairly extensive setup with isy, insteon and alexa. I have learned early on that its best to group devices in isy when creating scenes as they respond much faster then a Alexa routine or group. Alexa seems to control devices one after the other where as isy scenes seem to respond as a broadcast, all at once.

The issue is I have an Alexa group (room) called kitchen, and an isy scene call kitchen. Alaxa seems to deal with it as an Alexa group so the kitchen either dims or turns off one light at a time.

With 33 "insteon devices" in my kitchen, the delay is extensive and often results in Alexa stating "something went wrong". In the end the lights almost always turn off.

What I'm wondering is if someone has found a more efficient way of structuring a similar setup other then just deleting the Alexa Kitchen Grouping.

Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks kindly

[larryllix]

All my groupings are done in ISY, and none in Alexa.

If I did grouping in Alexa, SwitchLIncs and other sensor inputs would not be able to control the group, so I would have to duplicate the groupings anyway. I started out with ISY before Alexa was created or interfaced to ISY and I use it for automation.

For just remote control, I could have just purchased an Insteon Hub, or these days, just a few GHs or Alexa boxes. When the cloud doesn't function, as it has been more frequently now, nothing would work at all with cloud dependence.

[MrBill]

I agree with @larryllix I try to keep the Alexa interface as simplified as possible.

[apnar]

Concur. The only “light” in your Alexa kitchen group should be the ISY scene for the kitchen. I don’t usually even bother exposing individual devices to Alexa in areas with multiple devices.

[larryllix]

I typically use programs from Alexa. An Insteon scene or Zwave scene cannot include WiFi lighting or other protocols. The slight delay from running an ISY program is not even noticeable compared to the length of the vocal and the really slow Alexa speaker, to Amazon cloud server, to UDI cloud server, to your ISY.

[PB11]

Thanks All.

I'll have a revisit and test out restructuring my Alexa Groups into ISY Groups.

This may remind me why I went down this path in the first place.

Thanks for all the great input.

[patryk.szady]

On 10/8/2021 at 3:33 PM, apnar said:

Concur. The only “light” in your Alexa kitchen group should be the ISY scene for the kitchen. I don’t usually even bother exposing individual devices to Alexa in areas with multiple devices.

I agree. However Alexa always discovers my LiFX lights even if I remove them and I'm sure other smart devices she autodiscovers on your network. I just keep them disabled in the alexa app now. very annoying because i have a huge list of devices that I hate seeing because they're useless but always in the way.

[PB11]

Just to clarify, by ISY groups I'm assuming you mean scenes?

Any creative ways to still take advantage of Alexa voice control over Sonos with isy configuration?

With Alexa, the sonos works best when grouped in a room.

 

[patryk.szady]

Mine are scenes. You can still group all alexa (and newly ISY created lights) to a room in alexa as you normally would. Clicking ALL ON in the alexa app inside a room group would include your lights/scenes/programs/variables from ISY.. and of course speaking to alexa would react to "turn on lights" in that group.

[larryllix]

47 minutes ago, PB11 said:

Just to clarify, by ISY groups I'm assuming you mean scenes?

Any creative ways to still take advantage of Alexa voice control over Sonos with isy configuration?

With Alexa, the sonos works best when grouped in a room.

 

Depends who you are asking.
I try to always state "Insteon Scenes" as "scenes is such a generic word now and not descriptive of meaning.

I always try to get every signal into ISY and let my programs sort out, and apply logic to what I want operated. Sonos would be no different if I used them.

Example:
I have an Insteon MS on my porch facing downward to detect deliveries and people standing in front of my front door.
 I announce on select Alexa speakers "Motion was detected on the front porch",.... always.
I ring the back doorbell.... depending on the time of day so it doesn't wake the whole house up in the wee hours of the night. Could be a cat or fly on the MS lens.
I send text messages out.... if I am not at home
I turn on porch lights to full..... if between sunset and sunrise. Turn them back to whatever they were doing after ten minutes. These lights are all WiFi operated.

Sound like something a smart speaker or Insteon Hub, or even an Insteon scene  could do?