Another issue with FanLinc and Amazon Echo.

[philgood]

Most of my Echo based commands are recognised without a problem, but our Front Room Fan (FanLinc v.3B) is not working properly.  I've followed @MrBill's instructions that he posted on April 12, 2022, where he says to create 4 programs for high, med, low and off. And yes, I even read the part about leaving the IF blank, for High, Med, Low add a line to the THEN block to turn on the correct scene.  For the off function add a line to the ELSE block to turn ON the OFF scene. I also followed the instructions regarding choosing "Program" in the portal and verified that I used "Switch" for the Alexa Category.

After having the Echo discover the new devices, which it found, it seemed to have worked once for turning the fan to each speed but it would never turn off or switch back to Medium. It would switch to Low and High. Looking at the Details tab on Programs in the Admin Console, I am seeing that three of the four programs that turn the fan to High, Med and Low are showing green, indicating that they are still running.  The fan off program is red.  Now, when I ask "Alexa, turn Front Room Fan medium on", the Echo responds with "I couldn't find a device called Front Room Fan  in philgood's (Not the real name of my profile... that would be ridiculous) profile".

Additionally and just for "clarity", the Then command that I used for the Hi, Med and Low is the Action to turn the device On to the associated speed setting.  

I also was trying to set the Spoken to also allow "Alexa, turn on Front Room Fan High", "Alexa, turn on Front Room Fan Medium", or "Alexa, turn on Front Room Fan Low",  but only got back "I couldn't find a device called Front Room Fan in philgood's profile", so I gave up on that.

Does it matter that the three "On" programs are always showing as running?

Why will it not allow for Medium speed and the ability to turn the fan off, with manually turning it off through the Admin Console?

Thanks for your time! 

Edited June 17, 2023 by philgood
Used # vs @

[Geddy]

@philgoodwhy make it so difficult just for use with Alexa? In the portal add the Fanlinc motor as a FAN category device. Then Alexa knows how to set speed and turn it off. 

That’s how mine works, and I don’t have to worry about a program to set the speed. I do have a program to sync the keypad buttons with the proper speed for when the speed changes via other methods than the keypad presses. It’s simple and works. 

This method allows me to just say, “Alexa set fan to high”. It just goes to high. 

[philgood]

Because that's what what MrBill's instruction were as of April 12 of 2022 but mostly because I didn't know Fan was an Alexa Category.  Thanks for pointing it out!

This new info still leaves me with the question (That I could find the answer to on the forums), what new Spoken(s) do you need to create?  Do you have to set one up for each command (High, Medium Low, and Off) or is there some default command that covers them all.

Thanks again.

[Geddy]

@philgood I’m sure I’ve been doing it this way since Fans were added to the Alexa skill in 2020.

I just make the spoken simple to keep the command short.

”Alexa, set overhead fan to high”, and boom…it’s on high.  Spoken is just “overhead fan”. This way I can control that fanlinc motor from any Echo device/app we have.

I’m not sure the @MrBill post you reference (why not link to it)? But there can be more than one way to do things. The skill just seems to make it simple and painless. Perhaps the programs you’re working through solved another issue. Again, you didn’t link to the post for context. 

Read more about it in first pinned post in the Amazon Echo area of the Portal portion of the forums…

 

[oberkc]

On 6/16/2023 at 10:37 PM, Geddy said:

@philgoodwhy make it so difficult just for use with Alexa? In the portal add the Fanlinc motor as a FAN category device. Then Alexa knows how to set speed and turn it off. 

I suspect the problem with adding fanlinc as a fan-category is that this approach does not keep other devices that are in scenes with the fanlinc (keypadlincs, for example) synced up.  I would wager that this is the problem mrbill is trying to solve with programs.

[Geddy]

57 minutes ago, oberkc said:

I would wager that this is the problem mrbill is trying to solve with programs.

Well since op didn’t come back to link it I went searching….here is the post from @MrBill that I assume @philgood is referencing. No mention of scenes, but agreed that if controlling the fan directly then any scenes it might be in could be out of sync, but that’s typical for anytime you change one device directly. It’s also why I mentioned above that I do have programs that will sync the keypad buttons depending on what speed the fan is set to. (Keypads and Fanlinc have always created lengthy discussions. One a while back lead to an updated wiki topic to try to help.)

 

On 6/16/2023 at 7:11 PM, philgood said:

Does it matter that the three "On" programs are always showing as running?

Nothing is showing “running” in your screenshots above. It shows a slight green on the edge of the program to show that it last status was TRUE. You can see if it is “running” in the summary tab. It should just show “last run time” and “status = true”. It was true because you triggered the THEN. It has no if to trigger so anytime you directly call on the THEN it will be true. The off is red because you triggered the ELSE so was false. When a program is actively running the whole icon will be green. 
 

I still reason that adding the fanlinc motor as the fan category and being able to control it without programs is much simpler and cleaner. If you do use/need to have it in scenes then that’s a whole different aspect that isn’t being considered in the OP. 
 

if Alexa isn’t finding the fan spoken (as you indicate) I would make it a shorter name. Sometimes there is issues with “long” or multi-word spoken names. Keep them short!

Another option might be using Groups in the Alexa app. I’ve not tried this and haven’t had great success in the past, but it might allow you to just reference the fan in the room you are in. 

[MrBill]

22 hours ago, Geddy said:

It shows a slight green on the edge of the program to show that it last status was TRUE. You can see if it is “running” in the summary tab.

A running program also has a solid color icon. 

Currently running Then.

Currently running Else.

Not currently running, last time the Program ran it ran Then.

Not currently running, last time the Program ran it ran Else.

For many programs you won't actually see other than a flicker of the icon when it runs,  Icons that stay solid are likely sitting in a wait.

For the last two note that it means last time the program ran, which is not the same thing as the last time the If was evaluated.  Other ways the program can be run include, but may not be limited to, manually running Then or Else from the admin console, or another program running Then or Else. 

On 6/16/2023 at 6:11 PM, philgood said:

Additionally and just for "clarity", the Then command that I used for the Hi, Med and Low is the Action to turn the device On to the associated speed setting.  

Turn the SCENE on, not the device.