Lately when invoking Alexa to turn on/off a device, she has consistently required clarification of the device in question. As an example, if I would say "Alexa, turn on Livingroom Lights", previously it would work fine. However recently, she has consistently responded with "several devices share the name lights, which ones are you trying to use", to which if I then respond "Livingroom Lights" it works fine. This seems to only have manifested since the last round of updates in the past month or so. Anyone else experienced the same and find a resolution? TIA, appreciated!
I have seen this too. I don't know how it could be on the HE end though. There are lots of changes being applied to Alexa these days. Adding AI and chat capability etc. I think they have mucked things up a bit. IMHO. Adding: I would speak slowly and clearly. That seems to help. And yes, it's annoying.
3 Likes
In my experience, a number of of device names can overlap - for example - having a single device - 'Livingroom bulb' - can be called to Alexa 'turn off 'Bulb' or 'Turn off Livingroom'. Then, inside of Alexa you have rooms now as well - you can add a device to a room - completely not related to Rooms in HE btw. Now you have 2 devices that have a shared word - livingroom can be the room name or the single device. then, in HE if you create a group called 'Livingroom' more problems in differentiation begin to occur - assuming you have the Alexa app on your HE there is a setting that any new device is added to the Alexa side. (when you add it to the device list).
I now standardize on not putting any Group names into Alexa - just real devices.
On the Alexa side, I only put devices in rooms I want Alexa to recognize for that room name. Bulbs. switches. nothing else. Then I can take advantage of the 'room' naming of Alexa as well as the local Echo device knowing which devices are in the same room - a really great feature.
I also will edit device names IN ALEXA after they are added to remove the room name from the device name. that was a big problem early on. I'm writing this on hours sleep and doubt its of any use but my heart is in the right place!
Remove the word “lights” from the device names. For me, that has been problematic for quite a while.
1 Like
I have a similar situation. When I tell Alexa to do something, the action completes.
When I tell Google to do the same thing, it replies that such and such is not available, then a few seconds later the action completes. Repeating the Google command results in the action completing correctly. It’s like Google doesn’t see the devices the first time but does the second time.
1 Like
@jshimota sorry for the delayed responses, see below...
Oddly, I always call it out by the full name (i.e. Livingroom Bulb), and Alexa continues to respond with something similar to "a number of share the name bulb, which one is it...", ignoring that I have specified Livingroom.
I've also stayed away from defining any of this within Alexa, so I don't believe this is necessarily the issue... The odd part is that this behavior just started at the time of the original post, and had previously worked flawlessly...
@TomG this is pretty much my exact experience with Alexa. As if she is not receiving the response from HE that the action completed.
This doesn't seem feasible for my situation as I have numerous different devices in the same room. If I don't specify "lights", how will HE differentiate between the lights and the fan (as an example)?
I just discovered that Alexa apparently knows it’s a light whether or not you name it that. A Zigbee lamp dimmer named “Christina’s Lamp” that I couldn’t get to work with voice control, works when I ask Alexa to turn on “Christina’s Lamp Light”. It makes no sense to me, since that’s not the name and there aren’t any other lamps in the room this Alexa is assigned to. So, if you name it “light”, you might have to call it “light light” to get Alexa to control it.
1 Like
This has been a thing since I can remember. Weirdly enough, certain things need that extra "light" command, and others don't. Or maybe it is Amazon playing with the backend breaking things? Hard to say.
The group name and the item name being the same also messes Alexa up. Kitchen Light within Kitchen group can be problematic at times.
1 Like
This immediately seems so annoying, but hey, I'll give it a shot and report back!
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
