Way off topic but I can't find any info on the intertubes so here goes.
We have 11 echo devices throughout the house. For the last few months, the wrong device responds to a command. It’s getting ridiculous and sometimes a device on another floor will respond even though I’m standing next to the device to which I gave a command. It's almost as if the command is heard by the correct device but the response is sent to a random device in the house.
Does anyone know if there’s a way to fix this? Is there a way to reset whatever technology is used to determine which device should respond? It’s getting to the point where Alexa is practically unusable. TIA for any suggestions.
One option is to use a different wake word on different device. I have two Echo devices downstairs (open floorpan). One uses "Alexa" for its wake word, while the other uses "Ziggy". This has helped dramatically, once you train your brain to use different names for different devices.
Another is you could turn off the microphone on the Echo devices that are rarely used via voice commands, to prevent them from hearing you.
All of them, really. Play music, turn something on or off, language translation requests. The commands work but the response comes from the wrong device and often times we can't hear the response because the responding device is too far away.
Last Summer, I was asking Alexa to play music on the Alexa Android app (my phone) to play through the car stereo. It was turning on stuff at my house 100 miles away. Like you say, it wasn't responding on the device I invoked the action on. I didn't ask to play that music on "the living room" or anything like that, Alexa was being a ditz and did it herself.
If it was me. i'd
1: check all device are up to date
2: make you main device listen name unique
3: establish it works 100%
4: slowly convert other devices to use same wake word one by one and test
So other thoughts:
Are all devices registered to the same amazon account?
Are you running just the one HE amazon gateway app
Looks like you are running different Alexa devices on the same amazon account in different locations(any chance of splitting Alexa devices in different locations to different amazon accounts)
I have 10 Echo devices scattered throughout the house and a couple of older devices out of service. The device that I have the most issues with not hearing commands properly is a Echo Show 5. It has "terrible ears". I can be two feet away from the device speaking directly towards it and my command will be heard more clearly by an Echo Show 15 device mounted on the wall 12 feet behind me. To be fair, the Echo Show 5 is on a crowded desk with my computer monitor, computer speakers, etc. so there may be reflections and interference.
For being inexpensive devices, the Echo dots have excellent "ears" but the "mouth" is not good, Sound quality from the speakers is poor. I do not currently have any in service.
My devices in service are Echo Show 5 x1, Echo Show 8 x2 (which I love), Echo Show 10 Gen1 x2, Echo Show 10 Gen 2 x1 (which I love), and Echo Show 15 x2. I also have an Ecobee thermostat with Alexa built it. The only device that has serious hearing problems is the Echo Show 5. I have an Echo Gen 1 in the basement and it seems to work well for that purpose.
I think the AWS outage of a few weeks ago has messed things up. With no changes, my echo link will now not play music when requested to via another Alexa device. I've tried everything. Rebooted everything. Deregistered and re-registered. Power cycled. Changed names.
The Echo Link streamer does not have a built-in microphone so for voice commands it relies on another Alexa device with a mic. This used to be fine as I would use my outdoor mounted Echo Dot3 and say "Alexa, play N'Sync on the echo link". This would fire up the echo link and I would have music on my outdoor audio. Now she says "xxxxx playing on the Echo Link" but nothing happens. I have to manually go into Amazon music on my cell phone, push play and then connect to the echo link. Infuriating.
I really don't want to go back to an Echo dot via 3.5 mm as my source as the Links audio is far superior so I'm about to sell it and go with a Wiim Pro streamer.
I have several Echo Dots — gens 2 and 5 — and Echo Spot, and an Echo Clock. The clock is attached to the 5th den Dot that's in the kitchen. (I use it as a kitchen timer.) When a timer alarm goes off, Even if I whisper directly to the Dot in the kitchen, it's a dot in the living room — that I can barely hear — that tells me the timer has been completed. It used to respond in the kitchen. I've given up trying to figure out why it's not.
