Alexa sunrise routine consistently fails to tun off specific Hue bulbs

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1

Hi all -

Sorry if I missed a previous discussion of this issue in my forum search, and if this is better asked on Amazon forums (god help me!), but I am having a really frustrating issue with my sunrise routine on Alexa. I have 22 Hue bulbs in my soffits that are supposed to be turned off at sunrise. But Alexa fails, every time, to turn off the same 7 bulbs in that "Soffit" group.

I've deleted and rediscovered everything multiple times, and deleted/recreated the groups and routine, to no avail. I've even moved the hub around. I've also tried adding multiple instances of the command to the routine.

What makes this so bizarre is that the sunSET routine, to turn them all ON, works just fine, as does anything else involving that group or those bulbs.

If at all relevant, I'm also confused as to what devices I should be adding via the Alexa integration app on the HE versus direct discovery via Alexa, but it seems like Hue bulbs should NOT be added via the hub (or at least it doesn't seem necessary for my purposes) unlike, say, locks.

Anyone else run into this issue before or have any ideas?

2

Some more information is needed to help you with this:

  1. Are the bulbs connected via a hue bridge or direct to the HE hub?

  2. How are the bulbs connected with Alexa?

  3. In the Alexa routine, Are you using sending the commands to a group in hue, group in HE, group in Alexa, or to the individual bulbs?

3

Hi Tony.

  1. Via a Hue bridge

  2. I had previously added them via HE's Alexa app but I've now directly discovered them via Alexa

  3. To a group that I created in Alexa. I pondered trying with individual bulbs but man that would be painful with 22 since you can only do 1 at a time! This question made me think about the fact that I can't SEE HE groups in Alexa, so I went ahead and added them via the HE Alexa app. Think that will work better?

4

For controlling hue lights from Alexa, I use the Phillips hue cloud integration to Alexa and use the hue groups or scenes as much as possible.

The HE sync with the hue bridge will see the changes and update separately, so this delay means automations in HE based on lights changing are slightly delayed. For me this isn't a problem; i setup the Alexa routine to toggle HE virtual switches if i want automations in HE to run with the routine.

5

Yes, I wouldn't be terribly concerned about that delay either. And I love the idea of all groups being Hue-centric (well, other than Lutron groups/rooms).

So, hmmm. I do have the Hue skill enabled in Alexa. Or were you referring to something else?