Hi -
We are experiencing a weird issue when using Alexa Skill and HE. The issue comes when using Alexa Groups ("Rooms") feature "Turn on ALL, or Turn off ALL" for that GRoup in Alexa.
SO if you try to use the Turn ON all, SOME of the ligths get turned on, the feedback on Alexa app shows all of them ON, but it actually turned on maybe 3 of them.
The same happens when you turn off. It will be OK, but Alexa app will show ALL off, but some lights are still physically on.
The device which we are using that's inside of the groups, is a CABLED Light Module, with 8 relays.
In HE it works perfect, the master on, master off, individually, even in Alexa individually works perfect. The issue comes only in the Alexa Groups Turn all on/off for the group.
The child devices are created in HE as Generic Component Switch. And we tested in Alexa to use them as Switches, and as Lights type, and in both situations the same bug for all on/off.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
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If you have this settings enabled in the Alexa Echo Skill app on HE that might be causing the issue where the state becomes incorrect in Alexa.
Basically when Alexa makes a request the hub will reply back right away saying it is done so Alexa updates the state right away. If that is off then the hub waits for the device to actually report its state change back then replies back to Alexa.
As for the actual problem, I am thinking maybe all those commands are being fired at that device all at once, and it is dropping some of them. Do you need individual control of each relay within Alexa or do you usually control them in a group?
I was thinking you could make a group in HE (via groups or Room Lighting) and then share only that group device to Alexa. Then Alexa will only be triggering one virtual device, and HE will take care of switching each relay on or off.
Hi @jtp10181 - thanks so much for the quick response.
The setting "Respond immediately without waiting for device" was already disabled. Something else might be going on.
I have the same believe as you do "all those commands are being fired at that device all at once, and it is dropping some of them".
It's for example "Bed Light, Closet light, Window light", all part of the bedroom. So yes, probably need to be controlled separately, but when trying to say "Turn Bedroom on/off", we have the problem.
Do we know how can we solve this? Can we add a pause? Time in the command from Alexa?
I could create that Group in HE, and do the test, for sure it will work as the handling will be all done at HE side - right?
The issue comes that Customers usually create or modify their groups by themselves, and if they do - we would have ask them what they did, and do that edit/modify also in the HE Group we created.
Some work, but it would temporary solve it until we figure out how to fix the real issue.
We created a Group "Mol Group", and included the 8 switches inside.
Tested the Group first in HE, and worked perfect.
Added the group "Mol Group" to Alexa Skill devices, and showed up inmediately in the Alexa app.
By turning on/off the switch in Alexa, it turned on/off the 8 switches in HE without issues.
By adding the switch into a Group (Room) into Alexa, and turning on/off the GROUP, it turned on/off the 8 switches in HE without issues too.
So as we imagined, and @jtp10181 and you said - it works ok on HE side, but Alexa is throwing all the commands all at once to HE when using the GROUP inside Alexa, without any pause or delay, and there the device get's lost.
The truth is that we need this to work without the HE Group, as the end customer might be wanting to add/remove devices from the Alexa Group eventually, without need of changing the Group in HE.
For what we see in the Device logs in HE, the commands get thrown all at once, executed at the "Event" level, updating the status of the switches on HE, but not executing all the commands in the actual relay. We tried adding a pauseexecution of different ms after each on/off to see if helped , but didn't help either.
BobbyD - we manufacture and distribute the device in Brazil, is an 8CH Relay Board, with 8 inputs/8 outputs. We have it also in 16/32CH version, and dimmer too.
*I can even send you a unit if need to debug in your office.
It communicates via TCP, HTTP, or MQTT. It has an API for integration, and currently integrates with many brands (C4, Savant, RTI, Crestron, Nice, etc). We developed ourselves the driver for Hubitat, using the TCP and websocket. We believe is ok - but maybe there is something that can be improved there.
The driver is available via HPM, but here is the GitHub link:
If you want to see anything or test, I have a Demo C8 in the office, connected to a Relay Board and to an Alexa account, which we use for testing and debug.
I really appreciated the help, and myself or my team is available to help and contribute anyway we can so we can solve this.
Thanks again.
So I was thinking about this device some more. I am curious how this is being used for lighting in Brazil? Is the house being designed around using relays for lights so all the wiring comes back to one spot to be wired up? Are they using normal voltage for the lights or are they running low voltage lighting from the relay boards? Is that the only way to control the lights then? With the relays? I suppose if they have something like a Control4 there are touch panels in each room that act as the switches.
In USA usually there is not much more than 3 switches in one location, so retrofitting with relays is often not the best option.
Sorry for all the questions, just curious how different countries do things, its always interesting.
Hi @jtp10181 - how are you!
Exactly right, what you thought.
In Brazil, there are many projects where integratos install Savant, Control4, Crestron, RTI - but the whole installation is centralized (one spot/"BOARD Room"). Normal voltage.
This would have keypads/or regular switches in the walls, wired also to the main spot, cabled usually by Ethernet/cat5 cable to take advantage of the pairs. But is actually low voltage just for dry contact from the keypad to the "Board Room" (input board).
Relays are already there in the "Board Room", so close to the power lines, and easy to wire to our relay board too.
Instead of having small wireless (zigbee/zwave) units all over the house, the relay board (4/8/16/32 channels) is completely cabled and free of possible error, as it's Ethernet+Communication via TCP/IP to C4, Savant, etc.
In this case, we are offering Hubitat now in Brazil, to the integrators who already use these relay boards, so they can in some projects, use Hubitat instead of other one of the big brands.
The relay boards are now completely integrated to Hubitat - we did the driver, still fixing some minor things (like the Alexa grouping you solved!). But this kind of relay board really helps in projects, as does not have any failure, wireless issue, or any of the other possible bugs z-wave/zigbee/wifi products might present when needing a stable solution. (example attached)
