I have 5 rooms with Fans, and all of them have Ceiling fans. If I say "Alexa turn on fan" it trips over everything and really just wants to mess with my Ecobee.
I can say "Alexa turn on bedroom fan" and that works fine, but just like turn on and off lights, is there a way that anyone has come up with to get fans to be specific to the room that you are in?
when i say "turn on fan" and i'm in the bedroom, just turn that fan on.
ideas?
I did but it requires Node Red. Check on the Echo Speaks thread to see if Echo Speaks has a way to act based on which Echo device heard the command.
If you have gone down the Node Red rabbit hole or plan to, let me know.
You used to be able to do this with Echo Speaks. There was an API change back the end of last year that screwed that up. The developer says it will be a big undertaking to fix and AFAIK it has not done it yet.
I moved a few months ago into a rental house so didn't install my inovelli fan controllers. Therefore I am not sure my Node Red method would work currently.
Same here. I encountered several issues such as confusing with Ecobee actions, and inability to handle speed control. I finally gave up and created a special phrase such as "Make it spin like Michael Jackson" and used an Alexa routine to take the appropriate action.
I am not making this up.
I am curious about node red I suppose then.
Use Google Home 
Try here and then the link to other thread in that post:
I just tried it to be sure, but I thought if you put your Echo and whatever lights in an Amazon app room, that it would turn things on and off per room.
I don't have a fan in this room, but it does turn the lights on and off when I just say "turn light on" and not the specific light name "computer room light".
Does this not work for you?
She seems to have a mind of her own regarding rooms/groups. Sometimes she plays ball without specifying the room in the command, other times not so much - with any/all devices that share a similar name.
EG: Echo turn on the ceiling light, or Echo close the blind. Sometimes she figures out you mean the device located in the same group/room. Other times she chirps up with "several devices share the name "xxx" which one do you mean?"
I reckon her good/bad ratio is about 40/60.
Google seems to have a much better grasp of this sort of thing. Unfortunately Google is as deaf as a post & doesn't know the difference between on and off.
You can only set the lights, fans and other stuff do not work in that fashion
Not entirely accurate... There are only a subset of devices that work:
The node-red solution can work...but it's still really annoying to handle ceiling fans properly. It's honestly easier and more reliable to just say the full name "Jim's Bedroom Fan" or "Living Room Fan" or "Jake's Bedroom Fan" or "Office Fan" or whatever...
Alexa used to be good with this but something has changed and it no longer respects rooms as rooms, not just treats them as a casual grouping which means each device needs a unique name - it won't just turn on the fan in the room its in if there is more than one thing in the home called fan
Good question. However, I don't think "she" can, yet. You can set up a room in Alexa. This is usually, in my case at least, lights. You can add more, as many as you want but they will all be treated the same. "Alexa, turn on bedroom" results in everything in the room on. Not exactly what you want. You and I share the same goal. I have not found a way, yet. Now, I have the desired lights of each room set as the room with the Alexa device in that room. "Alexa, turn on the lights" results in the desired lights on in the room she and I are in. The fan? I have to name each a short simple one word name to help her differentiate which fan I want. Reading through the other replies, this seems to be the majority consensus. With the exception of "Nod Red" users. This may not be much help except to reassure you you are not alone, not missing anything and others have the same interest. Let's keep working on it.
You can add yourselves to the long 4-year-old list of people requesting Amazon add this capability:
Alexa has odd rules about when she asks about ambiguous device names (non light) and when she assumes. We have two zwave ceiling fans (grouped to their room but of course this is ignored.). One is named "Bedroom Fan" and the other "Living Room Fan". If you ask her to turn on the "fan" she will always pick the bedroom one.
Has anyone figured out yet a way to make Alexa less idiotic about room awareness for anything other than lights?
There is a very convoluted way using Node-Red I read about once, decided it was not worth it.
Easier to just name the fan/device something like Family Room Fan then use the exact device name in the voice request.
Unfortunately this workaround has an extremely low wife approval factor and convoluted for guests as well.
Check this out, I think you can do this without HA, just need Node-Red and the proper plugin
Download the Hubitat app
