Amazon Echo Skill Problems with Light Groups and Adjusting Device Type

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1

Hi everyone. Having migrated from Wink, I'm enjoying many things about Hubitat. But the integration with Amazon Alexa has been rather suboptimal in my experience. I'm noticing three things of concern.

  1. I'm supposed to be able to say "Lights on" to Alexa and the group of lights connected to the device that hears it will turn on or off. In Alexa you can designate a device as a "light" or "switch" with only the former being affected by the "lights on" or "lights off" command. But I'm finding that in each of my Alexa groups, the "lights on/off" command also turns switches on/off despite them being correctly designated as switches in Alexa. Thus results in ceiling fans and other devices going on/off when I don't want them to.

  2. In general, Alexa doesn't seem to be consistent in its ability to control Hubitat devices. Hubitat itself is fast. And Alexa through Hubitat is a lot faster than Alexa through Wink.... most of the time. But there are other times where inordinate delays between commands given to Alexa and response by Hubitat devices are very noticeable. Note: I have Xfiniti Wi-Fi repeaters (Xpods) throughout the house, and other WiFi devices seem to be working fine.

I'm just wondering if other Alexa users have had these issues and/or have come upon any solutions.

2

I've never used the generic "lights on/off" command with Alexa. I've created groups for various rooms and placed individual switches in there, so I'll have Alexa turn off rooms and haven't had any issues, so I can't really speak to the issues you're having.

I did notice though that if I have the word "Light" in the name of the device, Alexa identifies it as a Light, even though it's a switch. All other switches are in the Switch section

3

I do the same thing but I still find it convenient to just say "lights on" or "lights off" in any room I enter.

I may have a found a fix, sort of. The fans and other non-lights that are set as switches - i set them in Alexa to lights, and then changed them back to switches, and now most of them (except one bathroom vent fan) no longer turn on/off with the lights command.

Weird. I have no explanation for this.

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