Device filters global for Amazon Echo Skill

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1

I found out the hard way that the filter on the list of devices to export to Alexa is global, that is all accounts share the same list of devices.

What I did:

  • In HE, choose the list of devices to export to Alexa. Basically filtering out devices I'd never want to export, such as Sonos
  • First Amazon account: in Alexa companion app, link to HE and select all available devices
  • Second Amazon account: in Alexa companion app, link to HE and select a subset of these devices. The scenario is a guest bedroom where only the devices relevant to guests should be exposes.

Expected outcome: Alexa devices registered to first amazon account see all devices that it makes sense to export to Alexa, Alexa devices registered to second Amazon account only see a small subset of these devices.

Actual outcome: when I linked HE to the second Amazon account, all the additional devices were automatically removed from the first one. So it looks like the device filter in the Amazon Echo Skill app in HE is the same as the list of devices one chooses to export to Alexa when linking to an Amazon account. So it looks like the list is globally unique.

Desired outcome: n+1 separate lists for n linked Amazon account:

  • the global filter in HE's App that limits the devices that can be linked to any Amazon account
  • a per Amazon account device that optionally limits further the devices that account can control
2

Unlike many other built-in apps, AFAIK, one can only install a single instance of the Amazon Echo Skill. So adding a second Amazon account doesn't connect to a second instance of the Amazon Echo Skill.

And, while I don't know this, there may be technical reasons that permit only a single instance of the Echo Skill to be run on any Hubitat.

3

Maybe the single echo skill app could differentiate the list of devices to expose per account? Could come handy for scenarios such as Airbnb, vacation home, kids or guest bedrooms, etc.

4

Again, I could be mistaken, but I believe it can only connect to one Amazon account at a time.

5

I'm successfully using echo devices on two separate amazon account for the same HE account. I can turn on the light from echo device A linked to amazon account X and turn it off from echo device B linked to Amazon account Y.

My only problem is that it looks like the list of devices each account see has to be identical, and changes made when linking to one account are replicated to the other.

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6

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