Is me or has Alexa become hard of hearing?

the same thing has been happening with my google home set up. starting to wonder if they're optimizing software for newer customers in a classic bait and switch.

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Hate to admit it, but a similar, if not the exact thought (in principle) crossed my mind...

How easy would it be for Amazon to make older Alexa devices "deaf" via a firmware/software update, making you think the device is "broken", indirectly "forcing" you to buy the latest (or put up with the issue)

Mmmm. Conspiracy rulez!

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I mean....conspiracy? capitalism? same Dif .XD

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Someone has to pay for Bezos' rockets.

Hmm, maybe Amazon is screwing with us?

I've noticed you don't want anything to close to it. Every time I start screaming at it I look over and my wife has built a wall around it with crap.

So in regard to this issue, I discovered (after dishing-out my tin foil hat conspiracy theories on Twitter :neutral_face:) that the cause has nothing to do with Google Home or Google Assistant microphones, but it does have to do with Google being a bit over ambitious.

Issue
I found that recently my ability to lock my August Lock via the Google Assistant Relay driver was failing for an unknown reason. Last night I dug in and investigated the situation further. After disabling and re-enabling the August service from Google Assistant a few times and a few different ways, I was continuing to get the response from Google Assistant "It looks like that device isn't setup...etc." when even trying to control the August Smart Lock by voice.

I had recently decided to add Hubitat Elevation back into Google Assistant to try out my new Google Home Hub as a means of physical control, and therefore it made sense to try disabling the integration as a troubleshooting step. As soon as I removed the Hubitat Elevation Service, the August Lock started responding to voice commands from Google Home/Google Assistant again. But why?

A bit of background is needed to make this issue make sense. In order to keep the status of my August lock known to Alexa when manually locking and unlocking it, I had created a virtual lock, which I then use IFTTT to flip a virtual switch based on the lock state, and in turn a Rule Machine rule changes the virtual lock state to match. Since I didn't have the August lock skill enabled in Alexa Voice Services, there was no conflict, but on Google there was. But I had not exposed this virtual lock to Google Assistant in the Hubitat Google Home app, so why was this happening?

Turns out that because I had named the Hubitat Virtual Lock as "August Smart Lock", Google Assistant was looking at ALL my devices in Hubitat and telling me that the August Smart Lock was not setup, thus the reason for the voice feedback that "...the device is not setup..." when attempting to control the lock by speaking to my Google Home Hub, and the message that kept popping up when activating my "Goodnight" and "I'm Leaving" automations, which were both attempting to lock the August Smart Lock via Google Assistant Relay. So Google Assistant is trying to "help" by looking at all devices we have on Hubitat Elevation when we activate the service, not just the ones we choose to expose to it.

Solution
Once I re-enabled the Hubitat Elevation service on Google Assistant, the problem re-occurred, but as soon as I changed the name of my Hubitat Virtual Lock from "August Smart Lock" to just "Hubitat Virtual Lock" the problem was resolved and I no longer receive that persistent message on my phone every time I run my "Goodnight" and "I'm Leaving" automations.

So this begs a question for @chuck.schwer. Can a change be made to the Google Home integration so google will not try to do our thinking for us, and stop making suggestions on devices we have not explicitly exposed to Google Assistant via the Hubitat service?

our GH integration doesn't send data for any devices other than those selected and supported.
bulbs, switches, dimmers and thermostats, all of which must have the correct attributes associated with the given capability prior to them being synched with Google.

Well then I have no idea what that was. This problem has been plaguing me for two weeks, and once I discovered (or so I thought) what was causing it, I was able to duplicate it several times last night. Now when I try to repeat it, I can't. :man_shrugging:

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She's not hard of hearing, she's sexist. Personal observation, confirmed by several friends is that when it's a male speaking, more than half the time she doesn't respond, says she didn't know, or had an incorrect response. When my wife talks to her, 100% accuracy every time.

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I've been noticing with the Alexa the same as the Wyze cameras. Both sold on Amazon. That after I started getting new updates it seemed the Alexa started going deaf one I had for over 2 years I actually had to trash because 75% of the time it never responded now the one I bought 6 months ago is starting to do the same thing. I also noticed with our cameras from Wyze after updates started having issues connecting to the point that one I've only had about a year and a half started not being able to connect over half the time now I have two others that are starting to do the same thing. I've got a feeling that they're updates are the issue they've installed software to affect them in the way that they are starting to respond so you'll have to buy new ones. If they didn't make your old ones obsolete they'd go out of business.

I doubt it’s a nefarious plot. Because it doesn’t have to be.

These devices have pretty cheap components, and over time new updates to the service may have processing, memory or other hardware requirements that older devices no longer keep up with, to a level that’s satisfactory for most users at least.

It’s still a form of planned obsolescence, but doesn’t require the developer to break their own older generation hardware, which risks alienating customers.

Edited: also this thread had no responses for four years, so it’s probably outdated overall and might be a candidate for closure. Tagging @bobbyD.

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