That is what is so strange. It says Amazon Echo Skill BUT I have hunches off and away off. Here is an entire day. Most were me but somewere auto. Whenever you see it go off then I turn it back on a few seconds later. I RARELY turn it off during the day. When I do turn it back on I do use the Echo to do it as the switch is across the room. I cannot find a single Activity entry in Alexa app where it flips the lights but Hubitat blames it so it seems to be true.
You can even see where its already on and then Amazon tries to turn it on again, waits a little bit and then turns it off.
Searching around it sounds like if you had away lighting enabled when Alexa Guard was free it might be stuck. They moved it over to a paid service. Here is a thread I found, check the last two posts. Sounds like possibly if you go in through the device page in Alexa there is a back door into the old settings where you may find something is still enabled?
Amazon Digital and Device Forums - US
3 Likes
Checking. What is really strange is that I have not changed any settings in many months and it just started last week.
I did not find anything that would indicate it was running the Away script. I disabled all Modes in the Alexa app to see if that helps. If it stops I will reenable Modes and see what happens. The only thing supposed to change a Mode for me was Ring. When it armed it set away. When disarmed ir set Home. In Away mode it did control lights randomly.
10 min after disabling Modes it did it again.
Have you looked through your Alexa "Routines" section in the Alexa Mobile app on your phone? In addition to Hunches, sometimes Alexa suggests "Routines" that are easy to accidentally add.
Look through your Alexa Routines and remove/disable anything that isn't supposed to be there.
1 Like
Yes. I turned off all the Hunches and have not created a new routine in many months. None of my routines deal with lights. They deal with having Alexa speak "Front door is open" after someone leaves it open for 2 min. just cycled again. Everyone is home and doors are being opened and closed and lights are being manually turned on/off as people move around. Clear signs we are home. In the "Activity" section of the Alexa app I see my routines fire but none of them are related or match the times the lights change.
Might be time to give Alexa support a call. Because it is clear that the triggering event is from Alexa. Find out what is triggering it at their end ...
Any idea where to look? I thought the Activity section but nothing there lines up with the lights changing or is even related.
On Alexa? Don't know - I'm weaning myself off Alexa and moving entirely to HomePods. The phone number for Alexa Support was 877-375-9365. I have used it in years past.
What happens if you simply disable the Hubitat Skill with the Amazon Alexa app on your phone? Does the problem go away? If so, one solution might be to:
- Disable the Skill in the Alexa App on you phone
- Uninstall the "Amazon Echo Skill" app on your Hubitat Hub.
- Manually delete every Hubitat Device that is still lingering in the Alexa App on your phone.
At this point, you should have a pretty clean slate on both the Alexa and Hubitat sides.
- Enable the Hubitat Skill in the Alexa App on your phone. Doing so, will prompt you to log into your Hubitat account and select your hub. This will Automagically install the "Amazon Echo Skill" app on your Hubitat hub, where you can then select which devices to share with Alexa.
- In the Alexa App on your phone, fix any broken Routines, Groups, etc... that utilize Hubitat Devices.
At that point, things should be pretty clean and hopefully problem free.
3 Likes
If I disabled it stops working and stops turning on/off at random times as expected. I have disabled the skills and reenabled. Alexa suppot said this would fix everything. They were very confident. now they are blaming the hubitat alexa skill even though logs show the command originates from Alex and Hubitat skill just forwards the on/off command to the device. Still going on/off as though away mode is on. It looks exactly like away mode in its behavior.
Sounds like it is time to follow the steps I outlined above to see if that resolves the issue once and for all. The problem is definitely on the Amazon Alexa side of things.
1 Like
I just disabled and unistalled the app on Hubitat. Reinstalled and reconfigured the lights in Alexa after relinking. I don't use very many light routines so not much to set up. Let's see. Will know tonight.
1 Like
After disabling the skill, and removing the app on the hub, did you remove all of the Hubitat devices in the Alexa app before reenabling the skill?
I did not but when I reenabled it nothing was set to sync and I had to manually select everything again. In the past just doing a disable the system remembered the ones that were synced in the past. Been an hour and the living room lights just came on again without prompting.
Yep, best to follow the steps I posted above, without skipping any. You need to remove those Hubitat devices from Alexa, so that brand new devices will be created. Hopefully the new devices will not fall victim to whatever weird issue is going on on the Alexa side of things.
1 Like
That was just on the Hubitat side, but on the Alexa side it usually hangs onto the devices even after you disable the skill. This is useful if you just need to disable and log back into the skill, then none of the setup gets lost.
However it does sound like you had to reconfigure everything, so maybe by deleting the app on Hubitat it forced Alexa to create new devices? Not totally sure if that would do it. But I know the full nuclear reset recommendation has always included deleting all the orphaned devices from Alexa before you set it up again.
1 Like
I use Inovelli switches. They come as a fan/light combo. In hubitat you get a fan/light, light, and fan device. You can turn on each individually or both at the same time using the fan/light device. When I did the reset and added everything back I accidently added the fan/light device to Alexa. Now Alexa is not only randomly turning on lights but they turn on the fan/light as well so at times they both come one. Alexa refuses to admit they are triggering this. They blame the Alexa skill which only works when triggered. Stuck.
Deselect those combo devices in the app on Hubitat "Amazon Echo Skill", then wait a little bit and if they don't go away on the Alexa side, you may need to also delete them from Alexa.
Not sure how new devices would have gotten added to your ghost away lighting? Deleting devices and re-adding them is supposed to fix it.
For the away mode lighting. Alexa called this "Away Lighting". So you could try a few voice prompts. Alexa, ----
- is away lighting enabled
- disable away lighting
- I'm home (this is supposed to turn off the away mode)
- Is hunches enabled
- Disable hunches
In theory but how do they know that skill is not triggering the light by itself? Is it not their code.
Go to Alexa App > More > Settings > Hunches
Does anything show in the activity history?
Then check More > Alexa Privacy > Review Smart Home device History
I checked in mine and it may not actually show you what triggered the device to change. I do not command my devices that often so its hard to find an example. Maybe something will stand out?
1 Like
