Rooms--why use them?

[davethomaspilot]

I've found that Alexa gets confused if group name conflicts with a room or device.

It took me a long time to figure out what was going on. Typically, Alexa will say something like "workshop doesn't support that" if I have both either a device or grouped named the same as a room

From what I've read, I think a group will do everything supported by a room and supports additional commands.

I struggle to find memorable names for rooms that don't conflict with group names. I'm thinking I'll eliminate all rooms and just use groups. That way, I don't have to worry about memorable, non-conflicting room names at all.

What do I lose if I don't have rooms?

[bertabcd1234]

What Rooms feature are you talking about? The one on Hubitat? If so, those are completely disconnected from Alexa. They are currently just used more or less for organizational purposes in the UI (the Rooms page will show devices by room, the Home page can do that now too, Easy Dashboard can automatically maintain per-room dashboards, certain built-in apps like Room Lighting can make guesses about what devices you have and what you might want them to do -- but nothing for voice assistants).

Having a group (from Groups and Scenes, or a Room Lighting activator, the two built-in ways of doing something like this) or any device on Hubitat named the same thing as a Hubitat room will not cause problems -- on the hub or with voice assistants. It might be confusing for you in other ways, but this isn't one. But it might be helpful to explain more about what you mean.

[jshimota]

Heya - I'd like to share my implementation - maybe it helps.
First, its further confused as you described it as 'group name conflicts ...'
I'm assuming you meant 'Alexa Group...'.
My Alexa environment has equivalent 'Groups' that exactly match my rooms in HE. Below 'Groups' in Alexa, and 'Rooms' from HE.

My device names in HE are a big part of the solution I came up with. All my devices Names and Labels have the room name - this is independent of Alexa. It allows me to find and deal with all things HE without getting confused there.
.
I added functional devices to the Amazon Echo Skill (Never was sure why it was called that - Amazon Skill would have been more succinct ).
And the devices all either auto-discover, or I issue a discover command as needed. Always remember to remove devices on the Alexa app that you've removed on the HE side - occasionally you can get 'ghosts' devices and that don't help with the confusion!
Then I go into Alexa app and add the devices to their 'group' which is the room in HE.
Because the device comes over with the HE name/label, its really easy to get them correct.
Now an important step. Rename your device in the Alexa app.

Now I REMOVE the room name - so Bathroom Shower Light becomes Shower Light.
Now is a great time to get the 'Type' correct as well - devices from HE that are dual purpose capability, we set to their correct Type. For example, an 'Outlet' that controls a light, should be a Type of 'Light'. this is useful on the Alexa side.

Because your devices are now in a group in Alexa, you can use that 'group' name. 'Alexa, turn off Bathroom' and Alexa, turn off Bathroom Lights' both work since the lights are in the Bathroom Group. You do not need to build Groups in HE and share them to the Alexa Skill. You can break this down further - there is a nuance that really helps - pluralization.
I have what I call a 'team' of lights in my guest bathroom. In HE, I grouped them together and called them 'Guest Bathroom Mirror Lights Group'. I shared it through the Alexa Skill app in HE, and on the Alexa side, I renamed them 'Mirror Light'. I can now command the Mirror Light, and the Room(the Alexa Group), as well as the overhead light with 'Alexa, turn off Guest Bathroom Lights' plural. There are no more ambiguities.
Finally, if you have an echo device assigned to this Alexa group (I have one in each room), even more value occurs. If you say 'Alexa, turn off lights' the Echo device that hears you, using the room it's in as a default and turns just that room off.

I'm sure there are others with more useful designs but this has been working for me for a few years now, and just gotten better and better on the Alexa side as I learned what pitfalls to avoid.

• Edit - I was thinking of my post, and remembered two more tricks I use or have used.
• One was remove the space in a name on the Alexa device name. Alexa gets upset with some keywords - light and lamp. If you call a device 'desklamp' you avoid the problem somehow.
• Another is using Routines in Alexa. They are the semi-equivalent of Rules in HE. In Alexa, a routine supersedes the Alexa keywords (I think!) - I have a routine that is triggered with 'Alexa, Good night'. This runs when I verbalize it when I go to bed. If I didn't have that routine, the verbal command 'Alexa, good night' runs a pre-built Alexa cutesy thing instead.
  
  

In the end, I'll just say I needed to learn that HE is where I manage devices and automation's - Alexa is my interface for real time commands - they are two separate but interconnected worlds.

[davethomaspilot]

Hmm, I thought when I created a room in Hubitat that created one in Alexa too. Good to know!

Having a group (from Groups and Scenes, or a Room Lighting activator, the two built-in ways of doing something like this) or any device on Hubitat named the same thing as a Hubitat room will not cause problems

Pretty sure I fixed some a problem where I couldn't dim all devices in a group because they were in a room with the same name. I will try to recreate.

[davethomaspilot]

When I first read your post, I was not liking the idea of having to use the room name as a prefix when asking for things to be turned on/off by Alexa. But I read and digested some more and caught that you rename them--interesting.

I have to reread and think a bit more about what you're doing.

I think what was happening was that I was asking a pair of devices in a group to change color--that's supported in they are in a group, but I don't think you can do that to a room. I thought if the devices were both in a group and a room, I got the "blah doesn't support that" reply from Alexa.

I need to go back and reproduce the issue when I get some time (tomorrow hopefully).

[velvetfoot]

Aren't the long device names a problem in HE dashboard?

[jshimota]

I'm a big fan of using what I consider the right tool for the job - I tried HE dashboard when I got my first HE unit and didn't stay with it - I've tried and used a couple other dashboards over the years, and when HD+ came out, I adapted and have never looked back. I'm now a die-hard fan of HD+ - I use it in my car and have a monitor in portrait running an Android emulator which gives me all I've ever wanted.
Recently, I even began looking at MagicMirror with and Android module just so I can run all the tools I really want in my smart home.
I say all this - because the name lengths in HE don't concern me - in HD+ you control the tile name as well!
Here's just one tile - I can customize the Title, or disable the Title altogether with a simple slider on/off :

All this thanks to @jpage4500!!

And when I combine HD+ with Tile Builder.. it's incredible what can be done. Tile Builder and Remote Builder are tools from @garyjmilne and I can't stress enough how central they are to my needs. Here are just a few examples ... I cut nearly 40 tiles off my dashboard by using the combination powers of Multi-Attribute and other components of Tile Builder, and the two dev's actual worked a bit together to make it all work great together! BTW. Tile Builder is not HD+ centric... I don't wish to imply. It's just HE dashboards don't fit my needs.

[jshimota]

@davethomaspilot - I have two colored lights in my living room - They are distinct Alexa devices from my HE and both exist in the Alexa group 'Living Room'.I can say 'Alexa, turn the living room red' and it works perfectly!

Another 'trick'... make groups within groups on the Alexa side.
Put 2 colored lights into a group in Alexa. call that group.. 'Ambiance Lights'. Now, put THAT group into your Living Room group in Alexa.

Both ways work. The problem area comes when two devices in an Alexa group have a common name part. And that goes for devices having the room name in them. You will get errors from Alexa if you have Living room light device in a 'living room' alexa group. Its important to limit the redundancy.

So, Ambiance Left and Ambiance Right will get an error on 'Alexa, turn Ambiance Red' - Alexa can't differentiate. but you could say 'Alexa , turn left red' and it will go. It's hokey I admit but its actually pretty rare. Your automation in HE can do the heavy lifting. Group them in HE and share only the group to the Alexa Echo Skill. You won't be able to voice command them individually, but it's a rare situation imo.
Anyways, I'm hopeful my writing and some of those hard learned tricks help!

[velvetfoot]

Looks fantastic!

I just use a dashboard for functional stuff once in awhile.
I don't have a desire for prettiness.

Of course, I don't have the talent either.

[davethomaspilot]

@jshimota

Alexa if you have Living room light device in a 'living room' alexa group.

I have exactly that already.

In room Family I have a group "boxes. The box group has devices Center and Picture, which are both Fibaro RGBW color controllers. They both have room family.

I can turn boxes on and off, but cannot do something like "turn boxes blue". (I can do "turn center blue" and turn picture blue").

There is a group Family in Alexa. I haven't gotten to root cause on this issue yet, but IIRC a similar issue was resolved when I eliminated a name conflict between Alexa group and HE room.

I have to find a time to mess things up when it won't annoy the other half, but I was thinking about deleting the groups in Alexa to see if that eliminates the problem.

[davethomaspilot]

Also, I was not able to do "Dim boxes 50%" but could dim each device in the group using Alexa.

I deleted the group "Family" in Alexa and I can now dim the group.

Still can't change the color of the group, but that's probably a different issue. The group device is a "Group Dimmer".

I guess I need something like a "GROUP RGWB controller". I'll look for something like that. But, it seems I fixed an issue by eliminating the Alexa group that had the same name as the HE room.

[davethomaspilot]

I don't use dashboards at all, but I"m curious--what is HD+?

[marktheknife]

It’s an android app that can be used to create an alternative to the built-in Hubitat dashboards. Looks very nice and a lot of happy users from what I can tell (but I don’t have any android mobile devices).

[jshimota]

Is it possible your Alexa device (from HE) isn't understood correctly? when you dig into the device on Alexa, does it reflect correctly the device Type and Color capability as you expect?
Note here is an example of a strip light I put under the master bed. THe name is not 'Bedroom... ' but 'Bed'. my Alexa Group name it is in is called 'Bedroom'. Not 'Bed Room'. that space between the words is a big issue:

Same room - this a a CT dimmable bulb:

and an Enbrighten dimmer switch (note it's Type is Light):

I say from anywhere in my home, 'Alexa, turn Bedroom red'. 1 bulb (the strip) changes. I say 'Alexa, dim bedroom to 30%'. all lights dim. I say 'Alexa, turn off strip light' (when in the bedroom) and only the bedroom strip light dims.
All this works because I manage my Alexa with effort separately. Once I spent the time initially getting it organized nicely, it is little maintenance.
Last known item to share: Alexa Hunches. This is a painful trap - at first glance it seems cool, but it isn't if you manage your smart home well. Your Alexa settings has a 'Hunches' option, and you want this disabled! Alexa will basically make a rule that you do something repeatedly, and attempt to set it to automate. Lets say you turn on the bathroom fan every morning at 6am with your voice. Alexa can make a guess you will also do it tomorrow - at least thats the theory. It's very difficult to debug something that is occurring without your control! Disable Hunches is a strong recommend!

[davethomaspilot]

Is it possible your Alexa device (from HE) isn't understood correctly?

I don't think that's an issue. We routinely turn the group boxes on and off using Alexa. Same with the two devices in the group. We also routinely Dim the devices and turn them on/off individually. So, I don't think it's an issue with Alexa not understanding the voice.

when you dig into the device on Alexa, does it reflect correctly the device Type and Color capability as you expect?

That's a real possibility. I just let Alexa figure out what device type/ color. I (maybe naively) thought it would map from the the capabilities of the device. But, I don't know what it does for a group. Does it find all the devices in the group and base the group type on that? Or, is it just something on the group (that's what I'm assuming--my group device type is "Group Dimmer". I would think it would need to be something like an RGBW group dimmer/controller, but I don't see anything like that.

I will dig deeper today!

Thanks for the info about hunches. Never knew they existed.

Thanks!

[jshimota]

You brought up something I'd never considered and it turns out to be a ... feature of HE.
Once a group is created - it stays that way. You can not change it - at least as far as I can tell!
During creation of an HE group, you choose at that initial create the 'Type'.

Notice near the bottom the 'Select Group Device Type'. Once this is set, I see no way to change it. Alexa allows us to change a device if it is ambiguous, or follows this setting if it is already set at time you 'Alexa Discover'.
So if you initially create a group as 'switch' in HE, then later, add devices to that group which would be better served as 'bulb', you can't.
I've an HE group that contains only lights, and I defined it in HE when I created it as 'bulbs'. In fact, it has dimmable lights. On the Alexa side it erroneously identifies it self as 'Type' of Light but only goes off/on.
Another Group from HE that is set to 'bulbs' allows me on the Alexa side to adjust color and brightness.
A third group has color, CT/dimmable and switches. This group in HE came up as 'switch' when I looked just now. On Alexa side it offers no options, it's just on/off.
I'm glad you found this weakness - I'll fix my HE groups better so Alexa can handle them smoother!
Edit - indeed I found 2 groups that were not correct on the HE side! My hallway light group was previously a zigbee switch, and I changed it later to a dimmable unit. It was still showing as a 'Switch' group. My patio showed as Type bulb on HEwhile I only have dimmable lights - also was wrong. (I know I used to have a virtual color bulb for decoration lighting which I took out). So, thanks to you, two more flaws in my world have been fixed! I created 2 new groups from scratch, copied all the associated rules over and deleted them from the Amazon Skill while adding the newly created groups. Thanks!

[davethomaspilot]

So, I assume I can delete the group then recreate it? Actually, now that I think about it, I think that's what I did when I broke the group from even recognizing on/off correctly.

Thank you!

[TheRetiredViking]

What is is called in the Play Store? Thanks in advance...

[marktheknife]

Not an android user so I’m not 100% sure, but I would assume something like Hubitat HD+?

[TheRetiredViking]

Not under that directly but by keying that in, one result is "HD+" by Joe Page.