I have 57 devices at my home and 9 devices at a 2nd home. We just set up the 2nd home devices and decided to link Alexa. When we got home…Alexa didnt recognize our 57 devices in our house but only the 9 devices in the 2nd home. How do I get it back to my main home and why cant Alexa tell the difference between 2 hubs/locations especially when we are using 2 different Amazon accounts?
Are the 2 Accounts in the same “Amazon Household Group”? If so, that is likely the problem. For a while, Alexa would not recognize smart home devices if they were not in the currently active “profile”, which was an inconvenience. I believe they have corrected this so that all profiles in one household share the same smart-home connectivity.
Unfortunately, Amazon still hasn’t solved the trivial problem of linking multiple SmartThings “Locations” (Hubs) to a single Alexa Account (or, per above, Household).
To test if my theory is correct, “forget” your SmartThings completely from all your Alexa Accounts, and be sure to uninstall the Alexa SmartApp from all your SmartThings “Locations”. Ensure that the Alexa Accounts are not in the same “Household”; then carefully authorize the distinct Alexa units to each distinct SmartThings Location.
If it fails, then Amazon has a more serious, but predictable issue: It would indicate they are using your SmartThings Account (i…e., email address) as a unique ID, instead of Location ID. This would make it impossible for any SmartThings Account to have more than one concurrent Location connected to any Alexa. I would not be surprised in the least if this is the case. I accidentally ran into this situation (or close) and Amazon’s support, though sincere, was unable to help me until I discovered the problem myself while on hold.
Search the forum for “Alexa Helper” or “Ask Alexa” for alternative Community developed Alexa interfaces. They are more powerful in many ways, and might also avoid or work around the issue you are experiencing.
Short answer is no, not same household.
Heres the setup:
Seacord location
Seacord hub
Main SmartThings account email
Amazon account “1”
Alpine location
Alpine hub
Same main SmartThings account email
Amazon account “A”
So everything is totally different except that I have control of both
locations on my phone because they use the same main SmartThings account.
On another note, my main SmartThings account email address isn’t used as
any individual user or Amazon account. Each user at both locations have
their own email and neither Amazon account is using that main ST email
address either.
Im going to have to boot the parents off. Lol
not only that but if you change the settings say in your one account to the other location (I did) then discovery later on would not find the devices in the other location… I had to remove the app from the phone and clear the cache and reinstall to get it all working again.
Best answer is use two amazon accounts, but then you don’t get your prime music etc. It is a royal pain. I just don’t control any devices in the 2nd location.
Actually, all I had to do was remove the Alexa app from the 2nd location
and all my devices worked on the first location again with no problem.
And 2 amazon accounts didn’t help in my case.
I have two hubs and two locations, but I decided to give them their own accounts. This was done mainly because I didn’t want the folks using location 2 to have access to location 1. It’s not a big deal switching between the locations when I need too in the app. Plus this lets me stay open to having two separate echos at each location. I don’t have a need to have Alexa control anything at the 2nd location.
What case to you use your echo and 1 location to control something at the 2nd?
Is Smartthings close to releasing the update that will allow Alexa to control 2 hubs? I had to have 2 hubs because I could never get my home hub to communicate with my shed Z-wave devices due to distance/home/interference- or whatever kept it from reaching. I have all Z-wave plus devices. I would love for Smartthings to implement the 2 hub control skill so I can use Alexa to control my shed devices and to check on my shed lock.
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Apologies for asking a basic question but relatively new to ST. Can you have multiple Alexas in the house control the same unique ST Hub? thanks
Has there been any progress on allowing Alexa (one account) in two separate locations manage 2 Smartthings Hubs (one account, two locations)? I’m about to install a second hub and I’ve read (extensively) the threads regarding this issue. Still can’t decide whether to use separate accounts yet. Also, When I add the idea of the Hue Bridge I want to install, it makes me want to set my hair on fire!
I wiped my second hub, reset it and added it back using the add device- being a new hub- in the new Samsung app rather than classic. Before doing that, you have to make sure that you have the original login code for that hub.
What do you need to control at Location B from Location A via Alexa? Or vice versa.
I need Alexa devices in Location A to control Smartthings Devices in in Location A (Similarly, I would like Alexa Devices in Location B to control Smarthings Devices In location B). I would like to maintain a single account for Alexa, and a single account for Smartthings (Hue lighting for another time!)
Example: In Location A: “Alexa make the basement lights 40%”. In Location B: “Alexa, turn on the Kitchen light (realizing I would probably need distinct names for switches/lights etc. such as “Florida Kitchen Light”.
I do not need Alexa in location A to Control devices in Location B or vice versa but it wouldn’t be a problem if this was the case.
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@stefano_landi Yes. I have multiple Alexa devices and they all can control any Smartthings device (lights, hue bulbs, zwave switches, etc.)
You are going to need 2 Alexa accounts. I would also make it easy on yourself and create 2 Smartthings accounts. I’ll explain why. Currently I have 3 hubs at 3 locations. Home 1 was my original account. Then I added location 2 with it’s own Smartthings account. I then had the new account share the hub with my original account so I can control everything at location 2 without having to log out of the ST app. This was done more out of the need to keep other users at location 2 to not have access to my home. I recently set up location 3 doing the same thing. So my original account, I can switch two all three locations and control items, but the other users at the other hubs only can control that hub. This also allowed me to have different Alexa accounts at each location since I didn’t have a need to tell Alexa to control something at a different location for anywhere. That could also cause the wrong thing to turn off or on, not to mention everything would need to be named differently. Ya it might be a pain in the but when setting everything up or making changes with the Alexa app, but it’s only like that at the beginning. Get a cheap tablet to use just for that. Maybe pick up cheap tablets for each location to use just to program everything.
Since you mentioned that you don’t need to control Location A from Location B via Alexa, this is your best best and easiest to do to cause less congestion with the names of devices via Alexa. Feel free to DM if you have any questions.
@fightingmajor I really appreciate your reply and experience with the 3 hubs. In this case, I am the only user in either location and, other than family, I don’t see that changing. I set my second hub up as a location in ST (one account - two locations). I can use Action Tiles to create user panels for both locations if I don’t want to jump back and forth. That seems to work pretty well. As far as devices (“things”) go, I don’t have an issue giving everything it’s own name with “Florida Kitchen” as a naming scheme. I have a couple of reasons I want one Alexa account; first, I would like to be able to access my amazon info in both places (package tracking etc.) and second, I would like to be able to use my Prime account in both locations (think music, ordering, etc.).
I haven’t dared to have Alexa “discover devices” yet and currently, until I see a better solution, I’m just not going to use Alexa to control devices in the second location (all though it did discover my Nest Thermostats and that’s working fine). I also haven’t installed the Hue Bridge yet. I have my GE Switches (Z-wave) on the way. I’ll report back if I find any solutions as I’m sure there are others that have similar situations (having read other threads here). Thanks Again.
The limitation is in The Alexa skill only allowing one hub. I have not tried adding a family member to my Alexa account to see if that family account is allowed it’s own set of skills. I’m sure someone might have. It that would work it would solve your problem with being able to share your music and purchasing.
I have a Hubitat Hub that the devices that are paired with it shows up in SmartThings through the “Other Hub” App. I wonder if something like that is available for SmartThings…
If not then, adding a Hubitat Hub to your other location would solve your issue. I use 1 Alexa account to control both Hubs.
I am curious to continue with this topic.
I am about to move to a second location and set up another V2 hub there.
I wonder if this set up would work:
location 1 - multiple echos and an original hub
location 2 - use an echo to control location 1 and use a google home mini to control location 2