I have two GE Z-Wave, 40amp wifi switches used for pool equipment. One is 240 for the pool pump and the other is 120 for the pool light. Both integrate with ST and manually operate without issue.
Except when I use a Bixby command.
If I name the pool pump switch “Pool Pump,” then:
--a command to Bixby to ‘turn off Pool Pump’ results in a response of “Pool Pump doesn’t support that.”
--The command ‘stop Pool Pump’ executes correctly.
--The command ‘turn on Pool Pump’ also executes without issue.
If I rename the pool pump to “Pool Brick,” then:
-- ‘turn off’ and ‘turn on’ execute without issue.
The only difference is the use of the word ‘Pump’ in the device name.
For the purpose of using the command ‘turn off,’ ST apparently differentiates the word ‘Pump’ from other words.
This is not a device or Bixby issue. I would have thought that ST would be indifferent to the name of a device. Evidently not. Which leads me to wonder if ST has a bias for other words used in device names.
SmartThings is indifferent. Voice Assistants, including Bixby, are not. So this is a Bixby issue. From time to time, similar issues have been reported with all the voice assistants, although often with different words. It just depends on how their voice recognition algorithm tries to resolve a command.
For some reason, yours thinks “pump” in this context is a verb, not just part of the device name.
You can report it to Samsung support for your phone and see if they have any suggestions. They’ll have to report it as a Bixby bug, but I doubt if there will be a quick solution.
For now, you’ll just need to come up with a different name that is acceptable to you and Bixby.
I have been experimenting and I will have to agree with you. If I use the article ‘the’ before ‘Pool Pump’ then it executes the request correctly. The VA must be parsing the command differently depending on the specificity of the command. Thanks for the reply.
We have a weird one at our house. We have a Toshiba microwave which should work with Alexa. It was added to alexa with the default name of “Toshiba microwave.“ But no matter which command and no matter who says it, it always responds “Toshiba doesn’t support that.“ And we don’t have any other Toshiba devices on the account.
So finally, we just stuck a blue dot sticker on it and renamed it to “blue microwave“ and now Alexa is happy to accept any microwave command we give for it. Weird.
My housemate says it must think all Toshiba devices are televisions. LOL!
I’m not sure what the problem is, and we did report it to both companies, but meanwhile, the workaround is fine for us.
