Alexa doesn't understand "Open" Command all of a sudden

Devices & Integrations
1

I have the V1 Hub and Echo. I have always been able to say “Alexa Open Garage Door” and my Garage door would open. I could never use the close command so I always had to say “Alexa Open Garage Door” to close it, no big deal. I just noticed yesterday the “Open” command no longer works. I have to say “Alexa turn on Garage Door” to make it open. Anyone else notice this?

Thanks,

Michael

2

Known issue. Use IFTTT or Ask Alexa for devices not natively supported by Alexa:

1 Like
3

Yes. Open & close garage door use to work for me, about 3 weeks ago. Now, turn on garage door will open it, but no command will close it.

Edit: For some reason “Alexa, turn off garage door” now closes it.

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4

Open/Close were never officially supported by Alexa. They mapped to On/Off.

I used to use it for my window shades, but was hit or miss if it actually worked. Seemed like some days it accepted the command while other days it did not.

I believe Ask Alexa has support for Open/Close for garage only. Its a more entailed install but good instructions.

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5

Assuming The Alexa team goes back to supporting Open and Close as before.
If you edit the virtual device type for the z-wave momentary virtual switch so that “off” performs the same action as “on”; by selecting the the edited device type as your switch, you can use “open” & “close” …

def zwaveEvent(physicalgraph.zwave.Command cmd) {
// Handles all Z-Wave commands we aren’t interested in
[:]
}

def push() {
def cmds = [
zwave.basicV1.basicSet(value: 0xFF).format(),
zwave.switchBinaryV1.switchBinaryGet().format(),
“delay 3000”,
zwave.basicV1.basicSet(value: 0x00).format(),
zwave.switchBinaryV1.switchBinaryGet().format()
]
}

def on() {
push()
}

def off() {
push()
}

6

Has anyone had any recent luck using Open and Close commands with Alexa?

7

Mine stopped working not too long ago. I believe I can tell it to open my overhead garage door but close no longer works - or the other way around. I am currently using “MyQ Lite” to control my Chamberlain garage opener. This change might be a good sign… maybe they are reserving that keyword for formal open/close support of automated doors… Or maybe they are being more paranoid about controlling things that can potentially hurt someone via Alexa and are locking it down. Either way, I believe you can still say turn on/off overhead garage door and that works albeit it sounds silly.

8

I am also using the “MyQ Lite” integration for my two Chamberlain garage door openers. I am using the ST tilt sensors recommended in the blog and it works great. “Turn on” opens the door and “Turn off” closes the door. I did notice that up until about 2 months ago open and close worked. I called ST and also Alexa support and neither support group had any idea of any changes. I am thinking that we will see MyQ native integration in a few months and that might be the reason we are not able to use open/close at this time. On the bright side, the on/off is 100% reliable.

9

The Alexa app now supports the creation of Routines. Routines helped me fix the loss of “Alexa, open/close the garage”. That command stopped working this summer, but I was able to set up a routine for “open the garage” and “close the garage”.

10

Yes I figured that out this morning. So much better than “Alex, turn on the garage door”