I use Alexa in two separate houses. I recently added a new set of zwave light switches in a second house and have it properly classified in Smartthings. I can control the new light switches with the ST app properly. However, now I am trying to setup Alexa to control these new devices, like I do in my other house, but the only devices that Alexa discovers are the four devices from the other houses. For some reasons it is not finding the five new switches I installed in the second house, which is where that Alexa device is anyways.
I’ve tried disabling the skill and reenabling it and setting up Alexa to only discover devices in the second house and the five devices show in that initial setup list, but then when it goes to discovering them, it only discovers the four devices in my other house. This has become incredibly frustrating. Any ideas on what I am doing wrong???
At the current time, SmartThings will only expose one “location” on your account to Alexa. They said they hope to change that in the future, but no specific timeline yet.
Thanks JD Roberts, but I’m only trying to expose one house to this Alexa device. In the setup, I choose the second house and click the devices that I had just installed (they show up in the setup process), but when it takes me to discover the devices next, it ends up only discovering the devices in the first house.
That’s the point. Only one of your locations will ever be visible to Alexa no matter how many locations you have. I think it’s the first location you add, but I’m not sure about that, you could ask support.
I’m not saying you can’t have two houses controlled by the same echo. I’m saying no matter how many echoes you have, they all only see the same single SmartThings location. Which is exactly what you described.
It’s very frustrating, because you don’t realize you have the problem until you have the problem.
wow…thanks for clearing that up…it’s so odd that they let you set it up as if you are doing it right and then let it perpetually fail…I’ve spent the last 4 hrs pulling out my hair!
I guess I could create a second Smartthings account…
I know, it’s the kind of bug that will drive you crazy! I hope they change it soon.
Meanwhile, I think it needs both a separate SmartThings account and a separate Amazon account, but I don’t remember for sure.
BTW, you’ll run into the same bug on other third-party services that use OAuth, including IFTTT. There’s typically no way on the partner side to select a location.
I tried this about 7-8 month ago (so I’m a little fuzzy on the details). It took two separate amazon accounts and two separate ST accounts, just like @JDRoberts says.
I was considering using something like eventGhost to send/receive the commands between ST hubs, but that’s a whole different level of complexity, and I’m inherently lazy.
I’m sure like many other people, having a second or third location ability for SmartThings and Alexa would be awesome for me… just want to chime in to encourage both parties to make it happen.
They have now added that ALL locations sycn without the ability to choose which ones. There is another thread on this, that I can’t find at the moment. ANY word on when they might allow end users the ability to decide which locations get exposed to Alexa? Currently if you have “guest” access to a smartthings location and you have the Alexa and SmartThings linked - ALL ST locations you have access to in your app with sync into Alexa.
I hope they change it soon.