Every single day I will randomly get one of my Echoes or Echo Dots to reply back “Smartthings isn’t responding”. I will do the ‘alexa discover devices’ and even before it says that it didn’t find any new devices the exact thing I needed it to do when it said it wasn’t responding starts working.
I have the v2 hub and have the latest firmware as of 8 Feb 2018; I have also pulled batteries and power and done a reboot all to no avail. Smartthings support has logged at the api log and can’t find anything.
Momma isn’t happy so since I have an echo in my media room I have set a windows schedule to play a .mp3 file of me saying “Alexa discover devices” every 4 hours and that’s how it’s working right now but that is a faildog way to do it.
Does the action actually occur even though you get the message that it isn’t responding?
If so, that’s just a timing issue, it happens to quite a few people. Smartthings takes too long to get the response back to Amazon, Even though it did get the request and did perform it. There are several places where this can happen: your own Wi-Fi, Internet traffic to and from the cloud, or the fact that what you are asking is complex and involves multiple devices and actions.
Anyway, If it just happens once in a while, but the action does get performed, it’s just an annoyance and you can probably ignore it. If it’s happening frequently, I’d start looking at ways to reduce lag in the process, including checking your Wi-Fi quality.
If the action doesn’t get performed, though, that’s an entirely different situation, and I would put in a support ticket at SmartThings and see what they can see on their side.
I have had this happen recently when there are two alexa devices in proximity I say “Alexa Turn on Kitchen Light” and one appears to execute the command and the other reports it had issues
The other experiences are similar to what @JDRoberts describes - the action happens but the response back to Amazon got lost on the interwebs somewhere …
Hi @JDRoberts – thanks for the reply. I have had it happen both ways (says it’s not responding and executes anyway, and says its not responding and does nada). The latter are the ones that I’m wanting to resolve - I was hardheaded and asked Alexa to turn the switch on no fewer than 30 times, getting the same ‘smartthings isn’t responding’ each time - even going to other Echos and Dots (I have a dozen in the house) and no love anywhere. Momma threatened to wetwilly me so I had to stop.
I’ve put a support ticket in some time back and they said they had patched it but indeed it came back which makes me a sad panda.
Hi @JohnHoke – so if I’m tracking you, there hasn’t been any times where you say do something, it says ST isn’t responding and it goes off into the ether to never happen?
The weird thing is that I’ll say “do this” it says “no responding” and I’ll go into another room tell it to discover devices go back (3 seconds literally) later say again “do this” and voila it works. That’s all I have to do. Seems like ST goes to sleep our tells Alexa to pound sand.
I have multiple Echos - two that always seem to act up are the one in my family room and kitchen - open floor plan and they are near enough apparently to piss off me and my wife so will be trying to better locate them …
If I say standing in the middle “Echo Turn On XYZ” one of the devices (randomly it seems) will say “Ok” and do nothing. The other will say “SmartThings is not responding”
Ok @JohnHoke I am tracking. I have seen this behavior before as well (IE one says “Ok” and nothing happens) but I’d prefer that over “SmartThings isn’t responding” and then using Discover Devices makes it work again. That tells me something is going dormant that needs to be jogged daily and this is only in the past maybe 4-5 months so I’m thinking firmware for the hub is the likely culprit. Right now I have a PC that has a timer to play SmartThingsFails.mp3 every 4 hours into a small speaker sat next to an alexa in a back room to tell it to discover devices so that it works like it did last year. Yay for upgrades! (Just kidding, this sucks that I have to ghetto-rig this although when I show anyone what I have to do they laugh and accept my recommendation if they want something right now to instead buy something not ST like Insteon instead).
I have spent hours with Smartthings support and haven’t gotten anywere. I have also been working with Alexa tech support without a resolution. Here is the problem.
The Amazon Alexa app is showing that the Smartthing App is linked. 10 days ago (Oct 17th), anything connected to the Smartthings hub could not be accessed by the linked Amazon account. The message “Device is not responding” was given for any Smartthing Hub linked devices. The devices worked when accessed directly through Smartthings app. (classic and new) The following trouble shooting procedures were performed. Uninstall and reinstall the Amazon Alexa app. Uninstall and reinstall the Smartthings app. Delete devices from the Smartthings Hub. Reinstall the devices. Relink the Smartthings App in the Amazon Alexa app. Delete the devices from Amazon Alexa app. The Smartthings devices are not discovered by Alexa. The devices include, locks, lights, outlets, and a thermostat.
I have three Smartthings hubs. Two are on one Amazon account in two houses. The other Smartthings hub is in a different house with a different Amazon account. The situation is occurring at both locations.
It almost appears that Alexa has stopped working with Smartthings. No matter what I do, Alexa will not discover a Smartthings device through the Smarthings hub.
Unless I get somewhere soon, I’ll have to start changing all my Smarthings products over to other devices that don’t seem to have a problem being “found” in Alexa.
The current smartthings architecture does not support the use of multiple smartthings locations with Echo or IFTTT. This has been true since 2015. You will get random results, including devices not being found by echo. Sometimes people have it set up so it works but if they make any changes at all, including adding a new device, then it will stop working. But support should’ve been aware of that, it’s a well-known problem.
CAN I control multiple SmartThings Locations with Alexa?
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No, not at this time. But we are working on an update that will allow multiple Amazon Alexa devices on separate Amazon accounts to control separate SmartThings Locations.
So the setup as you describe it just doesn’t work with smartthings, but that’s been a known problem since 2015. (Don’t be fooled by the phrase “we’re working on it“ – – that phrase has been there for literally years. )
The only workaround is to have a separate Amazon account and a separate smartthings account for each individual location.
I know it’s really frustrating because you had it working previously, but that was honestly just luck. The architecture doesn’t support it.
There have been multiple discussion threads about this issue over the years if you want to look for them, but they all say the same thing eventually.
I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer for you, I know it’s really frustrating.
Also, just since you didn’t mention it specifically, You did check to make sure that you have the devices authorized for use by Echo in the smartthings app, right? You can either authorize “all“ devices or just individual devices. But again, support should’ve already looked for that. So I’m really just putting this here in case someone else finds this thread in the future and they haven’t started working with support yet.
I appreciate your comments. Ironically, everything works perfect from the Smartthings app but the voice interface has become a must. I have been very lucky indeed. I have been using 2 hubs on Smartthings with one Smartthings account and one Amazon account with no problem for at least two years. (probably 3 by now) I added another hub with a different Amazon account in February. I had no problem with adding devices and Alexa discovering them. The strange part for me was the suddenness of the crash. I hadn’t changed anything and Alexa could not access a Smarthings product through a hub. Three hubs, 30+devices in three places stopped working all at once. The Alexa app shows it is linked to Smartthings but nothing. I’m afraid my only alternative is to start buying the Kasa TP-link and other wifi products that work well with Alexa. (I have four other apps that connect through Alexa for smart home applications. They work fine.) Ouch
And yes, I did work through the Smartthings classic app to make sure that Alexa could access all the devices. Strange that the New Smartthings app doesn’t show Alexa as an automation.
I’m worried that the commitment to the product has waned.
Again, thanks for your comments. (As disappointing as they may be.)
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