Last night at 1 am, our bedroom light turned on and woke us up. When I got up this morning and checked recent activity, Alexa had been randomly turning lights on and off during the night. This isn’t the first time this has happened, or even the fifth. For some reason, Alexa does this about once a month.
Anyone have any ideas on why?
This might be after software updates or something of the sort, or even a dip in power might force the light to go on. Have you checked in the alexa app that it was definitely Alexa that switched it on? IE dont look in the ST app, look in the alexa app to see that the command came from there.
Im having a slightly concerning issue with Alexa at the same time. The voice prompt for it to start listening seems to be a little broken, not in the sense that it doesnt listen, but that it listens without being prompted.
Ive particularly noticed this on my fire tablets where a search page will be open with a random word thats been searched.
In the Alexa app, you can go to Settings -> History to see what voice commands were picked up by the devices and listen to the recordings.
The ghosts in your house don’t like the dark.
Check the Amazon Alexa app history log to see if something could be trigging Alexa. Check all your ST routines, WebCoRE, and Alexa scenes if you have any established to see if they might activating the lights.
My Alexa has randomly replied with a comment like “sorry, I did not understand” to questions or commands that were never said. She has even randomly sung and told stories. Lately she has been quietly spying without interrupting.
How do you know it was Alexa doing it?
To answer all:
I know it was Alexa, because when I click on recent history of the light, I see this:
Amazon Alexa
Amazon Alexa sent on command to Bedroom Light 1:17
Bedroom Light
Bedroom Light level is 80 1:17
Bedroom Light
Bedroom Light switch is on 1:17
Amazon Alexa
Amazon Alexa sent on command to Bedroom Light 1:17
The Alexa App does not show that any voice commands were received during that time period.
I would also add that I am not new to ST. I have had this system in my house for over 2 years, and I have over 60 devices (including 4 Alexa dots) in the house. I do have a lot of routines and smart apps running, but not many of them involve that bedroom light.
I am curious if you found a solution? I switched from google home to Alexa in December and have been having this problem ever since. At first I was patient with the Alexa customer support people and would go thru their troubleshooting steps and resetting the device. The issue would clear that device but would move to another device in my ecosystem. I have nearly 100 devices in my ecosystem and want answers especially considering I didn’t have this problem with Google and all I did was authorize Alexa to my accounts. Their tech support is not that helpful either.
So I was having the same problem and I think I have finally solved it for myself. And hopefully this helps the rest of you.
Go into the Alexa app and then go to settings from left menu, then click on Guard. Once on the guard page click the settings Cog in the top right, then disable the away lighting setting.
So my lights for the past 3 months have been turning on and off 3 times in a row (so off, on, off, on, off, on) then after 5 minutes they’ll turn off and won’t come back on until I tell Alexa to turn them on…and it happens at the same time every night: 1 am. I don’t know what’s going on.
Have you read the above posts for a resolution, is it definitely Alexa that is causing the issue? Have you ever used Smartthings 》labs》Welcome Home? Do you have any phone location automations set up ?
Having this same issue. At 2:43 am the lights come on suddenly about every other day or so. It’s extremely jarring. It seems to mostly impact the bedrooms and livingroom as far as I can find. Gaurd is turned off and I’ve set myself to home… The logs show the timing and show ‘Alexa had a hunch’ that I was sleeping and was trying to turn them off… fail Alexa. I was sleeping, but you turned them on!!
I’ve disabled the lights in the Alexa app that appear to be effected. This appears to be working.
I’m using lutron switches, I have both a smarthings hub, and a lutron hub. My current working theory is there is some miscommunication between the four devices (Alexa, Lutron switch, lutron hub, Smarthingshub).
I’m going to do some process of elimination testing over the next month or so and will see what happens.
Have you tried turning off Alexa hunches?
The way I solved the issue was to go to the Alexa app, go to settings, then go to the Hunches, then turn it off. A while back I set up this portion and innocently forgot about it. Alexa will automatically turn off the lights if she believes that no one is awake. Great feature, but do you really want a device/computer so much in control of your busy life? Slow down! The world is a more beautiful place when you can watch the clouds go by. Hope this helps folks
My light seems to come on around 8 pm thereabouts nightly lol
Mine was hunches too. Thanks for solving this.