Any of the scenarios will work…As long as Alexa can see the virtual switch you associated with them. The good thing about a momentary switch is that it will revert back to off when you press it (hence, momentary). The virtual switch is more for control of items that are variable (like volume control). That is if you are using Alexa Helper to control things like thermostats and speaker volume.
Other ways:
“open the garage whilst turning on the lights in here”
“open that dang garage, turn them lights off in here”
but how about just being able to do all the above straight outta the gate without any setup or virtual devices?
I have to agree and disagree with Bobby on this. Many aspects of what our apps do WILL be obsoleted within one year. I actually met with Amazon this week ([NO LONGER SUPPORTED] Ask Alexa - #3752 by MichaelS) and knew this was coming out and had already prepare for it. Basically, it is finding areas that Amazon DOESN’T fill and find ways to utilize them. Quite honestly, both of our apps could lose the direct device control and no one would blink an eye because the Echo already does that. However, what if you want a report about your house, or actually use the routines to set off an Ask Alexa macro (Specifically lock or close doors which Amazon WILL NOT do) or even a WebCore Piston?..THAT is where we need to continue to work in…to ENHANCE what the built in functions so…not just find another way to turn on and off lights. And Ask Alexa, with the next release in just a few weeks, will do.
That is my two cents and where I see the future going, and frankly where my meeting with Amazon left me.
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Yes adding NEW functionality and ENHANCING the current abilities of Alexa to beyond what is currently capable is the future. But I have to disagree about some things Amazon “WILL NOT DO” Just following along in their updated documentation of the current SDK gives you all the information needed to see the direction Amazon is going. Amazon will be supporting locking AND unlocking doors with smart home skills. They even provide an example on how to unlock a door using a smart home skill right on their website… They’ve had this ability with certified custom skills (using PIN codes) So just like notifications its only a matter of time when the decide to go live with these things. As for reporting, regular smart home skills now give you status of devices. Two way communication is already here.
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To be clear, the direction of AMAZON and other companies (Like SmartThings) is to attempt to limit their liability. I do know they provide the tools to do close and open doors; however, I actually do doubt Amazon or SmartThings will allow this natively as it puts them in a bad position if this is used and causes loss of property or life. That is taking it to the extreme, but giving the tools to do it is not like actually providing the ability to do it.
However, your point is well taken; even people within Amazon…even with the Smart Home division, don’t know what the full road map is. I heard that too many times this week when I met with them. For example, when I interviewed with them last year I insisted there could be a market for a hub that had device control (ZigBee, Z-Wave) built in…The people in the room all disagreed and said they would rather build partnerships…now we have the Echo plus…so Amazon reacts and changes to the landscape…just as the developers must.
At the end of the day, if Amazon allows me to go through the day and replicates all of the additional functionality of Ask Alexa, I will be thrilled as it is the end user experience and getting things done that is important to me, not publishing an app. Until that happens, however, I will continue to built upon the app, navigating the changes that Amazon makes.
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Of course it’s about liability… but did you just hear about how amazon will be letting their employees ENTER your house if you’d like them to? That’s what insurance is for, and opting in and out. Which is exactly what they will do once they start offering all these features…
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OK, The new groups ( just released an hour or two ago) work great, but the setup is not intuitive and is confusing a lot of people.
You’re going to define a new group name which is essentially a zone. Into that zone you will put one or more echo devices and several smart home devices. So let’s say you have two hue bulbs, a Hue light strip, a lutron caseta wall switch, and a LIFX bulb in the living room.
Name the group with the zone name. So let’s say that this zone is “living room.”
Now when you talk to the echo device that you put into that zone, you can just say “echo, turn on the lights” and all those devices will come on.
Note that you didn’t have to say the name of the zone, and you didn’t have to say the name of each device. And you did not create a group called “lights.”
Instead Echo recognizes the device class of “lights” and since you were talking to that particular echo device, it assumed you mean the ones in the zone that it is in.
So, yes, now you can say “echo, turn on the lights” to the echo device in the bedroom and have just the bedroom lights come on, and you can say “echo, turn on The lights” to the echo device in the living room and have just the living room lights come on.
But the trick is that you did not create a group called “lights” anywhere. “Light” is a device class that echo already knows. What you did was create a zone for each echo device, and then it looked for the lights in its own zone.
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Yep…and that feature was announced the day I was speaking with Amazon this week. Let’s just say that their marketing people were kept busy that day as the reception of that news was not great in the general public.
And as a pet owner along with a lot of nice stuff in my house, insurance can only pay for so much. I am not disagreeing with you that opting in and such is important and DOES limit the liability, but reputation can NOT be fixed easily. If pets become lost because a careless driver accidently doesn’t close the door properly, they can give the owner $100 for a new dog, but the reputation of the company may be tarnished to the point that they could be financially harmed later down the road. And it is idealistic to say ‘well, they just need to train their drivers better’…true…but to err is human, but to clean up the mess (and get sued) is on the shoulders of the company.
Only time will tell what Amazon does. If their history is any indication, they will do what they want, succeed or fail fast, then move on to the next thing. Can anyone say “Fire Phone”…good idea…bad results.
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Agreed. I’m OK with letting people leave stuff in the mudroom or vestibule with a door with another lock before you get into the main house. Or a gated section of a porch. I’m not OK with a delivery person opening the door which is connected to the main living quarters. 
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I am sure people much higher up in the company than whom you’ve met with have gone over the risk-reward scenarios for those decisions. Thats why THEY have the insurance, not the home owner.
Trust me I’m not arguing that it’s a good idea… it’s just inevitable. The only person I will let in my house when I am not there is the UPS/FedEx/Mailman if I am not home to sign for a package, and even then I am watching them the whole time on cameras. I want to be in control of the unlocking of my door… not Amazon, but unfortunately there are a lot of people out there who won’t think twice to enable it.
Just like agreeing to the Terms and Service of an iTunes or Apple contract… no one reads all 100000 pages of it… lol
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Right…but if, within those 100,000 pages it says they can turn you into a human centipad you would have to accept it…doesn’t make it right 
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Nope… not at all… but I still will accept because I want my iPhone!
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Yep…Another feature that on the surface, replaces native functionality of our respective apps. However, Ask Alexa will deal with this in a unique way…allowing these Amazon groups to work with directly with the rooms/group extension. This will allow you to NOT use an innovation name but still have the unique features of how the Ask Alexa Rooms/Groups functions.
This has been a great week for Amazon!
I prefer having the choice to use multiple invocation words for many things. Especially when they are created automatically.
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All my statement was meant to say is that having the convenience of performing something from a single source (One voice command or button to push) to produce the same information in a consolidated fashion versus having to remember 2 different ways to say something and having to come back to the source multiple times and remember how to ask something natively versus how to speak ES or AA. Wasn’t about reinventing the wheel but about adding equivalent functionality that allows some of the same functionality to be accessed so that people don’t have to set things up in two different places and remember two totally different things to get the same information that could be accessed and processed from one place and at one time.
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Good point, but most people don’t…they want ease and power without complication. Hopefully these new tools give users that.
Thats exactly my point… everything is done for them. and they have many many ways to access the same thing… no need to remember specifics.
That was a random thought not a response to your direct statement… Nothing wrong with choice. As @JDRoberts always says, “choice is better”…
The Rooms and Extensions was a great idea. When EchoSistant introduced the Rooms and became modular with the Extensions/Add-on’s, coupled with the free-speech methods that were in use it really brought a new era to how we use our Alexa devices. I’m glad to see that the revolutionary idea was duplicated in other apps and improved upon, like @MichaelS has done.
I love seeing the native Alexa controls become more and more advanced and evolving into what the users have been asking for since her release.
EchoSistant has had the features that Amazon has just now tipped their toes into. I fully expect to see the native features evolve and expand.
In the mean time, we will continue to create and improve upon our smartapps to meet the needs of the users not met by ST or Amazon.
There is no need for a two hour install process that requires over 100+ pages of instructions. Coming soon, you’ll do it all from within the ST smartapp. When I say a 10 minute install process, I mean it… even if you stop and make a sandwich.