Alexa Shows Duplicate Devices? [2019 Alexa Skill, not applicable to 2020 version]

[JDRoberts]

@Bgoldy

Reviving this thread.

The instructions for new smart things app don’t work. You click on Alexa and it just shows an icon and a button to delete / unlink. No way to control what is shared.

Unfortunately, this changed about a month ago when a new Alexa skill was released for SmartThings and you can no longer choose which devices are exposed to Alexa. It’s now all or nothing. (The same issue was introduced for google home at about the same time.)

Lots of discussion, no easy workarounds, in the following thread:

New SmartThings Alexa skill (2020)

Hi All, We are aware that duplicates of the same device are showing up in Alexa. This affects all users of Alexa Skills built by other partners, as well as SmartThings. However, we understand that these duplicate devices are acutely noticed by SmartThings users transitioning from the legacy SmartThings Alexa integration. Disabling duplicate device instances was not the intended use of the SmartThings device exclusion feature, which is not compatible with our current Alexa integration. We are working directly with the Alexa team to create a more tailored solution for duplicate devices showing up in Alexa. Thank you for your patience. We are excited to bring you more features over the coming months, which we think will make our new Alexa integration more useful for all SmartThings users…