I added to my support the Routines in my Smartthings system. The problem: I only want Alexa to understand my arm operations, I don’t want someone to be able to disarm the house through voice commands obviously. In this scenario, the burglar needs to know a lot of things that probably are unrealistic, but still. I tell Echo to forget the routines, but they eventually get added back, I assume because SmartThings just includes a “Routines” option for sending to Echo. I wish I could specify each routine I want.
Is there any way to do this outside of the virtual switch solution?
Alexa “blindly” sees any available switch/routine in ST. There is currently no exclusion or filtering (unless it occurred during setup of the Smartthings Skill).
At some point, either Alexa or ST will have to allow you to exclude a device/routine from Alexa control. But, I guess right now the teams are just happy to have a working integration.
You can try disabling the ST skill, then re-enable it to see if it gives you the option to exclude the disarm routines.
No the problem seems to be this. With light switches you can add/exclude each one separately. But for routines it is just a single checkbox for include/exclude routines.
Yep, it’s just an issue with the granularity of permissions between ST and Alexa.
Truly, the Alexa team needs to add ways of ignoring devices from their side. It has already begun to frustrate me when I find something I don’t want Alexa to control.
It may seem like a step backwards, but you could also tell Echo not to use routines and then set up a virtual switch for any routine that you do want to run by voice. You can set up a second automation that turns the virtual switch off again automatically after one minute anytime it is turned on, and then it will be ready for the next time you want to use it.
Yeah and there lies the annoying thing i was struggling with. I tell Alexa to forget this routine and the app does, but every time i go back in and check (I dont check frequent enough to know the time frame), the routine is back in echo’s repertoire.
Yeah, as I was saying, I knew about the solution that is virtual triggers. I was hoping to find a possible solution where either echo or smartthings will truly restrict those routines.
Yep. I’m hoping the Alexa team gets wind of issues like this very quickly and responds with some updates, because I’d like to be able to control this from the Alexa side. There are quite a few issues that need to be tackled for their Smart Home integration. Hopefully they’ll come within 3-6 months.
If you have any Hue lights , you can not select the " allow Alexa to access all devices & routines" or you end up with every Hue device listed twice. My Goodbye, Goodnight contain making sure locks are locked. So Alexa throws a fit if they get added anyways
It didn’t take long after the " upgrade " for me to go back and unclick that allow access to all box. Then came the fun of " forgetting" all of the duplicates.