Controlling multiple switches with one voice command
If all you’re turning on is switches, the fastest, easiest way is just to put them into an echo group, and turn on the group with one Echo voice command.
You can also include switches that are then associated with Mode changes or running routine if you want to.
One of the nice things about Echo is that it lets you put a switch into different groups, so you can have as many groups as you want that do different things.
For example, I have one group called “all lights” which has all the lights in the house except a couple of night lights. So when I say “Alexa, turn off all lights” they all go off.
I have another group called “bed” which includes a pathway of lights from the living room to my bedroom. When I say “Alexa, turn on bed” those four lights come on. When I’m ready to go to sleep, I say “Alexa, turn off bed” And they go off again.
I have yet another group called “central” (our name for the living room) which includes One of the lights from the “bed” group and another three lights in the living room area.
So there is one light in the living room which is in three different groups: “all lights,” “bed,” and “central.” Works very well.
So just depends on what you want to do, but I would start by looking at the echo groups, because that’s the easy way and very flexible.
Once you’ve authorized a smartthings device as noted in the second method in the echo set up FAQ, you can then use it in any echo group you want.
including devices you can’t authorize through the Alexa/smartthings integration
So echo groups will very well if all you want to include are switches because they will show up on the device list in the Echo app and you’ll be able to use echo groups.
But what if you want to intrude include a lock or some other device that at the present time echo does not recognize?
In that case, the easiest way will be to use the echo triggers through the echo IFTTT channel. However, you will have to set up one IFTTT recipe for each smartthings-controlled device that you want to include in this voice command.
For example, say I wanted to have a “secure the house” voice command that would turn off the lights in my bed group, turn off the TV, and lock the front door.
IFT TT does allow me to use the same trigger for multiple recipes, so that’s what will make this work.
I will make one IFTTT recipe that uses “Alexa, trigger secure the house” as the IF and turns off the TV using the Harmony channel as the that.
Another IFT TT recipe that uses “Alexa, trigger secure the house” as the IF and locks the door using the SmartThings channel as the that.
And then however many IFT TT recipes it takes me to turn off all the lights that I want to turn off.
Once that is all set up, I only have to say “Alexa, trigger secure the house” and multiple IFTTT recipes will fire.
Alternatively, if I had set up control of the lock and the TV through something that was tied to a virtual switch, I could’ve just used that virtual switch with echo groups in the first method.
So there are different ways to do it just depending on what you find easier to set up and maintain.