Echo 4th gen with hub as bridge back to smartthings?

[Barracksbuilder]

I just recently picked up an Amazon Echo 4th gen which has a Zigbee hub in it. I already have a smartthings v2 hub. Is there a way if I add a Zigbee device (say a light bulb) to the echo hub to get it to show up in smartthings? Kind of like how hue does with their hub where it bridges into smartthings?

It seems like the echo skill is only one-way sync from smartthings to amazon, not both ways. This would be helpful as smartthings have had reliability issues and having some devices on the echo hub I could have amazon turn them on.

[JDRoberts]

@Barracksbuilder

I just recently picked up an Amazon Echo 4th gen which has a Zigbee hub in it. I already have a smartthings v2 hub. Is there a way if I add a Zigbee device (say a light bulb) to the echo hub to get it to show up in smartthings? Kind of like how hue does with their hub where it bridges into smartthings?

It seems like the echo skill is only one-way sync from smartthings to amazon, not both ways. This would be helpful as smartthings have had reliability issues and having some devices on the echo hub I could have amazon turn them on.

The short answer is no. The ZigbEe profiles which are used by echo and smartthings only allow for one “coordinator“ per network. The smartthings hub is a coordinator and so is the echo, so they can’t be on the same Zigbee network.

(The hue bridge is different because it was designed to be an integration method for many different platforms. But that’s actually pretty unusual.)

If you want to get something which is controllable from Alexa when smartthings down but also works with smartthings then you need to get something like the hue bridge which has a separate integration with both. But there aren’t many of those.

[Barracksbuilder]

Thanks @JDRoberts,
I was afraid of that. The amazon hub is so closed it’s not very useful. I can’t use it with smartthings I can’t use it with google etc. I was hoping there was a way to integrate it and make smartthings be kind of the master but allow other control entry points. It would be nice if everything would play along.

I don’t like hue on how closed they are and how they take an open protocol and mangle it up. Not to mention the we want more money so your v1 bridge will be issued the kill command… I mean we will stop making it useful so you have to upgrade it.

[JDRoberts]

@Barracksbuilder

I don’t like hue on how closed they are and how they take an open protocol and mangle it up. Not to mention the we want more money so your v1 bridge will be issued the kill command… I mean we will stop making it useful so you have to upgrade it.

I look at it from an engineering point of view, and Hue Bridge is very well engineered and very open, which is why it works with so many different platforms.

There’s only so much you can do with a motorcycle before you realize you really need a pickup truck.

The V2 hue bridge supports both Zigbee 3.0 and HomeKit. That just wasn’t possible with the original device.

If you find something that’s better for your needs, certainly, go with that. But most of the hue decisions so far have been driven by engineering, not marketing, As far as I can see.