OK, it looks like now we know why the list of reserved words has gotten longer.
Sometime in December 2015, Amazon changed the phrasing for connected home devices. You now no longer have to say âturn onâŠâ Or âturn offâŠâ You can just say the name of the connected home device/group and then on or off.
So if you have a device called âceilingâ you can just say âAlexa, ceiling on.â Or if you have a switch for a harmony activity and you called it âDisney channelâ you can just say âAlexa, Disney Channel on.â
This is probably why they pulled words like âpowerâ and âTVâ because without the âturnâ in the front of it, echo canât tell the difference between turning off a switch named power and turning off the echo itself.
Interestingly, this comes very shortly after the iOS update that changed HomeKit scenes so that now a scene name takes precedence over other Siri commands and if you just say âhey, Siri, good nightâ Siri will run your good night HomeKit scene if you have one.
The point is that both systems seem to be dropping some of the natural language approach in favor of shorter phrasing with more customization.
One more point about choosing names if you intend to use both Echo and HomeKitâŠ
With the latest iOS update, HomeKit has now given both scene names and device classes priority in Siri commands. This is why you can tell
Siri âlock all doorsâ and it will work, because âdoorâ is a device class (for lock).
âLightâ is another device class for HomeKit.
This lets you say âSiri, turn off bedroom lightsâ and any device which is a light in the bedroom will turn off.
This can cause a conflict in HomeKit if you also named a specific subset of devices âbedroom lights.â Because âHey, Siri, turn off bedroom lightsâ may turn off more lights than you expect due to the new prioritization.
All of which is to say if you want to use the exact same verbal commands with Echo and Siri, itâs probably best to avoid HomeKit device class names except for a group including all of the devices of that class in a room. So âkitchen lightsâ group in Echo should include all devices of HomeKit class âlightâ in room âkitchenâ (and only those devices) if you want to get the same results from both systems.
Same with me. Anything that starts with âallâ for me. âAll shadesâ does the same thing. If I open/close individually (e.g. âAlexa, close living room shadesâ) it works every time- even when Iâm mumbling from across the room. When I confirm âall shadesâ or whatever, it accepts the command fine.
Iâm just glad that it seems the Echo server update last week seems to have fixed the issue of âherâ making you repeat commands 2-3 times and then still failing 60% of the time or replying on/off was not a valid command for a light. Of course Echo supports boiler plate response to every email and phone call was that there was no server issues. . Even though all the issues started the Monday/Tuesday after Thankgiving , right when all those $95 Echoes would have been delivered following the overly successful Thanksgiving week sale
Weâre getting sort of off topic for this thread, so please direct follow-ups to my projects thread. That discusses in detail choosing a channel. But basically you just set up a Harmony activity and you use a step in the starting sequence of that activity to set the starting channel for the activity. Works very well.
I just came up with a new naming issue. I replaced the lights above my kitchen sink and named them âleft sinkâ and âright sinkâ. Alexa keeps hearing âleft syncâ and âright syncâ and hence replies there is no device by that name. Yet if I say turn off/on the sink lights she understands and turns them both on/off.
Thanks, but earlier this week I decided to cut ST out of my Echo integration in favor of Yonomi. I am trying to weed myself of ST dependencies for obvious reasons
I created a group called âNetflixâ in the Echo app which is tied to my Harmony activity via Yonomi. For my Harmony-Echo integrations I use the Echo groups which are named âNBCâ, âNick Jrâ. etc.
For me, at least, âNetflixâ is not working and putting it in a group named Flix doesnât work, but putting it in a group named âFlicksâ does work. I didnât change the activity name in harmony, just the group name in Echo.
On the other hand, if you are using the IFTTT method, âAlexa, trigger Netflixâ still works just fine.