Did you try “Netflicks”?
No. Because I am dictating into voice recognition software, odd spellings are pretty hard for me. Let us know if you try it.
OK, they are definitely new reserved words.
“Turn on My NetFlix” (where My Netflix group exists) just gets the “clunk” tone.
“Turn on My teacup” (,where group does not exist) gets “I couldn’t find a device named ‘teacup’ in JD’s profile”
“Turn on my zebra” (where zebra group exists) works fine.
No. Because I am dictating into voice recognition software, odd spellings are pretty hard for me. Let us know if you try it.
Tried the following, all failed. These are all Alexa groups.
“turn on Netflix”
“turn on Netflicks”
“turn on Net flix”
“turn on Net flicks”
“turn on Nedflix”
“turn on Nett flicks”
“turn on Flixnet”
“turn on Flicksnet”
“turn on Netfix”
“turn on Streaming video”
New groups worked
“turn on Corner light”
“turn on Internet tv”
Dang… I have an EventGhost macro on a virtual switch named “Netflix” that used to work just fine.
Could this be a Trademark® dispute??
Could this be a Trademark® dispute??
Interesting thought, but I don’t think so. And you can still use the reserved words in the Amazon IFTTT channel in the trigger format: “Alexa, trigger Netflix,” for example.
I think it’s more likely that the fire TV voice remote is going to do something with those words as reserve words. But who knows?
Turn on StreamingNetflix/StreamingHulu have work for me. Still having a lot of issues with my lights though.
Turn on StreamingNetflix/StreamingHulu have work for me. Still having a lot of issues with my lights though.
“Turn on Streamingnetflix” works but “turn off Streamingnetflix” does not work for me.
What’s strange is that any new groups I create will turn on the device but will not turn them off.
“Turn on corner light” works but “Turn off corner light” does not
“Turn on cerealbowl” works but "Turn off cerealbowl does not
“Turn on cereal bowl” does not work for either ON or OFF.
SMH
I think my 16 y/o nailed it…
“It seems like the more they update her, the dumber she gets”
Exactly which smart system are we talking about here?
April 2016 bug
This appears to be fixed with an Amazon update around May 15, 2016.
- if Alexa is giving a chime error tone for commands that have worked for months…
Report the echo failures to Amazon.
Amazon should confirm that an update that they did on April 4 broke part of voice recognition in that echo is having trouble telling that some requests are for home automation rather than for music. It hears the phrase correctly, but then sends it to the wrong processing program.
It turns out this is the reverse of the usual reserved word issue! “Turn on” used to be reserved for home automation devices, but it now works as a music command. ( Try “Alexa, turn on Abbey Road.”).
They are aware of the problem and are working on a fix.
In the meantime, any name which isn’t working can probably be fixed by adding the word “lights” to the end of it. The easiest way to do this is with a new temporary echo group. So if “Hallway” doesn’t work, make a new group for the same devices called “hallway lights.” That should work fine until they get the fix in.
If you open up a ticket, they will let you know once the fix is ready.
Everyone agrees that this is extremely annoying, but the good news is that they are working on it.
(there is a separate unrelated problem. If echo says that a SmartThings-controlled device is “not available” but the action requested is still performed, there is a timeout issue between SmartThings and Echo which appears to be on the ST side. That one should be reported to ST.)
“Turn on” used to be reserved for home automation devices, but it now works as a music command.
This would explain alot! I thought I was just not talking clearly.
Glad I read this as “Alexa, Turn on Nick Jr.”, no longer works. I sent them an email.
I just set up my harmony. “TV Netflix”, “TV Amazon”, TV Disney", “TV Nickelodeon” etc works fine for Echo.
@JDRoberts how did you hear about this known issue? It’s basically making my Alexa useless now for any Harmony integration. I opened a ticket with Amazon and they claimed to not know about this issue. Also, I couldn’t find anything in their forums.
@JDRoberts how did you hear about this known issue? It’s basically making my Alexa useless now for any Harmony integration. I opened a ticket with Amazon and they claimed to not know about this issue. Also, I couldn’t find anything in their forums.
A friend of mine was first told it by Amazon support, and then I was given the same information myself three days later from a different support person. The key was the really weird fact that it would sometimes play music instead of working the home automation but not always. It only plays the music if it actually finds music that matches the home automation name. Otherwise you get the chime sound.
If you have the problem and you choose the option where you talk to Amazon support on the phone and you can demo the music playing for them it should get escalated to the right engineering team. Then you get a call back eventually ( in my case it was about four days later) where they give you the information about the April 4 update and that they are working on the fix and the suggestion of the “lights” workaround.
I will have to call them. Now other commands such as “Alexa turn on lift blinds” doesn’t work. It’s gotten really useless this past week or so.
I just called Echo tech support and they told me there was no known issues about this topic. He mentioned the devices I am trying to use Echo with are unsupported (Yonomi/Harmony, Blinds, arc.) but would pass along my issues to development. All I know is the Echo has not understood me as well the past week with several phrases. I’ve redone the voice training and reset back to factory defaults and neither has improved it.
Yeah, there’s something flaky about Yonomi, The tech I spoke with from Amazon also said it wasn’t on any approved lists they could find. Not sure what’s going on there. But I had the problem with A Phillips hue bulb connected through the bridge directly to echo, which is clearly an approved integration as the tech I worked with agreed. It had been working for months and I haven’t made any changes to it when it started the weird behavior two weeks ago.
I still have an open ticket with Amazon so they can let me know when it’s fixed, so I’ll post here if I get any updates.
I feel your pain – – I know how frustrating this is. If you happen to have a hue bridge see if you can get the problem to happen with A bulb on it using the same name that you are currently having a problem with from yonomi. If you can replicate the same problem, and let Amazon support know, and they will have to look into it further since that’s definitely a supported integration.
Yeah, I keep having Amazon tell me Yonomi is not supported (tagging @Kent-Yonomi for visibility). You have a really good idea of renaming my supported devices. I will do that when I get home and give them back a call.