The remainder of this thread is now very much out of date.
You have to add a switch or a routine to change the mode.
I really like @MichaelS ’ new Alexa helper smart app. You can set up six momentary switches at once to change the mode.
I also added A separate room I call Mode Switches which is where i stick switches like this. So I end up with just one momentary button tile for each mode and I just have to tap that to switch to that mode. Or, I can just tell the Amazon Echo to turn on that mode.
It takes some set up initially but after that, works really well. Actually like it better than what we had in the old app.
Steps:
create one virtual switch for each mode. I like to use momentary button tile. These work like a doorbell button, they are off most of the time except when you push it and in that moment it goes on and then reverts to off. That means it is always ready to turn on the next time, you can never get out of sync.
Two) create a new room called admin or modes or whatever you want. And assign all the momentary switches to that room.
Three) install Michael’s Alexa helper smartapp in the IDE and publish it to yourself. Then find it in the marketplace in the new app and use it. It will walk you through a set up wizard will you have six different slots that you can use, one switch per slot.
if you want to use the switches in echo, you also need to authorize them to the echo smartapp and then have echo discover the devices.
If for whatever reason, you don’t want to use Alexa helper, there is a very simple smartapp in the “marketplace” section of the official mobile app which only does one thing: assign a mode to a switch. So you can use this method in place of step three above.
To find that one open the mobile app, select the marketplace section (use the*icon at the bottom of the screen), choose “smart apps”, choose “lights and switches” and you will find it.
