FAQ: Where are SmartThings Scenes Listed in Alexa App?

Thanks. How did you figure that out? That is more convoluted than how ST hides things.

Another Alexa question. Where are Scenes currently listed in Alexa? They used to be on the devices page.

Yeah, they disappeared in one of the recent Alexa app updates. You can still find them, but it’s really complicated. And dumb. Lots of complaints about it the Alexa forums. Anyway… if you want to see what scenes you have and rename or delete one, you can do the following.

  1. open the Alexa app.
  2. go to devices
  3. create a new group
  4. now there will be a very long list of everything that’s on your Alexa account in the smart home category. This let you see all the scenes that you currently have. (Note that scenes are imported from other home automation platforms, so you can’t create a new scene. They come in from smartthings, or hue or Aqara, or someplace else.)

Alexa devices
Devices
Groups
Scenes (ta dah!)

  1. if you want to rename or delete a scene, select it as part of your new group, and then save the group

  2. now—edit the group you just created.

  3. select the scene you want to edit/delete and… Finally… You will get the details page for that scene where you can make changes to it. :tada:


And, yes, that is a really ugly process to have to go through. If anyone has a better way, please post it.

Here’s the discussion on the Alexa forum:

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Presumably, you will be triggering ST Scenes by voice in Alexa. Alexa sees them exactly the same way it sees other doable actions. So if you have a Scene in ST called ‘dominoes’, you simply say “Alexa, turn on Dominoes”. And it would trigger your Scene.

The more interesting thing is that Scenes can be insert into Alexa Routines. You can almost consider them subroutines. So when creating an Alexa Routine, you enter the name of the routine plus the condition(s) that initiate the Routine. From there:

Add Action >> Smart Home >> Scenes.

So now you can add one or many Scenes into a voice (or otherwise) triggered Routine.

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I understand the idea of scenes being somewhat like subroutines. Still, scenes are scenes. Throughout the home automation industry, you have been able to include them in automations just as you can include an individual device. Architecturally, They are a group of single device states.

I know that’s super technical. We had college exams on this stuff, and I’m probably oversensitive about it. :man_shrugging:t2:

Perhaps most importantly from a practical standpoint: at the time of this writing, you can create a routine in the Alexa app, but you can’t create a scene, anymore than you can create a light switch. Scenes and devices are imported into the Alexa app from somewhere else (aqara, hue, smartthings, Meross, etc) through discovery.

Also, in the Alexa app, you cannot add a routine to a group, but you can add a scene. In fact, right now you have to if you want to get to its details page.

I know – – nobody cares about this stuff. LOL! I’ll go back to reading my manuals now. :wink:

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Sometimes your just too funny. I care about this stuff and thankfully we have you to research all this stuff and tell us about it.

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Wellll JD, if you’re going to quibble…. I did not say that scenes are subroutines. I said “you can almost consider them subroutines”.
Except for the topic of exhaust/extractor fans, I choose my words carefully :sunglasses:

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I added all my scenes to a group called Scenes for quicker access.

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Yeah, me, too: that’s what the “all my scenes“ group in my screenshot is for. :sunglasses:

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Oops, missed that part. In my defense, the font is quite small :wink:

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