When I got Alexa, I noticed immediately that there were naming issues.
I quickly made the effort to rename all my devices in SmartThings.
Here’s my operating premise: SmartThings is for automation of connected devices, while Alexa is for extemporaneous Voice control of connected devices.
So in automation, let’s say you have a smart plug. You can call it “Living Room Lamp Plug”.
Or you can call it Fred.
Or you can call it LRZZSP1 (living room zigbee Zwave smart plug one).
I call it something like the last example. You can’t say that to Alexa and have it do anything, but you can certainly craft all your automations using that naming protocol.
Btw, in renaming my devices I found there was no value in assigning them to rooms. I don’t use rooms in my automations at all really. For contact sensor X being opened in room 1 to turn on light L in room 3, does ST have any need to know what rooms those devices are in? Answer is NO.
So all my rooms in SmartThings are gone.
I made rooms in Alexa. Making a Living Room in Alexa became a piece of cake once Living Room was gone, and therefore no longer accidentally discoverable, in SmartThings.
And so when Alexa discovers LRZZSP1, I can assign it to the Living Room in Alexa.
And in Alexa, I can call it “Corner Lamp”.
And I can say to any Echo Dot in the house ”turn off the corner lamp” and it will turn off that lamp.
And then when I tell the EchoDot in the Living Room to “turn off the lights”, it finds that lamp among the others and turns it off.
This reorganization has resulted in near-elimination of Alexa’s “many things share that name. which one did you want?”
Btw, the ‘room’ concept in ST does have some value… but from a different standpoint. For a contact sensor to trigger an event, the rooms of neither are required. Example would be security. I would want ANY window/door sensor to trigger an alarm under certain conditions, for example.
But if I’m walking out the door and my system has an audio report function of open windows/doors, I certainly want to know which room has the open status so I’m not going to every room. For that report, I have created virtual/simulated contact sensors that combine all the sensors in one room into one virtual sensor for that entire room. It’s time consuming to go to every room, but I do not have 20 windows in any room so all I need know is the room in which the open exists.
Note that I can’t use ST’s room assignments to do that report; I had to make those virtual contacts anyway.