Major Changes to Alexa Skill

When will Garage doors and Locks be supported? If it’s for security reasons I feel it should be up to the individual whether they want to use those devices or not with Echo.

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I believe the general public has proven that we can’t have nice things. :slight_smile:

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You can use Open / Close if you use the ASK ALEXA - on /off with Alexa

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I have ask alexa, but I perfer not to ask smartthings and just say close the garage door.

There is the ability to change your invocation name to something shorter like Home. Also, you can have added security with Ask Alexa by adding a PIN number to the opening and closing routines.

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So now, with Alexa being able to lock/unlock locks, a thief can theoretically walk to your window and scream “Alexa, unlock the front door” and then simply walk in? Yeeey :smiley:

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This is being discussed at depth in the following thread:

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Another update to Alexa integration added the ability to trigger routines. And if you previously enabled the include all toggle, Alexa already has your routines ready to be fired.

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I think ST is taking all of the cool stuff from askAlexa… But askAlexa is still way better!

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they really need a better way to tell us this!

found this new support link: https://support.smartthings.com/hc/en-us/articles/210204906

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You’d think they could just send a push message.

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My SmartThings connection to Alexa failed last week and I have yet to be able to get it to reconnect.

Very frustrating… Trying again now – since there’s been an upgrade, perhaps the underlying root cause is resolved … I hope. :grimacing:.


Nope… Discovery still fails to find my SmartThings Devices (just my 6 Hue’s that it has always had no trouble with).

WTF? :cry: :confounded:

This part is ugly, though:

At this time, Alexa will only support Routines with lighting, switch, and thermostat devices. Alexa will not be able to run any Routines containing locks, garage doors, Smart Home Monitor status changes, or any other devices unsupported by Alexa (such as security cameras, sirens, or Samsung digital appliances). If you add an unsupported device to a Routine after it has been discovered by Amazon Alexa, it will be disabled in the Alexa SmartApp and disabled in the list within the native Amazon Alexa mobile app. If you ask Alexa to run a Routine with an added unsupported action or device, you will receive a push notification (if push notifications are enabled) informing you that the Routine cannot be activated because it contains an unsupported device. At any time, you can view a list of Routines that Alexa cannot activate in the Amazon Alexa SmartApp.

How the heck does it know!?!?!?!?

###Obvious answer: SmartThings is using API calls inside the Amazon Echo / Alexa connector SmartApp that are not available to us mortals:cry: :confounded:

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Yeah taking the best ideas from community and share them with everyone, but us! How nice of them…

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I’ve only just had my UK echo’s delivered. The routines run fine with all the supposedly unsupported bits if you use a virtual momentary switch to launch a routine.
I had them setup for the Harmony Hub anyway

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That’s exactly what I was thinking… It’s ST… give the community two seconds and the work around was done an hour ago.

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Still not as cool as askAlexa…

With this I have to say, “Alexa run its time for bed”.
With the good program I say, “Alexa tell Home it’s time for bed”… and then she tells that’s a great idea because she knows it’s be a really long day and to go on to bed while she locks up the house and turns of the lights. And she says goodnight.

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Am I wrongly feeling that this is rather punitive?

I don’t see this as punitive. Most of the people who get this error message will have absolutely no idea that they created a problem for themselves. And they probably won’t have any idea of how to fix it.

As others have mentioned, the current method for working with echo which uses virtual switches can still be used.

I think this just has to do with how echo communicates with SmartThings.

But it is another example of the mobile app’s anti-discoverability design. If you just get the mobile app, it’s quite difficult to figure out what you can do with SmartThings.

Just this week we had a new member again to ask how to get a pocket socket to turn off from a sensor. Both devices had come with the kit they initially purchased, but they couldn’t figure out how to make one trigger the other.

The official echo integration has become more powerful, but I don’t think it’s become any more intuitive.

JMO

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