I have an Amazon Echo at home and an Amazon Dot at my holiday home.
I’ve just plugged in the Dot and asked it to discover devices and it found 32 devices which sounds right; yet when i go to http://alexa.amazon.com it only shows my houses smart devices.
Has anyone used Amazon devices such as the Dot or Echo at multiple addresses with the same account?
I guess i could create a new account but then my music from prime etc wouldnt work
Unfortunately, the official smart things/echo integration is only able to identify one location for the account. There’s nothing you can do about it at the present time except report it to support so they know that more people want that feature.
What most people have been doing is setting up two smartthings accounts and two Amazon accounts. So each location has its own accounts. That keeps everything straight.
I know You can have two Amazon accounts on the same echo as far as sharing music but I honestly don’t know what happens with your smartthings devices then. You could try it and see.
1 Like
bamarayne
(Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)
3
This post made me wonder… So this is what I did…
I have this equipment and accounts:
One ST hub
I have one location
My ST account is primary
My wife had an ST account because of the invite to add her
I have an Amazon account
My wife has an Amazon account
These two are linked in the Alexa app
This is what I did just now:
Told Alexa to change profiles into my wife’s account (nothing has ever been set up here)
opened the Alexa account and signed into my wife’s profile
I enabled the ST smart home skill. I used my wife’s account to link the two.
I discovered devices in the Alexa app.
it found all of my devices
The experiment:
While in my wife’s account - Alexa turn off couch light. Light went off.
Changed Alexa to my account.
Alexa turn on couch light. Light turned on.
Result:
Each ST account can link to your Alexa account.
When the accounts are linked you have to choose a location.
Everything should be controllable like this.
Location one - Alexa account one linked to this location.
Location two - Alexa account two linked to this location.
While In Alexa account one and physically at location one, you can control devices at location one via Alexa.
While still at location one, tell Alexa to change profiles to Alexa account two. You can now control devices at location two from location one.
And vice versa.
So in summary:
Two ST hubs equates to two locations.
Make two Amazon accounts.
Link each ST account to each Alexa account.
Control everything everywhere just by changing the profile on Alexa.
Also, if you are using askAlexa, you can install that under both Amazon accounts and you can run it from either location as well. (At least I think you can).
Sorry, but that doesn’t address the question the OP raised.
We already know you can have two Amazon accounts on one echo device. And that each of those accounts will be able to control all of the home control devices authorized to that echo.
The question is what happens when you have two SmartThings hubs each of which represents one SmartThings location, but they are both on the same SmartThings account.
The OP wants to have SmartThings hub A at one location with its devices, and a second smarthings hub at the other location with its devices, and an echo device in each building and have The echo in building A control the devices attached to hub a, and the echo in building B control devices attached to hub B, with everything under one SmartThings account.
Your experiment didn’t test any of that because you only have one smartThings hub.
1 Like
bamarayne
(Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)
5
Well, I totally read it wrong… Time wasted and lost… Oh well.
But maybe this will answer the question…
Actually, I did kind of answer the question.
You can have two hubs with one account. Each hub is a separate location.
Everything is controllable from everything everywhere… With the added step of, “you just have to change either the Amazon profile on the echo, or change the location in ST”.
So, I reiterate, my experiment does answer the OP question in that it clarifies it is possible, but with extra steps.
Edit:
I will add this, he won’t be able to do anything about the music…
No, it’s unfortunately not possible at the present time. You’ve made assumptions that just are not what actually happens.
You have assumed that when you go to authorize SmartThings to an Amazon account, you will be able to select the location that you want to use. But it just doesn’t work that way.
SmartThings will present one and only one of your locations, and it will always be the same location every time. You can’t get to the other locations to authorize their use to echo.
The same problem comes up when trying to use IFTTT with multiple SmartThings locations on one smartthings account.
This has been discussed previously in the forums, it’s a known issue, everyone agrees that it would be nice if you could get to the other locations, but at the present time you can’t.
SmartThings allows you to have multiple locations on your account, but it does not allow external systems access to the additional locations.
So in order to give echo access to the devices belonging to your second hub, you have to set that hub up as a separate SmartThings account.
With SmartThings, it is best not to do any thought experiments based on what the logical design appears to be. you have to test it in real life to find out what will actually happen.
bamarayne
(Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)
7
First of all, you said “enable the Alexa skill” which I’m guessing means you’re using ask Alexa rather then the native smartthings/Alexa integration.
If so, the OP probably didn’t do that because most people aren’t using that.
bamarayne
(Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)
11
I’m not seeing where I said that, other than as an fyi note at the bottom of one of the posts.
None of what I’ve ice posted our posted used the askAlexa skill in any way. It’s all based on native integration.
1 Like
bamarayne
(Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)
12
So, calling out to anyone with two hubs.
are they set up as two separate ST accounts?
are they set up as two locations in one ST account?
if they are two locations in one ST account can you give a single echo, running two profiles access to the two locations? (One Alexa account to one location and the other Alexa account to the second location)?
The only way to get this after is if someone will try this, or I buy another hub… And I don’t think my wife is going to buy of on that experiment.
My bad, you said “enable the ST skill,” it’s just that the official SmartThngs integration is part of the smart home implementation instead of a skill that gets enabled.
That’s the reason why you can just say “Alexa, turn on the living room light” instead of “Alexa, tell SmartThings to turn on the living room light.”
Different process, so potentially different results.
But since it sounds like you are using the official integration, obviously none of that applies.
Can I control multiple SmartThings Locations with Alexa?
.
No, not at this time. But we are working on an update that will allow multiple Amazon Alexa devices on separate Amazon accounts to control separate SmartThings Locations.
bamarayne
(Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)
15
@JDRoberts
Amazon updated the Alexa app and now the smart home controls are considered a skill.
bamarayne
(Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)
16
I think what this question implies is a single Amazon account can control two ST hubs.
What I’m saying above is that two ST locations can be controlled by a single echo device by changing the profile on the echo.
This requires a single ST account with two locations ( hubs ), two Amazon echo accounts with the accounts linked do that Alexa can change profiles by saying, “Alexa, change profile”.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear. I didn’t say they weren’t a “smart home skill.” I said the SmartThings one doesn’t have to be enabled. And you can use it with the “Alexa, turn on the kitchen light” format instead of the regular “Alexa, tell SmartThings to turn on the kitchen light” format.
bamarayne
(Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)
18
I’m confused. How will asked control your ST devices if the ST skill is not enabled.
Also the second part of your above post…
It looks like they made that update… Because everything I did used multiple Amazon accounts to control the separate locations.
What you’re saying is that you believe that that is what is going to happen. Once you have two hubs set up, share a screenshot of an Echo with access to the devices for the second hub and I’ll believe it, too.