When you say “Alexa, turn on/off the lights,” do you want her to turn on/off the lights (or plugged in lamps) in the vacinity of that echo device?
That’s kind of what I was expecting - although to be honest, I do not have any rooms currently that have both plugs and bulbs in the same room. This is where Alexa recognizing everything as a light will shine (otherwise I will need to issue 2 commands to turn lights on or off, or create custom groups since I would be outside of Alexa’s native language potentially)
Ok, I think you should be able to achieve this, but I need to know the following:
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What are the differrent names of each of your plugs as they appear in the Smart Life app?
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What are the names of those same plugs as they appear in Alexa? (They are probably the same names as in SmartLife, but let me know if they are different.)
Might have missed it above, but I currently have the epicka ones set to ‘Living Room Light’, and ‘Living Room Light 2’ in Smart Life. Alexa appears to be the same naming convention
I am only focusing on the epicka plugs for now, just to not muddy up the waters with ‘Basement Light’ and ‘Basement Light 2’ - These are set up the same way, but are a different branded plug (still Smart Life/Alexa controlled though, so I will have to evaluate if any of this conversation can cross over)
Ok, I did miss that…dang mobile phone screen!
First, I would suggest that you rename the devices in SmartLife to not end with the “2”, but definitely end with “Light” or “Lamp”. You may want to avoid using numbers in your names altogether, but it might be ok as long as it’s not at the end of the name. Once you have them renamed in SmartLife, have Alexa rediscover the devices so it finds them under the new names. I would avoid editing the names directly in Alexa.
Once you’ve got the names of the plugs all ending with “Light” in Alexa, create a group in Alexa and name it after thr room the echo (and the plugs) are located in. Then add the echo (alexa enabled device) to the group, as well as the plugs, etc you want to control contextually from that echo.
Once you save the group it should soon be active. You should be able to tell that echo, “Alexa, turn on/off the lights” and she will control those plugs (lights). You may want to delete any groups you made that are called “lights” or contain the word “light” just so you don’t confuse Alexa…you can always add the groups back if you feel you need it and you can test to see if it confuses Alexa.
This method has worked well for me and was confirmed by another community member who was skeptical that Alexa cared about the naming of the devices. With that said, your mileage may vary because there could be other factors involved, but that’s why I suggest removing any groups your currently have in Alexa so that you have a clean slate.
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Thanks for taking the time to respond. I will certainly give that a shot. Great community here by the way!
Just to clarify something - I assume I cannot name both plugs say ‘Living Room Light’? Or doesn’t it matter since everything is MAC based? I used the number to differentiate them, but wasn’t sure if that was needed.
This does indeed have an impact on things:
I have 3 Smart Outlets that power on 3 Salt / Rock Lamps. They were originally called Rock Lamp 1, 2 and 3 and after naming them Rock 1 Lamp, Rock 2 Lamp, Rock 3 Lamp, some of the idiosyncracies I was experiencing similar to yours went away.
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Perfect - I’ll change the naming when I get home then.
You definitely want the names to be unique.
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Speak of the devil! 
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Oh the days of testing these things out in yester year. 
So I have 4 groups created. Basement, Bedroom, Living Room and Upstairs (due to multi-zone heating).
Just concentrating on Living Room for the moment, when I look in the group, I have the following: Living Room Alexa (group also indicates Alexa enabled), Living Room 1 Light, Living Room 2 Light, and Living Room 1 (Dish Hopper - I didn’t create the name, just said it was in the living room via the remote)
When I say “Alexa - turn on the lights”, she responds “Sorry, I didn’t find lights”. Strictly going by the icons in the Alexa app, its showing my “lights” as plugs. When I check the device settings, under Type, its listed as a smartplug. I think this is why Alexa can’t find any lights.
I do not have a dot yet in my bedroom, where I have singled bulbs. Its on its way though, but I expect it will work as expected there. Do we think there is a missing piece somewhere? I did delete my groups I had created for the lights. Think it would matter if I created a group in Smart Life for the plugs? Would Alexa see them any differently, or would I just be changing what manages the group itself?
Like I said - its not a huge issue. I have a workaround that’s perfectly acceptable. Just trying to learn the system and tricks because I’m sure eventually this stuff will come in handy. I anticipate I’ll have somewhere between 25-35 devices when all said and done.
@WB70 and I spent some time exploring this very behavior a few months ago on another thread, and we were able to conclude that devices with the plug icon could be recognized as “lights” by Alexa if they had “Light” or “Lamp” at the end of the name. However, after reviewing the older discussion, my tests involved a TP-Link plug that was controlled via the SmartThings Alexa skill, and not the TP-Link “Kasa” Alexa skill. So I think we may be able to conclude that the SmartLife Alexa skill is giving you different results than if you had everything on the ST skill. Sorry it didn’t pan out for you.
If we can get someone to develop an integration between ST and SmartLife as I mentioned at the beginning of this thread, you could have the ‘first class’ Alexa group experience. 
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Nothing to be sorry for - I appreciate everyones time in this. I have to learn the limitations of the system somehow. The only thing I’m losing here is the location awareness functionality of Alexa. I have to say “turn living room lights on” instead of “Turn the lights on” and having Alexa know that I’m in the living room.
I think you guys have given me enough info though that I should be able to do some research on creating advance switching, WebCORE, and gave me some additional apps to check out. That should keep me busy for a bit!
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