New SmartThings Alexa skill (2020)

I think this is my issue. No duplicates showing in the mobile app, but a whole bunch of them on the website.

Hello, I’m also having the same problem mentioned above with the Fibaro but with Qubino Flush Relay 2. i.e. the new ST skill is unable to recognise child devices. Is there a solution to this yet?

This skill is dead to me until we can choose what Alexa sees to avoid a duplicate device/duplicate name nightmare - I do not want my Hue bulbs included via Smartthings, they are already included via the Alexa skill, same for Hunter Douglas blinds, Ring cameras, Harmony Activities and my TP-Link plugs to name but a few…

@Lars @jody.albritton please tell me that there are plans to implement this as part of the skill sometime soon?

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I’ll just stick with the classic skill. There’s no reason for me to move to the new one.

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Only if you ever have to disable and re-enable the skill, you will lose the old one and be given the new one. No choice about it. This is what happened to one of my friends. :disappointed_relieved:

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ok, i got my Alexa skill straightened out with Lars’ help. A couple things to try if you’re having trouble:

  1. check the Alexa website for duplicates, not the app. I thought I only had ~5 duplicates out of ~190 devices based on the Alexa App. But the website https://alexa.amazon.com/ showed many more duplicates in the Smart Home section. As Lars mentioned above, go down the list and any SmartThings devices that shows its connected through a service longer than plain “SmartThings” is from the Classic skill and you should click Remove on it. (hint: sort by oldest to bring devices from the Classic skill closer to the top). The new skill is shown below and should be left alone.
    image

  2. Once all your duplicates from the Classic skill are removed, go to Skills > Your Skills and find the SmartThings skill. Click Remove. (this will not remove the existing devices connected through the new skill). Then Add the SmartThings skill back and discover devices. Without doing this, all of my switch and dimmer devices showed disconnected in Alexa after the duplicates were removed.

That should get everything synced back up. The bad news is you will probably have to re-do all of your Groups/Rooms in Alexa to get things organized. But now routines, lights and groups are working correctly. Only my Powerbot vacuum isn’t working through the new skill, so i’m leaving it on the old Samsung skill for now.

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Glad you got it fixed, but, wow, that’s a lot of work! :scream:

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Exactly. Why not just let people have a choice?Classic skill or the new skill. Maintaining this platform is becoming more like a job than a hobby, we should just be able to leave things as they are if everything works.

Yes I know you can just keep using the old skill, but I have often had to disable/enable for various reasons and I can no longer do that. Plus you know as well as I do that we’ll eventually be forced to make this switch… :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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Maybe it’s just a placebo affect now that things are working, but Alexa commands seem to execute faster with the new skill. I tried turning on/off an Alexa group earlier that has 3 zigbee bulbs connected to smartthings and there was very little popcorn affect.

Amazon has confirmed they are working on a fix for the duplicates.

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I am glad to hear that, it should be faster according to our benchmarks.

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Some users have reported issues with simulated devices with the new skill. A lot of the simulated devices will not populate state when they are created. If there is no state Alexa will show an error and it will not work in routines until after it has been actuated once.

Some ways you can set the state is:
-Use SmartThings Classic app (since new app does not show all simulated devices properly)
-Create a simple groovy smartapp that just calls on() for example for a device and run the smartapp “simualted” via web IDE
-Actuate device via a scene if it is a switch

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I just realized I have a device with 3 child switches that aren’t showing the child switches in Alexa. I have two others that also have child swtiches that do show in Alexa. All of them have states for switch capability. The only difference I can tell is the two that work use standard DTH child metering switch and the switch states are on the displayed list in the events log. The 3 that don’t work use standard DTH child switch and the switch states are not on the displayed events list, only the all events list.

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Really appreciate the time you took with me on this. Worked beautifully.

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PM:ed you about this

Hi @Lars, I have noticed you PM’d a few people with the same issue as myself, i.e. child devices are not showing in the new Alexa Skill. Is there a solution or work around for this? Thanks in advance.

I had very similar issues with devices no longer turning on and off via Alexa since changing to the new skill. I decided to delete all devices, disable the skill and start again with discovery.

Everything working fine now… obviously. :stuck_out_tongue:

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After talking to people about this I have identified the issue. However, I cannot yet give a date to when this will be fixed.

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For better or worse, the new skill automatically picks up new scenes within seconds of creation.

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Be nice if it just picked up among the devices that worked before :wink:

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