New SmartThings Alexa skill (2020)

I ran into that too, and it was frustrating. I managed to still lock my locks after asking Alexa to turn on my good night scene, which set my mode to night, which then kicked off an automation to lock my locks.

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To clarify, you can include locks, garage openers, etc. in your scenes and automate them with SmartThings all you want. But Alexa and Google Home do not allow unlocking or opening doors in scenes in their ecosystems. This was true for the old Alexa skill, too. It seems like SmartThings changed to a blanket no locks/openers at all scene restriction.

I’m not sure about that because I had the old skill and locks in my scenes. They worked perfectly until I switched to the new skill.

In old system you could lock, but not unlock the door.

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ah, that’s right. Will correct my post above.

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There’s a workaround for the locks issue. It’s not elegant, but it works.

FAQ: How to Run Scenes and Automations (2018 V3 App)

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Queue @JDRoberts with comments on what constitutes a sensitive device in 3… 2…

(And for the record, I agree with him - I should get to choose.)

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As defined by Amazon:

https://support.smartthings.com/hc/en-us/articles/210204906-Amazon-Alexa-SmartThings-Scenes

Unsupported devices include: door locks, garage door openers, security systems, security devices (such as sirens), cameras, and smart cooking appliances.

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Hush - you know exactly what I meant… :wink:

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The irony of course being that the only professionally monitored SmartThings option (the ADT hub) has a special Alexa skill that allows you to arm and disarm it :laughing:

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That’s part of the Amazon standard. You can use voice with security systems, but they have to be pin protected.

I wish the new Alexa skill would add STHM integration. But let’s focus on getting it working before we add enhancement requests :laughing:

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Fine, I understand not allowing unlocking, but locking shouldn’t be allowed? It was allowed in the prior version of the skill. It’s non-nonsensical that an inherently safe action isn’t being allowed.

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Again, as with locks, I can understand not allowing scenes with opening garage doors, but closing? And what’s unsafe about controlling a camera?

ST and Amazon should give me the option to choose what devices and what actions I want to allow. With a better ST-Alexa integration, Alexa would understand that I’ve authorized a door to be unlocked in a scene and challenge me for the PIN just like if I say “Alexa unlock the front door”.

Garage doors closing can kill someone. There are a number of understandable safety issues associated with those.

As far as cameras, again, the idea is not to accidentally activate something that might have significant privacy or security consequences.

As far as allowing for the use of a pin, Amazon does. It’s up to the company building the skill, like smartthings, to choose whether to offer the pin option or not.

I personally do believe that this should be the customer’s choice, but in general, the security industry has very similar standards to those being used by Amazon. So I’m just saying they are not unusual in what they’re doing.

@JDRoberts, do you know if there is any way this post can be pinned at the top of the community forum… like the “Public calendar for SmartThings developer events” thread is? At least until the engineers can get it resolved. I feel frustrated for all these folks who keep trying to fix this problem themselves because this communication from @Lars keeps getting lost in all the posts about this across the various threads.

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I honestly don’t know if posts can be pinned or only threads, and In either case, I can’t do it. I agree it would be really helpful.

Maybe @Lars or @blake.arnold or @jody.albritton can re-create it as a new announcement topic and then pin that.

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We can pin topics , but not posts.

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This was indeed my problem. Voice commands working fine now.

Thanks

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I am still waiting to get a resolution by SmartThing to the problem of routines in Alexa not being played for any of the ST device, that after the recent Alexa skill update. One interesting thing is that this morning, for no apparent reason one of the routines was played twice by itself without any known trigger. I don’t know if this will help ST team to dig further into the problem.