The weird delay has been discussed in at least 20 or 30 of the posts above. It’s definitely frustrating.
The new Alexa skill is broken for some people, but breaks in different ways at different times.
It’s totally unpredictable whether it will break for you and how it will break.
The following problems can occur with either virtual devices or physical sensors. The DTH that you are using does not matter.
it might be that the device status will update in both the smartthings app and the Alexa app, but the routine will never trigger.
it might be that the device status will update in both the smartthings app and the Alexa app, but the routine will process with a delay, sometimes a very prolonged delay.
it might be that the device status will update in the smartthings app but not the Alexa app.
it might be that it will be broken for a while, then it will start working again, and then it will break again. Whether you do anything or not.
The routine may run multiple times, either whether with a delay or without. This is particularly noticeable with announcements.
Separately, and for a different reason, EchoSpeaks no longer works. If you have been using that, see the author’s thread for discussion of alternatives.
It’s all very frustrating, it’s all very unpredictable. All that we know is that smartthings is aware of the problem and they are working on fixing it. And that there is nothing that we as customers can do to fix it. We just have to be patient until a fix is officially announced in this thread.
Or don’t be patient and move on to other methods such as using a sensor from a different platform or using the voice monkey skill described upthread.
Not sure if anyone has any ideas. I’ve converted to new skill. All my devices are discovered (I started from scratch to remove duplicates). I can turn devices on/off from alexa app (so I know connection is good) but if I ask echo to turn on / off anything I just get a “device no available” response. Not a single device works. Ideas on what I did wrong?
I agree with @JDRoberts, but for me it’s not just the simulated devices, I’m having the same issue using physical devices, (visonic contact, Aeotec door sensor). For example, as a test, I have an Alexa routine that announces whenever the back door opens…response can vary from about 10 sec, to an hour, to never ever. Again that’s with a plain old door sensor.
Me too, rarely feedback on a door locking or unlocking either anymore, which used to work fine.
I came onto Smarthings back in May with the V3 hub, so at the time, I had to use the new Alexa skill and using the old one wasn’t an option for me. I was slightly underwhelmed by the duplicate device issue and not being able to select devices, but at least it worked, and I didn’t really know anything different because I never had access to the old skill. If feel since everyone was forced onto it now, it keeps progressively becoming more unreliable, and it can’t handle the load and has fallen apart. The post higher in the thread from @jdroberts here has been exactly what my experience has been with it.
For anyone having issues getting smartthings integration to get Alexa to speak, If you know webcore, check out voicemonkey.Io. It’s an external service that publishes itself as a doorbell to Alexa. You ‘press’ the doorbell by sending a web request to their server. The virtual doorbell (known as a monkey) can then trigger a routine to do anything. To speak an arbitrary sentence (ie the content of the sentence is sent in the web request) just make the Alexa routine run the voicemonkey skill.
So basically you can run any routine on Alexa circumventing the Alexa integration in smartthings, plus you can get it to say anything you want. You want it to speak from multiple echos? Set up one routine for each echo, triggered by the same monkey.
It’s not echo speaks by any stretch, but it will make a decent substitute while we wait for the lite version of echo speaks OR while we wait for Samsung to fix this issue.
Interesting… Just got this email from Amazon. I’ve refused to update to the new skill due to the device selection issue. I haven’t been home, but AFAIK the old skill is still working. Hopefully ST fixes the device selection issue before the 21st. Not hopeful, and if they don’t, 7 years with ST, it’s off to Hubitat I go.
So the wording in the email is a bit ominous. Does it just mean that the old skill stops working on the 21st? Or is it warning us to upgrade before the 21st to avoid losing access to the devices indefinitely? I’m guessing it’s the former?
Community: Reports multiple catastrophic issues SmartThings: We added support for a new oven!
Do the SmartThings developers even run SmartThings in their own home? Surely not, they clock off from work each day and go home, manually switch on their light and say phew glad i dont have to deal with that mess for another 12 hours.
I actually asked this question when on the phone with SmartThings support the other day. There was a bit of stuttering and then, “I and a couple others in support use SmartThings in our homes but I have no idea if any of the developers actually use it.”
I then asked how they are dealing with all the issues since they work for the company. Reply was “we understand your frustration and that things aren’t working but all we can do is send it to the developers and wait to hear back.”
First line support Is now handled by the general Samsung support line, and I expect most of them don’t use smartthings at all. They are just working from Scripts.
The engineers and other employees who post in this forum generally do use SmartThings.
I don’t know if the people who design the app use the Home Automation features or not: the vast majority of app users don’t since it is now required for both Samsung smart appliances and Samsung smart televisions.
And good luck getting beyond them. I’ve had a ticket open for more than a MONTH to attempt to rectify automations not responding to presence activity and I just get the same idiotic scripted questions and suggestions thrown at me over and over.
I installed the new skill without removing the old skill first. None of my devices were responsive, and it wouldn’t add any new devices. I removed the old skill, removed and reinstalled the new skill, and deleted all of the devices; there are also no devices listed on alexa.amazon.com. Now it won’t discover any devices. Any suggestions?
All that we know is that smartthings is aware of the problem and they are working on fixing it. And that there is nothing that we as customers can do to fix it. We just have to be patient until a fix is officially announced in this thread.
