Has anyone else had the issue of Alexa randomly stating duplicate devices exist when in reality they do not. Without any changes in-between, sometimes she will say “more than one device exists with the name bedroom”.- I simply ask again and she turns on the bedroom. What gives?
that’s nothing new - I’ve been using Alexa for years and about once every 3-4 months she does this. It settles down later, then comes back. My best guess is new voice models or resets on keywords, or something like that, but it’s more fun to just assume Alexa lost it and went on a bender after having to listen to people demand egg timers a billion times. 
@nathancu that’s my wife when it comes to egg timers …
This is turning out to be more complex than i anticipated
I haven’t been following along for a while and it wasn’t obvious from a search… can this new/2020 skill trigger voice notifications via SmartThings or WebCore like the old EchoSpeaks smartapp?
No. It cannot.
Almost a year later and things are still a mess 
Some, sort of, and it depends on the details.
You can use whatever logic you want on the smart things side with the end result of turning on a virtual switch which is also a virtual sensor, and then you can use that virtual sensor changing state to trigger an Alexa routine. (Assuming that everything is working the way it supposed to, the new skill is much glitchier than the old one was.)
At that point, you can have the “that“/action in the routine be to speak a preselected “notification.“
All of that works fine, when it works.
For example, I can have opening the front door cause my echo devices to say “The front door is open.”
I can also combine it with a presence check to say “Michael is home.”
But echo speaks could work with variables, so that you could change what was said on the fly. You can’t do that with the new skill method. So I believe in echo speaks you could have just one rule and insert a different name depending on who had just arrived, where with the new skill method you have to set up one routine for each person.
You could certainly set up a voice notification for something like “the mail is here“ if you have a detectable sensor to act as the trigger. But you have to have one routine for each phrase you want to speak, you can’t change any part of it. And you are limited to a total of 99 routines altogether.
All of which is to say some people can get everything they want just with echo routines, assuming the smartthings skill doesn’t glitch. But you could definitely create more sophisticated logic with fewer total rules using echo speaks.
Voicemonkey was working great for this up until a few days ago, but Amazon took it down 
Hopefully it will come back soon. The author of the skill has been posting updates on the thread linked below.
Hi TIm…I’ve hit my max 3 replies for a topic…I’m not sure when this gets lifted but when it does I’ll be sure to keep posting updates. Otherwise please visit: https://voicemonkey.io/status for the latest
Thanks I’ll keep checking your link and can update on the other thread linked below when it is working.
I think that posting limit is temporary when you newly register. It should go away as people like and respond to your posts.
I’ve been using the Alexa skill to make door open announcements. Normally Alexa will sound a tone followed by the announcement but for the last few days Alexa makes a “boop” sound, then the tone followed by the announcement. Anyone else hearing the “boop”?
I still have the normal tones before and after each Alexa function. I have always received a before and after tone, even though I have Alexa configured to only sound a tone following a task completion. If I choose a before tone, Alexa still gives an after tone as well.
Only way I’ve found to “fix” this is to turn off both the before and after tones. A bug that has never been fixed in all the years I have used an Alexa.
This is the longest topic I have seen. I have had problems with Alexa not able to voice control some ST lights but able to control them with a button push on my iPhone screen. Turns out you can solve this problem by renaming the device in Alexa.
That is a great tip, thanks for sharing. The voice integrations are pretty complex so there is a lot to talk about!
Any status update on the changes to allow users to select which devices are shared with Amazon Alexa and Google Home? It’s been a year since the new integrations were released, and about 8 months since it was mentioned that a fix was in the works…
Glad you tested it Andreas, I really did not want another 50 devices duplicated, shame it is taking so long to change, I am actually more pis##d we STILL do not have and probably never will have as it has been so long, Shortcuts to individual device automations on the devices page, ala original app, that for me is my NO1 annoyance followed by the alexa issue
Hey Mike. Definitely with you on that one! I have a light that turns itself off at arround 6 in the afternoon and i have no idea what triggers this behavior! For me this is the biggest issue with the new app. I can live with the rest. Even with Smartthings exposing everything to alexa.
and it instantly popped up on her Alexa App! I had a little explaining to do for sure. 
