UPDATE Now running correctly thanks! I rebooted the hub before going to bed and this morning all virtual switches are running.
Strangely enough I’ve been following these various threads on this problem with Alexa, but I have 26 momentary combo buttons and I haven’t detected any problems, where I am. What I do find is inconsistent response to sensors, including it’s own, in Alexa.
Thank you for all the great work you do!
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I’m not seeing any reliability improvement in contact sensors triggering routines in Alexa unfortunately. Anyone else?
Wish I could help, but I’m starting to think there may be something geographical with Alexa’s problems here.
Did an experiment this morning using @TAustin 's Counter Utility as a virtual trigger, which I use among other things as Presence Detection. Set up a routine in Alexa that gives me a message every time switches on - counted 56 messages over 4 hours (might have missed in counting). Would be interesting to know if anyone in Europe is still having problems…
Does presence detection also use the contact sensor function? I’m going to try that. Can you confirm what virtual presence sensor you are using? When I try to add one in smartthings it does not show in Alexa as a trigger.
For the past few days I’ve switched to Voice Monkey buttons for any virtual contact sensors used in Alexa, which I set via IFTTT based on Smartthings Contact Sensors (/ Switches) and changed my Alexa triggers to the Voice Monkey buttons. 100% reliability for the past few days. No idea how Voice Monkey implements its doorbell press. Watching this forum for a permanent solution via Edge drivers so I can return to a direct Smartthings to Alexa interface reliably
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Sorry if I have confused you with this example.
The virtual switches that I use most (26) are the momentary combo (with contact sensor)
which @TAustin updated yesterday (see his post above) to add a doorbell option which should help to ensure its function. As far as I can detect they trigger my Alexa routines correctly, in my case without any updating.
The example I gave, is different as it is a timer, but it enabled me to repeat triggering and prove that it was working. Possibly it’s not a good example as it can’t be used in many cases, but it did demonstrate quite conclusively! It is from @TAustin Shared Projects channel and is well documented
precisely here to set up for presence detection. I recommend it for this use but not for a general use. Hope some of this helps.
I did some testing today of various physical and vEdge virtual devices in ST to see the behavior when used in Alexa routines:
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Virtual Alexa Switch - would trigger intermittently, often with a delayed response
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Virtual Momentary Button (With and without doorbell enabled) - always looks like a switch for actions and sensor for routines. Would trigger intermittently, often with a delayed response
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Virtual Lock - consistently triggered the Alexa routine without delay
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Physical Contact Sensor - consistently triggered the Alexa routine without delay
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Virtual Presence Sensor - Alexa sets the state using its geo-location and that state is immediately reflected in ST causing Routines to fire
So, for me, this says it’s not a contact sensor issue with Alexa since the physical sensor immediately triggered routines, but specifically something about the virtual contact sensor. And I don’t think it’s in the ST-Alexa integration since the virtual lock is working fine as well.
@TAustin Any chance you could add the option of having 1) a doorbell without switch or sensor and; 2) a contact sensor with no switch? Since a virtual lock has no switch or sensor, wondering if having those devices as standalone devices might get us somewhere.
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Without a switch would you be able to trigger the virtual doorbell with a ST routine?
Hmm…not sure.
Is your theory that the inclusion of these capabilities is somehow affecting the Alex triggering?
Can everyone who opened a ticket with Amazon share their tickets numbers? Support is telling me there is no ongoing issue and wants me to do all the usual fixes that obviously will not help because this is a back end problem. I’m hoping if I share ticket numbers for users with the identical issue as mine, they can’t keep saying there is no issue.
wasn’t given a number per se, but in the note saying he’d contact me after he hears back from engineering it has A35Z1D7JJZQYYD in the reply address … no clue if that is a ticket #
Could be. Although the number format does not match mine. Anyway, I followed the pointless steps they provided and it did nothing, so the ticket is being escalated somewhere else now apparently. Hopefully one of us will will get resolution.
I do think there may be something with the virtual contact switch being both a switch and contact, as though both changes at the same time might be causing a problem.
yes, it might … though interestingly it had been working reliably for quite some time!
Is it possible to get more functionality for the cameras? Like include motion sensor, an on/off switch, etc. so I don’t need multiple devices(one to turn on the cameras via ifttt and another to detect motion).
@TAustin thanks again for the c02 meter. I use tasker to update the co2 levels from my Netatmo weather station. But the setco2level doesnt sync with the concentration level. Can you fix this?
I’ve added a screenshot with a example.
Just looking at commonality and differences for virtual devices that seem to work and those that are not. The ones that seem to be reliable are the doorbell and the lock, both of which are single purpose devices and don’t rely on a switch to activate the state change. Seems like all variations of the switch/sensor combo exhibit the lack of reliability.
I noticed this past week or so my virtual Alexa switches are intermittently triggering my Alexa routines. (They had been working fine.) What’s interesting is that I’m seeing the issue with my virtual switch created with Edge and my old groovy virtual devices. I thought this was just a groovy death phase until I saw the issue with my edge virtual switch too.
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I’m really struggling with Amazon to get them to understand the issue. If you can also open a ticket that might help… Assuming it is even their issue. What’s strange is that it seems to be only virtual contact sensors or similar that are impacted, so in theory it could also be a Smartthings output issue. Smartthings by the way is no longer replying to my open ticket with them, after more than a week. Sigh.
This is a problem caused by a recent platform change that requires units to be included in ALL device value updates. I’m going through all virtual devices now to be sure there aren’t others affected by this problem. Easy fix, though, which should get pushed out shortly.
Thanks for reporting this!
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