Zen Thermostat, SmartThings Classic, Alexa - not responding, but working in apps

Zen thermostat / Smartthings / Alexa control and feedback (Alexa set thermostat temperature to…, Alexa what’s the thermostat temperature? etc) worked fine for past two years. Recently Alexa response is “Hmm, thermostat is not responding” , but for example if I ask Alexa to set thermostat to 76 degrees the heat setting in the Alexa app and Smartthings classic app will set thermostat to 76 degrees and heat starts up. But still get response of “Hmm, thermostat is not responding”.

Tried removing from Alexa, then Smartthings then re-adding. Get same outcome.

Thoughts?

Email support for sure because it could very well be related to this:

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Just set up Alexa with a new Zen thermostat at my girlfriend’s house, and I’m getting this response too. Not the seamless experience I was hoping for with this gift.

@srbna are you still experiencing it?
Anyone have ideas?

emailed support,
at their suggestion again tried removing from alexa (smartthings skill) then removed device from smartthings.
rediscovered / added device back in smartthings then added skill back to alexa and then added device in alexa.

No change - the instruction to alexa to change thermostat temperature still worked but response was still “Hmm, thermostat is not responding”

Then Support removed the Alexa integration on their end and I retried all the above - same outcome.

Their response:

Jennifer L (SmartThings)
Dec 6, 5:39 PM MST
Thanks for the update, Scott!
That is weird. I can see the command from Alexa to the thermostat and I can see the
thermostat responding to the command from Alexa. At this point, out of ideas for how to have
Alexa respond back properly. I’ve reached out to some other colleagues higher up but I don’t
have an ETA or additional steps to try at the time.
I will follow-up as soon as anything comes back my way and have your ticket on-hold for the
time being. I am very sorry I don’t have another solution on hand to help :frowning:
Please let me know if there is anything else at all I can assist with in the meantime!
Sincerely,
Jennifer L
SmartThings Support Agent

jessec - Would suggest you open a ticket to support to document this is not a one time issue with me. I was actually pleasantly surprised on the followup from support for a no fee service. So at present I can still control the Zen thermostat via Alexa–>Smartthings but can’t get feedback / verification from Alexa. It worked for 2 years prior to October firmware update.

enjoy

I have the same issue- has their been any update. I have two thermostats. Ecobee thermostat works fine. Zen does not. Firmware is all up to date. All software up to date- just as you describe- it works but does not get confirmation from Alexa. This is a bug. Any updates?

J_TR_NJ - Would suggest you open a ticket to support to document this is not just a one time issue with me. Maybe more service tickets build momentum. I was actually pleasantly surprised on the followup from support for a no fee service. So at present I can still control the Zen thermostat via Alexa–>Smartthings but can’t get feedback / verification from Alexa. It worked for 2 years prior to October firmware update.

For about the last two weeks, I ask, ‘Alexa, what’s the temperature if the thermostat?’ and I get the, ‘Hum, thermostat is not responding.’ Or, ‘Alexa, set the thermostat to 69 degrees’ and get the same LAME response now. It was all working fine a few weeks ago!!! Arrrrgggg…

I went into the Alexa website (not the Alexa mobile app) yesterday and did a lot of cleanup of offline devices. For some reason, if you remove the device from the Alexa smartapp in ST, it doesn’t remove it from Alexa. For me at least.

At one time I had several contact sensors and motion sensors integrated, but I removed them from the ST app but Alexa still saw them (but offline). I also had several switches and other devices that were “old” in Alexa.

I have no idea why removing them from the ST doesn’t clean up Alexa, but it’s worth a shot to check yours too. Try a cleanup and then a rediscovery from Alexa.

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Well, I found a trick that will give me the temperature of the thermostat. I removed all the motion sensors which have temperature readings from Alexa since it would give me the ‘average’ temperature of everything, and only left the Zen thermostat as the only device Alexa could pull a temperature reading from. I then asked, Alexa, what’s the temperature inside, and got the response which did not include the word ‘average’. Alexa just responded, “It’s 69”.

I sure hope they fix this ‘BUG’ soon!

Well, it is a SmartThings problem and not an Amazon problem. Alexa is working again with my Zen Thermostat.

I had an old self published Zen Thermostat device from the repository. So I just edited my Zen Thermostat device and changed it’s device type from the SmartThings published one to this old repository one and now Alexa is giving me correct responses for the Zen Thermostat. I’m just going to keep this repository device type since it supports decimal temperatures which the integrated SmartThings Zen Thermostat device doesn’t.

Update: I just checked and there’s a repository update to the old Zen Thermostat device handler I had so I updated it. Guess what, it broke Alexa again. So, I re-pasted the old device handler back and republished it and now Alexa is happy again.

I found the link to the working one in the repository history from 2015 since the latest 2017 revision doesn’t work. Anyway, here’s the link to the Zen Thermostat device handler that works with Alexa.

UPDATE

Zen thermostat now responds via Alexa for “what is thermostat temperature”. Also has an additional response to “what is thermostat mode”. This wasn’t available before.

Zen thermostat had shown as unavailable the past few days but I didn’t have time to follow up. Today indicated as available. Based on that, decided to forget from Alexa and rediscover.

All functionality is back plus thermostat’s mode feedback. Must have happened on Smartthings end.