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The Homey Community has been moved to https://community.athom.com.
This forum is now read-only for archive purposes.
The Homey Community has been moved to https://community.athom.com.
This forum is now read-only for archive purposes.
Alexa
Devices show up in Alexa that you cannot do anything with
KennethLavrsen
Member
Hi
I am not sure if it is a bug or me not doing things right so let me try with a question first
I have installed the two Alexa skills in the Alexa app and it has worked quite OK for some months
But lately more and more "devices" show up in Alexa that come from Homey but they are useless because you cannot control them. It seems that some but not all devices get pushed to Alexa. I get devices like Door/Window sensors and Aeotec multi censor pushed to Alexa. None of them can be controlled by Alexa and I do not know of any way I can get any useful information from them.
I could in principle ignore them but I cannot. They create problems because of the naming. I also have a Philips Hue bridge and a large 35 lights Hue installation which works really well and stable on the Hue bridge. I have not linked these to Homey. I keep those two separate. I have created groups in the Alexa app and put my lights in those. It all works well. I can say turn off Alexa turn off the Entrance. Well until the Entrance Sensor shows up pushed from Homey. Then I get "You have multiple devices with that name" issues. And then the fight starts disabling Homey devices or renaming them.
Why do I get door/window sensors pushed to Alexa as devices show up as switches in Alexa? I am fine with items being pushed that I can control like I have done with several virtual devices in Homey and that works well. But I cannot understand why the Aeotec sensors are pushed to Alexa. It is 7 sensors that suddenly showed up.
If I could query Alexa if the door or window is open it could be quite smart (renaming them to avoid name clash). Is there a smart feature that I do not know how to take advantage of?
Or is it a bug I need to record on Github?
I am not sure if it is a bug or me not doing things right so let me try with a question first
I have installed the two Alexa skills in the Alexa app and it has worked quite OK for some months
But lately more and more "devices" show up in Alexa that come from Homey but they are useless because you cannot control them. It seems that some but not all devices get pushed to Alexa. I get devices like Door/Window sensors and Aeotec multi censor pushed to Alexa. None of them can be controlled by Alexa and I do not know of any way I can get any useful information from them.
I could in principle ignore them but I cannot. They create problems because of the naming. I also have a Philips Hue bridge and a large 35 lights Hue installation which works really well and stable on the Hue bridge. I have not linked these to Homey. I keep those two separate. I have created groups in the Alexa app and put my lights in those. It all works well. I can say turn off Alexa turn off the Entrance. Well until the Entrance Sensor shows up pushed from Homey. Then I get "You have multiple devices with that name" issues. And then the fight starts disabling Homey devices or renaming them.
Why do I get door/window sensors pushed to Alexa as devices show up as switches in Alexa? I am fine with items being pushed that I can control like I have done with several virtual devices in Homey and that works well. But I cannot understand why the Aeotec sensors are pushed to Alexa. It is 7 sensors that suddenly showed up.
If I could query Alexa if the door or window is open it could be quite smart (renaming them to avoid name clash). Is there a smart feature that I do not know how to take advantage of?
Or is it a bug I need to record on Github?
Tagged:
Comments
So there are some point 1, 2, 3 ect whats gives you a idea where to get you answer from @athom.
Constructive enough???
https://github.com/athombv/homey/issues/2711
I had hoped for some dialog first. It is good that @JochemBroersen raised the Me-To post. It gave me the push to believe this is indeed a bug.
And this forum is not a nice place to be for us customers!
Whenever I can I use the simple skill to turn things on and off or set a level.
But the “ask homey” skill is needed to enable getting answers back. For example I can say “Alexa, ask Homey about the Security Status” and Homey brilliantly answers via Alexa if some of the doors or windows are not locked. This is an Amazon limitation. Athom cannot create a skill that does it directly.
So both skills have their place.
It is not all devices on the Homey that create silly devices in Alexa. It is only certain devices so I think it is a simple bug in the selection criteria in either the core Athom or the plugin for the device. I have myself extended the Aeotec plugin but it was two of the already existing devices that show up on Alexa and not the ones I added (of which I only have one left).
The work around is to disable the devices, not delete them, in the Alexa app. If you delete them they just show up again when you discover devices. Leave them disabled, then you can live with it. But I hope the new Athom major release update and the conversion of the plugs to new API rev fixes this. It is on github now as a bug. And until then follow my advice and disable the bogus devices in the Alexa app. That also fixes the name clash as Alexa will ignore them when they are disabled