2) Tried the device route.... haven't tried controlling it from an action. I already have door lock actions for a virtual door lock.
3) I guess like #2, I haven't played with controlling an action yet.... but If that's working, that's a good catch-all for incorporating things that don't work natively.
Previously, I used virtual devices with Alexa for non-bulb odd stuff.... like controlling my Roku TV. But now there is a Roku Skill that gives me full control of all my Roku TVs without having to write routines to avoid "turn mute on/off" <- because it thinks "mute" is a hue-light.
Many things I want to try with this skill (focusing on my wife's biggest concerns), like asking Alexa what the thermostat is set at. <- couldn't get it to read that either. Now I'm playing with fans. (wife sets the bedroom fan to Med when she lays down to watch tv. Turns it to High when she turns off the TV to go to sleep.)
Update: I'm starting to wonder if I'm doing something wrong. Lights = no problem. Anything else = no workie. For example, fans.... I didn't try to do anything fancy, just on/off for the bedroom fan. (That was my limit before with Alexa-hue). So on the node-red skill site, I added my bedroom fan as a fan. On node red flow... ((Alexa Smart home Bedroom fan) -> (Master Bedroom Fan set device). Alexa: "Bedroom fan doesn't support that". She tells me the same thing with my attempt at integrating a thermometer.
* Side note. Couldn't get the auto run at start up thing to work https://nodered.org/docs/faq/starting-node-red-on-boot. I'm failing at Step #3. Installed locally, so I used
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pm2 start node_modules/node-red/bin/node-red -- -v