Use of Switch vs Light

Posted on
Sat Jun 26, 2021 6:36 am
neilk offline
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Use of Switch vs Light

I have just migrated to the new skill and all good (apart from the rather messy way the Alexa App/Website works and caches) but one thing that I may be missing is if we can force the type of light rather than switches. With the old plugin I had defined lights for each room and Alexa and I can use "Turn Lights on" in each room with an Alexa and the mapping in the app took care of it. This doesn't seem to be possible with the switch type.

Am I missing something ?

Thanks,
Neil

Posted on
Sat Jun 26, 2021 7:27 am
autolog offline
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Re: Use of Switch vs Light

Hi Neil,
neilk wrote:
I have just migrated to the new skill and all good (apart from the rather messy way the Alexa App/Website works and caches) but one thing that I may be missing is if we can force the type of light rather than switches. With the old plugin I had defined lights for each room and Alexa and I can use "Turn Lights on" in each room with an Alexa and the mapping in the app took care of it. This doesn't seem to be possible with the switch type.

Am I missing something ?

Can you give a bit more detail?

When you say "Turn Lights On" in a room, how does Alexa know to turn on just that room's lights.

Are they lights or are they sockets / switches?

Is this setup in the Alexa App or via the plugin?

Posted on
Sat Jun 26, 2021 7:31 am
neilk offline
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Location: Reading, UK

Re: Use of Switch vs Light

Jon,
If you create groups in the Alexa app, it can include a specific Alexa device (or Sonos speaker with Alexa capability) as well as lights, a nominated speaker and switches. If the devices are lights then you can simply say “Alexa turn lights on” or “Alexa turn lights off” and all lights in that group will be switched. I have an Alexa per room and it works really well as the nearest Alexa responds and switches the lights assigned to that group.
Thanks,
Neil

Posted on
Sat Jun 26, 2021 7:39 am
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Re: Use of Switch vs Light

neilk wrote:
If you create groups in the Alexa app, it can include a specific Alexa device (or Sonos speaker with Alexa capability) as well as lights, a nominated speaker and switches. If the devices are lights then you can simply say “Alexa turn lights on” or “Alexa turn lights off” and all lights in that group will be switched. I have an Alexa per room and it works really well as the nearest Alexa responds and switches the lights assigned to that group.

The Alexa-Hue Bridge had all devices setup as Lights as it was emulating a Hue hub.

Are you defining your lights as lights when you publish them or are they lights attached to switches and therefore setup as switches?

For example, all my LIFX lamps are seen as lights in the Alexa App.

Posted on
Sat Jun 26, 2021 7:44 am
neilk offline
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Location: Reading, UK

Re: Use of Switch vs Light

Of course - everything used to be a light which created a different set of challenges, but this is something we have all got used too. (The family I mean are used to that just working).

Most of my “Lights” are attached to Fibaro single or dual relays and I only seem able to publish them as switches. I turned off the hue skill as I have too many bulbs and publish limited individual lights but mainly virtual devices that trigger a group.

Ideally I would like to be able to force both a virtual device and a relay to appear as a “light”.

Thanks,
Neil
Last edited by neilk on Sat Jun 26, 2021 7:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

Posted on
Sat Jun 26, 2021 7:48 am
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Re: Use of Switch vs Light

neilk wrote:
Of course - everything used to be a light which created a different set of challenges, but this is something we have all got used too.

Most of my “Lights” are attached to Fibaro single or dual relays and I only seem able to publish them as switches. I turned off the hue skill as I have too many bulbs and publish limited individual lights but mainly virtual devices that trigger a group.

Ideally I would like to be able to force both a virtual device and a relay to appear as a “light”.


OK - that clarifies things - thanks for explaining and yes, that seems like a good idea. :)

I will have to leave Jay to comment on this. The additional info will be useful for him.

Posted on
Sat Jun 26, 2021 7:55 am
neilk offline
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Re: Use of Switch vs Light

No problems and thanks for chipping in.

Of course in the old world it meant I couldn’t assign devices that were not lights to a room, but that was relatively easy, you just didn’t allocate them to a group.

The use case is really just for lights and music as you can simply say “Alexa play BBC 5 Live” and the group takes care of working out where you are and which speaker to use.

Thanks,
Neil

Posted on
Sat Jun 26, 2021 8:02 am
neilk offline
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Re: Use of Switch vs Light

By the way, anyone want to buy a vintage 1st Generation Amazon Echo ? :-) Looks like I can finally retire it, and avoid the situation when my wife unplugged it in our guest room when I was away then complained that “Alexa doesn’t work”

Posted on
Sat Jun 26, 2021 2:02 pm
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Re: Use of Switch vs Light

Ah, I see. In Alexa, any device that is dimmable is considered a light, others that only support on/off are considered switches (at least in terms of their UI apparently). In Indigo, we have a similar construct: DimmerDevice and RelayDevice respectively. We publish those devices to Alexa based on their definitions. DimmerDevices support both PowerController and BrightnessController Alexa interfaces. RelayDevices only support the PowerController interface since you can't send dim commands to them.

Apparently, Alexa assumes that only the former is a light. I'm not sure that changing the subtype of a RelayDevice to be "LIGHT" will solve the issue or if Alexa is looking specifically at whether the device has the BrightnessController interface. If it's the former, and I'll try testing that, then we can most likely make that work. If, however, it's the latter, then I'm not sure we can do anything about it (since a RelayDevice in Indigo will throw an error if you try to set the brightness on it).

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Sat Jun 26, 2021 4:53 pm
neilk offline
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Re: Use of Switch vs Light

Thanks - I am pretty sure non dimmable lights had a simple on/off ui in the Alexa app but of course I have now deleted all of those from the old plugin.

All of my hue lights that are in fixtures are also zwave switched so I still get local control via switches etc so I cannot just publish the dimmable devices. I am sure we can figure something out.

Neil

Posted on
Sat Jun 26, 2021 7:35 pm
jay (support) offline
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Re: Use of Switch vs Light

neilk wrote:
Thanks - I am pretty sure non dimmable lights had a simple on/off ui in the Alexa app but of course I have now deleted all of those from the old plugin.

All of my hue lights that are in fixtures are also zwave switched so I still get local control via switches etc so I cannot just publish the dimmable devices. I am sure we can figure something out.

Neil


I'm confused on both points. Simple On/Off devices in Indigo (RelayDevice) should also have a simple on/off UI in Alexa. At least, mine do...

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Sat Jun 26, 2021 9:42 pm
GlennNZ offline
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Re: Use of Switch vs Light

Hi Jay,

Ditto this issue.

Relay’s can’t be ‘Lights’ it would seem. I wonder whether a work around is to allow switch’s to be lights as well? (obvious ignore the dimmer values, or convert to on/off)

The issue I’m facing is with a setup with multiple Alexa’s in different rooms, you can group lights together with the Room and a certain Alexa. Then you can ask Alexa Lights On, Lights off etc and provided the right Alexa hears you those grouped room lights turn on/off etc. This is super simple and commonly used.

A lot of my lights are relays, or switch plugs (upright lights) or Hue lights. Previously because everything was a light - it was easy to lump everything into a light Group.

Glenn


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Posted on
Sun Jun 27, 2021 4:25 am
neilk offline
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Re: Use of Switch vs Light

jay (support) wrote:
neilk wrote:
Thanks - I am pretty sure non dimmable lights had a simple on/off ui in the Alexa app but of course I have now deleted all of those from the old plugin.

All of my hue lights that are in fixtures are also zwave switched so I still get local control via switches etc so I cannot just publish the dimmable devices. I am sure we can figure something out.

Neil


I'm confused on both points. Simple On/Off devices in Indigo (RelayDevice) should also have a simple on/off UI in Alexa. At least, mine do...


Sorry I meant lights can appear as lights in the Alexa app without being dimmable, at least I think that was the case !

Posted on
Sun Jun 27, 2021 9:31 am
jay (support) offline
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Re: Use of Switch vs Light

neilk wrote:
jay (support) wrote:
I'm confused on both points. Simple On/Off devices in Indigo (RelayDevice) should also have a simple on/off UI in Alexa. At least, mine do...


Sorry I meant lights can appear as lights in the Alexa app without being dimmable, at least I think that was the case !


I hope that's true. I'll be experimenting with a few of the settings to see if I can get a RelayDevice to get identified by Alexa as a light.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Sun Jun 27, 2021 10:35 am
neilk offline
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Re: Use of Switch vs Light

Great - thanks and if you need any help testing let me know.

Neil

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