Room specific Alexa (groups)...

Posted on
Wed May 09, 2018 5:03 pm
mat offline
Posts: 769
Joined: Nov 25, 2010
Location: Cambridgeshire - UK

Room specific Alexa (groups)...

Evening all,

I'm still on version 2 of the plugin (work related disruption to my Indigo "habit" for the last 6 months or more).

I'm just starting to catch up and upgrade plugins (and need to put mine in the store). Read the guideAHB 3.x etc, and am going to start afresh.

Will look at routines, but has anyone tried and tested the Alexa "Groups" yet? It appears Alexa can now be made room specific! I've caught up on most of the forum, but didn't see any mention I don't think.

Has anyone tried this (apologise if i'm way behind the curve!), and does it work well with the plugin - I've been reading here....

https://www.howtogeek.com/331578/how-to ... ific-echo/

Cheers and trust everyone is well!

Late 2018 mini 10.14

Posted on
Thu May 10, 2018 4:12 pm
siclark offline
Posts: 1960
Joined: Jun 13, 2017
Location: UK

Re: Room specific Alexa (groups)...

Hi,
Yes, the groups are great... I use them to say Alexa, turn on the lights, and she just turns on the lights in that room. Saves having to specify name of the room I am in. *all those seconds saved!

Posted on
Fri May 11, 2018 1:46 am
mat offline
Posts: 769
Joined: Nov 25, 2010
Location: Cambridgeshire - UK

Re: Room specific Alexa (groups)...

Thanks, im going to deleve version 2 and set up tomorrow with better logic!

Its more the better halfs arguments with Alexa about what to switch on :lol:

Late 2018 mini 10.14

Posted on
Fri May 11, 2018 10:28 am
mat offline
Posts: 769
Joined: Nov 25, 2010
Location: Cambridgeshire - UK

Re: Room specific Alexa (groups)...

Okay, if anyone else if looking, you can't control individual devices in a group associated with a specific alexa - its all on or off. I guess i was getting my hopes up for more native control.

I was looking to be able to generically turn the lights or turn the TV on and relate that to specific device in a specific room rather than having to say "turn the sitting room tv on"

Late 2018 mini 10.14

Posted on
Fri May 11, 2018 11:54 am
siclark offline
Posts: 1960
Joined: Jun 13, 2017
Location: UK

Re: Room specific Alexa (groups)...

Do you have a more detailed example of what you are trying to do?

I have 3 light devices in my living room for example. I can control them all individually by nam3 from any echo in the house.
I have a device called living room lights that is an indigo action group that lets me turn on/off the lights from any echo, ("turn on living room lights")
then I have all 3 devices in a room group in Alexa with the living room echo where I can say "turn on lights" in the living room.
If I'm in the kitchen and say"turn on lights" the 4 kitchen light devices come on




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Posted on
Fri May 11, 2018 2:43 pm
mat offline
Posts: 769
Joined: Nov 25, 2010
Location: Cambridgeshire - UK

Re: Room specific Alexa (groups)...

Hi, sorry my bad

I was looking to remove the need to prefix Alexa commands with the room name, ie sitting room tv...

Heres an example

I have four Alexis in four different rooms - I can only be heard from one Alexa at any time. I have 4 tv's and 4 lights controlled by indigo. Each room therefore has one tv, one light and one Alexa.

I initially created four groups, one for each room, each group with an indigo controlled TV.

I wondered if I could use the group feature to say "turn on the TV" in any one room (rather than turn on the xxxxxx TV). This can be achieved by saying "turn on the office". "Turn on the office TV" still works as this is the plugin name. Turn on the TV of course doesn't.

However, when you add each of the lights into each of the groups and issue a command, both the light and tv turn on/off. ie they act as a group.

It does however appear that the plugin recognises which Alexa issued the command, so it may actually be possible (although I note from reading a post last night that on occasions the instructions are issued from another Alexa).


Thanks for reading

Late 2018 mini 10.14

Posted on
Fri May 11, 2018 3:11 pm
siclark offline
Posts: 1960
Joined: Jun 13, 2017
Location: UK

Re: Room specific Alexa (groups)...

I think the problem is the Alexa plugin emulates hue bulbs so Alexa doesn't recognise a TV is a TV, it sees a bulb named TV, unlike the Homekit plugin that uses all the Homekit devices.

If Alexa knew the TV was a TV and not a bulb it could do what you wanted.


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Posted on
Fri May 11, 2018 3:17 pm
mat offline
Posts: 769
Joined: Nov 25, 2010
Location: Cambridgeshire - UK

Re: Room specific Alexa (groups)...

Yep, I agree - just got my hopes up slightly and thought i had missed a major change!

Happy weekend.

Late 2018 mini 10.14

Posted on
Fri May 11, 2018 3:30 pm
siclark offline
Posts: 1960
Joined: Jun 13, 2017
Location: UK

Re: Room specific Alexa (groups)...

mat wrote:
Yep, I agree - just got my hopes up slightly and thought i had missed a major change!

Happy weekend.


Agreed. Annoying, especially after experiencing how good voice control can be with siri.

Hopefully amazon will allow tighter integration soon.

Posted on
Sat May 12, 2018 12:24 am
noel1983 offline
Posts: 446
Joined: Oct 17, 2014

Re: Room specific Alexa (groups)...

Does ‘groups’ mean that I should be able to say alexa turn on the lights in a room and it’ll turn on all light devices in that room regardless of what they;’re named i.e. lounge lamps etc?

Just tried it and alexa said device lights cant be found.

Cheers

Posted on
Sat May 12, 2018 1:46 am
siclark offline
Posts: 1960
Joined: Jun 13, 2017
Location: UK

Re: Room specific Alexa (groups)...

noel1983 wrote:
Does ‘groups’ mean that I should be able to say alexa turn on the lights in a room and it’ll turn on all light devices in that room regardless of what they;’re named i.e. lounge lamps etc?

Just tried it and alexa said device lights cant be found.

Cheers


Yes. I have lounge pendant, lounge lamp, lounge table lamp in a group with lounge dot called lounge.
When in lounge I can say turn on lights or if in bedroom say turn on lounge lights and it works.


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Posted on
Sat May 12, 2018 1:48 am
noel1983 offline
Posts: 446
Joined: Oct 17, 2014

Re: Room specific Alexa (groups)...

siclark wrote:
noel1983 wrote:
Does ‘groups’ mean that I should be able to say alexa turn on the lights in a room and it’ll turn on all light devices in that room regardless of what they;’re named i.e. lounge lamps etc?

Just tried it and alexa said device lights cant be found.

Cheers


Yes. I have lounge pendant, lounge lamp, lounge table lamp in a group with lounge dot called lounge.
When in lounge I can say turn on lights or if in bedroom say turn on lounge lights and it works.


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Cheers I’ll do some more testing later
This will be great and way more wife friendly than having to add the room name or remember what the devices are called!

Now what would be really great is if you could default the echo to a Sonos device so we don’t need to keep saying play radio one ‘in the lounge’


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Posted on
Sat May 12, 2018 3:52 am
mat offline
Posts: 769
Joined: Nov 25, 2010
Location: Cambridgeshire - UK

Re: Room specific Alexa (groups)...

Whilst you can create groups from the web interface, as I understand it, creating groups from the App allows you to allocate a specific Alexa to the group. That way when you walk into any room with an Alexa (and with lights) you can say turn the lights on - Alexa will turn ALL of the lights on in that room, that are in that group.

Late 2018 mini 10.14

Posted on
Sat May 26, 2018 5:44 am
noel1983 offline
Posts: 446
Joined: Oct 17, 2014

Re: Room specific Alexa (groups)...

All I’m getting on this is ‘lights isn’t responding’ yet in the group it shows them and allows me to tap on and off and they turn on and off

Any ideas?


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Posted on
Sat Jun 02, 2018 3:35 pm
noel1983 offline
Posts: 446
Joined: Oct 17, 2014

Re: Room specific Alexa (groups)...

All sorted, I had a rogue device called lights which messed this up. Now working great and a huge improvement


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