Hit & miss running routines/scenes

[pyspilf]

As per title, running a routine/scene in Alexa to run an event in HS is often hit & miss… for example, you say “Alexa, turn on outside lights” which is connected to a specific event on HS… Alexa says “OK” - sometimes it works instantly, sometimes after some seconds or a minute… some others it doesn’t at all… if you ask again, it may work instantly…

I’m inclined to speculate it has to do with the connection to myHS being not as reliable / real time as would be desirable…

I can live with that… but was wondering if there’s any way to actually know when a scene/routine invocation has not gone through to HS… similar as to when you control a device directly and you get a “device not responding” feedback message from Alexa

any thoughts?

[bradleyward]

I’ve found everything about Alexa and HomeSeer to be hit or miss. Especially device discovery. I can have two identical hardware devices configured with identical options, a d it discovers one but won’t discover the other.

ive written numerous posts in the past, suggestions that there should be some additional level of diagnostic support to help us out, but HS seems to not take any interest.

I’ve spent hours with HomeSeer technical support. They can tell you all sorts of settings that can affect whether it works or not, so why can’t there be some report capability that will list all Alexa discoverable devices, and for those that are not discoverable, an explanation of why: voice control not available for that hardware device, or not available because option is not checked, or whatever.

Or perhaps they could enhance whatever software they have control over in the Alexa Cloud to email a report after a device discovery sequence is executed.

Or assign another bit in the mechanism they allow is to change that enables/disables diagnostic logging.

I don’t know, but do something!

I’ve given up trying.

[pyspilf]

I feel you…

I just have a few lights, switches and events enabled… I usually do one at a time when I need them and eventually manage to get them all discovered, though sometimes it’s taken more than a few attempts and configuration changes… just bought a new zwave fibaro dual switch… so this weekends fun is going to be seeing how many of its child devices it can properly detect and configure and the Alexa fun will begin thereafter…

[Andy]

I agree!

Latest anomaly, "Alexa turn off light", light turns off but Alexa responds "The light is not responding." Yet, via HS Moble everything responds.
I'm staying away from Alexa devices, the Echo Show rather than display my background has become an ad for what you can do with Alexa! Even when you turn on a light Alexa tells you about some new feature and asks "Would you like to try it?"

Food for thought - if you're barking commands to Alexa is your home really smart? Over the years I've moved to more occupancy based automation. My Home has 3 modes, Home, Away and Bedtime. HS4 runs flawlessly so I don't care about the new screens etc.

[Dan-O]

Food for thought - if you're barking commands to Alexa is your home really smart? Over the years I've moved to more occupancy based automation. My Home has 3 modes, Home, Away and Bedtime. HS4 runs flawlessly so I don't care about the new screens etc.

We have the same issue with "Light is not responding" as the light is turning off.
We also have the same modes:
Once in a while you have to go "old school" and use your voice to tell Alexa to turn the lights on with your voice but we typically have dusk activated motion lighting all around that turn on and off as needed. Shades close themselves too relative to sunset but when the sun is blasting you, it's nice to be able to ask Alexa to close the front shades. Leave the house in away mode and the door locks behind you, ect.

[Andy]

Yes, for On demand actions (old school), I retrieve my cell from my pocket and use HS Mobile. Had a case where Alexa didn't wake us (blue ring) us but HS4 running local did!
This Alexa issue has been raised before. FWIW, Linux HS4 just runs and runs. I rarely make tweaks so my SEL hangs by the router. I just upgraded to HS4 so I don't get left behind!

Been using HS since '98 before name changed to HomeSeer, The log file AH.txt is the only remnant of the old name.😃

[Dan-O]

Been using HS since '98 before name changed to HomeSeer, The log file AH.txt is the only remnant of the old name.😃

Been around since the summer of '99. I have considered a Linux box, even the HS $120 hub but I'd have to rebuild my system and that's a month's worth of work.

[JimSpy]

Yes, for On demand actions (old school), I retrieve my cell from my pocket and use HS Mobile. Had a case where Alexa didn't wake us (blue ring) us but HS4 running local did!
This Alexa issue has been raised before. FWIW, Linux HS4 just runs and runs. I rarely make tweaks so my SEL hangs by the router. I just upgraded to HS4 so I don't get left behind!

Been using HS since '98 before name changed to HomeSeer, The log file AH.txt is the only remnant of the old name.😃

Wait.....what? What was the old name? This isn't ActiveHome, is it???

[Andy]

Thought it was AutoHome? do you remember the first message board? LOL! It was Keware Tech!
I remember HS1 early, didn't save device states so when you restarted all devives were OFF. I wrote a script called Save State that would restore last device state! Manu moons ago, LOL!

[George]

Thought it was AutoHome? do you remember the first message board? LOL! It was Keware Tech!
I remember HS1 early, didn't save device states so when you restarted all devives were OFF. I wrote a script called Save State that would restore last device state! Manu moons ago, LOL!

Hey, I still run HS 1.7 on my trusty 15 year old mighty Pentium 4 machine on XP with 8 gig of memory and just upgraded to a 256G SSD. It just screams!!

[Dan-O]

Hey, I still run HS 1.7 on my trusty 15 year old mighty Pentium 4 machine on XP with 8 gig of memory and just upgraded to a 256G SSD. It just screams!!

I still have my install disc for HS 1

[JimSpy]

It just screams!!

I don't blame it a bit.