Alexa Does Not Discover Events

[TC1]

Update: I removed the "bad" devices and included them again and the new versions of those devices were found successfully by Alexa. I took a backup of the system before I did that in case HST needs examples of this annoying problem.

Interesting... is it possible that the "old" devices were legacy HS3 devices and that by removing and re-including they became HS4 devices and hence work now?

[mulu]

Update: I removed the "bad" devices and included them again and the new versions of those devices were found successfully by Alexa. I took a backup of the system before I did that in case HST needs examples of this annoying problem.

I hope Sgt. Shultz will contact you to further look into this.

[shill]

Interesting... is it possible that the "old" devices were legacy HS3 devices and that by removing and re-including they became HS4 devices and hence work now?

That's accurate, yes. But so are some of the others probably.

[mulu]

So Sgt. Shultz did take a look at my system. I wanted to provide some feedback to others that might run into the same problem

• Make sure the devices for which Alexa Discovery has been enabled have the "Control Use" set for that device. You find the "Control Use" when you click on the device and switch to the "Status/Graphics" tab.
• Make sure the device are on/off devices, dimmable devices or thermostats (I think Alexa also support locks). I think/assume this is all determined by what "Control Use" have been set but I am not sure.
• Some devices (like in my case) have a switch feature AND a light feature. Both of those have on/off states. This can confuse the discovery process when the voice control has been enabled for the parent device. If you have such devices disable the voice control on the parent and enable it on the features. At least that is my understanding.

Besides the above, I also had some events like "turn off TV", "watch Netflix" and those events simply started an activity on my Logitech Harmony remote. I enabled voice control/Alexa discovery for those but Alexa didn't like that. When I disabled all voice control on those events things worked, if I enabled it again discovery stopped working again.

[rmasonjr]

Great info thanks for sharing

[jimbrandon]

Worked for me! Thanks...

So Sgt. Shultz did take a look at my system. I wanted to provide some feedback to others that might run into the same problem

• Make sure the devices for which Alexa Discovery has been enabled have the "Control Use" set for that device. You find the "Control Use" when you click on the device and switch to the "Status/Graphics" tab.
• Make sure the device are on/off devices, dimmable devices or thermostats (I think Alexa also support locks). I think/assume this is all determined by what "Control Use" have been set but I am not sure.
• Some devices (like in my case) have a switch feature AND a light feature. Both of those have on/off states. This can confuse the discovery process when the voice control has been enabled for the parent device. If you have such devices disable the voice control on the parent and enable it on the features. At least that is my understanding.

Besides the above, I also had some events like "turn off TV", "watch Netflix" and those events simply started an activity on my Logitech Harmony remote. I enabled voice control/Alexa discovery for those but Alexa didn't like that. When I disabled all voice control on those events things worked, if I enabled it again discovery stopped working again.

[Joe_Leggiero]

Additional discovery (pun intended): after reading this thread, I did some general clean-up for my devices and the discovery started working again:

1. Went to the Alexa app on my phone and deleted a couple devices that were no longer used (Discovery still failed, but good to remove them)
2. Unchecked voice control from my thermostat devices (these voice commands never worked for me)
3. Unchecked voice control from a few parent devices and instead checked voice control on the subordinate devices (I think this was the key).
4. On once device, I found a a Not Specified in the Control Use and changed the to Color Control. (Not sure of this effect).

I feel that the parent device on voice command is likely causing the failure. Regardless, I am glad that I didn't lose previously discovered devices while I was troubleshooting.