Turning on/off virtual devices

[jschiesser]

I have a virtual named "Away Mode" and I can tell "Alexa, turn off away mode" but I can no longer tell "Alexa, turn on away mode". She says "I don't know how to help you with that". Any ideas?!? I have other virtual devices that work just fine and they are all setup the same. "Goodnight Mode", "Home Mode", "Vacation Mode". I've forget the device in alexa and rediscovered it but get the same result.... This has worked for several months and just stopped last week.... The voice translation looks correct in Alexa/setting/history....

Thanks!

[wkomorow]

it may not work but try - turn away mode on .

[jschiesser]

a work-a-round

I dropped the term "mode" from the device name and everything works. Re-add "Mode" and it stops. "Away Mode" vs. "Away".... not sure why it matters....

[Rube Goldberg]

Just as an FYI - I had a similar problem; my virtual device was named "away flag" - it would turn on but not off using Alexa. I dropped the "flag" and now it seems to work. I wonder if it's a phonetic issue since I had a problem with "off" and "flag" and you had a problem with "on" and "mode". Anyway keeping device labels simple seems to help if others are having similar issues.

[sleeve]

When you say away mode or away flag, what does Alexa report hearing in the companion app?

For the way I speak, Alexa needs distinct syllables in the first word of a multi-word virtual if the word ends in a vowel sound because I don't enunciate gaps between words. I would probably get awaim ode and a waif lag from those two. But Family Room Lights works because "fam" is a highly narrowing syllable for Lambda to parse even though it's hearing fam leeroom lights.

I have virtuals I've named purely for Alexa comprehension. They also eliminate "I found several matching devices, which one did you want?" because you can then shut off voice control of the underlying devices and re-run discovery.

[randman]

Alexa couldn't understand "Playroom lights". I renamed it to "Play Room lights" (added space before Room) and now it works reliably. I have another device named "Sunroom lights" (no space before room) and it works reliably. Strange.