Major Cool

[vasrc]

I've created a group for "Outside Lights" and included all exterior lights. I can say, "Alexa, turn on the outside lights" or "Alexa, turn off the outside light" and they all come on or off at the same time. I have several other similar groups.

With the virtual devices, I've added to each of them a third status called "Neutral" and have the events which are triggered by these devices, return the device's status to "Neutral" when all other commands have been run. This way, I can use the "Alexa, turn the <device> on" or "Alexa, turn the <device> off" at any point and not have to worry about whether the status was last "on" or "off".

Randy

PS. For the record, I'm in Canada where the Echo isn't officially supported, or available, yet. I've had to work around a couple issues with it.

You can also just use "has been set to" X instead of "changes and becomes" X
Then no "Neutral" is required. I did it the same as you did initially, but found this works just as well and save the extra coding.

So where does Amazon think you are located

Z

[randycboone]

You can also just use "has been set to" X instead of "changes and becomes" X
Then no "Neutral" is required. I did it the same as you did initially, but found this works just as well and save the extra coding.

So where does Amazon think you are located

Z

Lubec, ME . . . close as I could get, but still 1.5 hours off.

[wkomorow]

I've created a group for "Outside Lights" and included all exterior lights. I can say, "Alexa, turn on the outside lights" or "Alexa, turn off the outside light" and they all come on or off at the same time. I have several other similar groups.

With the virtual devices, I've added to each of them a third status called "Neutral" and have the events which are triggered by these devices, return the device's status to "Neutral" when all other commands have been run. This way, I can use the "Alexa, turn the <device> on" or "Alexa, turn the <device> off" at any point and not have to worry about whether the status was last "on" or "off".

Randy

PS. For the record, I'm in Canada where the Echo isn't officially supported, or available, yet. I've had to work around a couple issues with it.

I am using groups for an addition purpose. I create groups with a single device to use as an alternative name of a device. For example, I have a group call t v , it has only one device television. So I can say either Alexa turn on the television or Alexa turn on the t v . Works great. I also use Wade's skill a lot. Alexa get the status of the bedroom temperature (reads the status of my bedroom temp sensor.