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Alexa doesn't Discover Devices after successful account link


JohnnyC

Question

After the release of the official Alexa skill for Amazon Echo, a number of us are unable to "Discover Devices" after successfully setting up the skill and connecting the Amazon account to Fibaro ID

 

I wanted to open a thread to specifically debug this issue, as I accept that Amazon currently only supports (officially) US, UK and EU, and I was expecting that some restriction of cloud to cloud service maybe implemented from the multiple data extraction points involved in the layers of this integration... . However a number of UK forum users have also experienced the same. 

 

Therefore, I list the following steps I have undertaken to date without success in the hope that we can identify a fix/workaround, or simply discover that we should stop trying as it is possible that certain unsupported (officially) use cases won't allow (in the hope that this is the reasoning behind the "Custom Skill"

 

Hardware

- I am in New Zealand and also have a setup on a bench in Australia

- Echo devices (both "Echo" model - Not Dot) Software version 5264

- Both using HC2 on v 4.120

- I use the remote access via Fibaro ID as designed - No Port forwarding or alternative setup

 

With the above in mind, there are no setup configurations that are outside of what would be considered "correct" in terms of system design. The following is a list of steps i have taken to try and remedy the issue.

 

- Reboot everything in various order (Network, HC2, Echo )

- Remove multiple layer network structure (disconnect access points and only use router) reconnect everything from scratch including forgetting known networks

- Reduce Fibaro ID remote access to a single HC2 (rather than multiples) as the "Alexa tell/ask Fibaro to list Home Center Devices" appeared to not function

- Fresh install of Alexa app (have to use device with US iTunes account)

- Full reset (deregister AND reset button) of Echo

- Checked Discover Devices still worked with other skill - (Logitech Harmony had no issues)

 

To this point no success. I read in another post that a user found "alexaProhibited:true" somewhere in the REST API - I couldn't find it in mine.

 

Things left to investigate:

 

Potentially there are some port (UDP/TCP) access issues as Alexa is largely driven through outside communication

Will send this detail to support to see if the developers can let us know if it is, in fact, due to restrictions driven from the Amazon build requirement

If the above is the case, can we expect a workaround in the "Custom Skill" ?

 

So now we open up the floor.. Let everyone know what you have experienced and add some value to see if we can debug effectively as a community.... Keep the thread clean and relevant to the task... pages of "+1's" are annoying to work through and voicing general dissatisfaction or opinion, while valued, is not what this thread is for   :D

 

 

 

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Hi @JohnnyC

I'm based in Ireland. My Alexa account couldn't discover the devices remotely (maybe this is expected). When I tried at home on my local network the first two occasions failed to discover any devices and when I tried about 30 mins later it discovered all of them. I still haven't been able to discover scenes but I seem to recall that somebody reported that they had. I wonder have they enabled different capabilities in different countries. There may also be the possibility that we are all trying in the middle of their QA/release cycle with different capabilities being switched on and off as they work to an official release and announcement. I searched a good bit last evening and couldn't find any official announcement yet from Fibaro despite the skill being available on AWS.

Hope this helps

-f

 

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On 25/04/2017 at 11:49 AM, JohnnyC said:

After the release of the official Alexa skill for Amazon Echo, a number of us are unable to "Discover Devices" after successfully setting up the skill and connecting the Amazon account to Fibaro ID

 

I wanted to open a thread to specifically debug this issue, as I accept that Amazon currently only supports (officially) US, UK and EU, and I was expecting that some restriction of cloud to cloud service maybe implemented from the multiple data extraction points involved in the layers of this integration... . However a number of UK forum users have also experienced the same. 

 

Therefore, I list the following steps I have undertaken to date without success in the hope that we can identify a fix/workaround, or simply discover that we should stop trying as it is possible that certain unsupported (officially) use cases won't allow (in the hope that this is the reasoning behind the "Custom Skill"

 

Hardware

- I am in New Zealand and also have a setup on a bench in Australia

- Echo devices (both "Echo" model - Not Dot) Software version 5264

- Both using HC2 on v 4.120

- I use the remote access via Fibaro ID as designed - No Port forwarding or alternative setup

 

With the above in mind, there are no setup configurations that are outside of what would be considered "correct" in terms of system design. The following is a list of steps i have taken to try and remedy the issue.

 

- Reboot everything in various order (Network, HC2, Echo )

- Remove multiple layer network structure (disconnect access points and only use router) reconnect everything from scratch including forgetting known networks

- Reduce Fibaro ID remote access to a single HC2 (rather than multiples) as the "Alexa tell/ask Fibaro to list Home Center Devices" appeared to not function

- Fresh install of Alexa app (have to use device with US iTunes account)

- Full reset (deregister AND reset button) of Echo

- Checked Discover Devices still worked with other skill - (Logitech Harmony had no issues)

 

To this point no success. I read in another post that a user found "alexaProhibited:true" somewhere in the REST API - I couldn't find it in mine.

 

Things left to investigate:

 

Potentially there are some port (UDP/TCP) access issues as Alexa is largely driven through outside communication

Will send this detail to support to see if the developers can let us know if it is, in fact, due to restrictions driven from the Amazon build requirement

If the above is the case, can we expect a workaround in the "Custom Skill" ?

 

So now we open up the floor.. Let everyone know what you have experienced and add some value to see if we can debug effectively as a community.... Keep the thread clean and relevant to the task... pages of "+1's" are annoying to work through and voicing general dissatisfaction or opinion, while valued, is not what this thread is for   :D

 

 

 

I am having the same issue, tried numerous different ways, still couldn't find the device in the Alexa App. 

i am from Australia and currently using the HCL.  

 

Sent couple of emails to the support team yesterday but still no response. 

Anyone from Australia have any luck finding the device?????? 

 

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Guest fat

Gold Coast Australia. No luck with discovering devices but having said that I am away on holidays and I am trying to do this remotely which is more than likely the issue

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Hi, I am in Australia, ive been trying for last couple of days and finally the devices appeared in my skills. So I dont think its a region issue. I got it working but there is a huge delay (8 secs) compared to the Bridge (2-3 sec). The device turns ON but I get a message "Sorry (device name) is not responding". Any idea why this is happening?

Edited by dev
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  • I also now can discover the devices successfully and this required no adjustment or reconfigure of the skill as it was installed at the time. 

     

    The delay in processing of commands is very long, sometimes too long, prompting Alexa to vocally state an error has occurred. The commands do actually execute after this.

     

    Again, accepting that Alexa is not officially supported here, I expect that cloud server communication is not necessarily moving through the most efficient route, to both send the command, and receive the confirmation. Traceroute has a significant number of hops before reaching anything remotely related to amazon

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    Hi I am From India i am using HCL and ECO Dot i am facing an issue of unable to "Discover Devices" after successfully setting up the skill and connecting the Amazon account to Fibaro ID so please any one can help me how to over come this 

    thanks

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    On 2.05.2017 at 1:23 AM, JohnnyC said:

    I also now can discover the devices successfully and this required no adjustment or reconfigure of the skill as it was installed at the time. 

     

    The delay in processing of commands is very long, sometimes too long, prompting Alexa to vocally state an error has occurred. The commands do actually execute after this.

     

    Again, accepting that Alexa is not officially supported here, I expect that cloud server communication is not necessarily moving through the most efficient route, to both send the command, and receive the confirmation. Traceroute has a significant number of hops before reaching anything remotely related to amazon

     

    We are looking at it, it is possible, that we going to be able to optimize it, but we need more time.

     

    On 5.05.2017 at 3:46 PM, Abdul89 said:

    Hi I am From India i am using HCL and ECO Dot i am facing an issue of unable to "Discover Devices" after successfully setting up the skill and connecting the Amazon account to Fibaro ID so please any one can help me how to over come this 

    thanks

     

    Please take a look at this thread:

     

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    I can only see my switches from my HCL (house number 1) and nothing from my HC2 (house number 2).  

     

    Both HCL and HC2 are properly connected via Fibaro ID and can be accessed remotely.

     

    Can the Fibaro skill work with more than one Home Center per account?

     

    I can't see any scenes.

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    Yes, it can work with more than one device, but you need to use Fibaro Custom skill. After installing it, you can use:

    {{Alexa, ask Fibaro}} to search for Home Center

    Custom skill is also required to running scenes.

    Edited by T.Konopka
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    19 minutes ago, M.Baranowski said:

    Yes, it can work with more than one device, but you need to use Fibaro Custom skill. After installing it, you can use:

    {{Alexa, ask Fibaro}} search for Home Center

    Custom skill is also required to running scenes.

     

    Hi @M.Baranowski

    Is the custom skill designed to work ONLY with block scenes or will it eventually work with Lua scenes ?

     

    Thanks

     

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    22 hours ago, M.Baranowski said:

    Yes, it can work with more than one device, but you need to use Fibaro Custom skill. After installing it, you can use:

    {{Alexa, ask Fibaro}} search for Home Center

    Custom skill is also required to running scenes.

    Excellent - good advice and now all devices are visible

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    22 godziny temu, M.Baranowski napisał:

    For now it will be working with blocks only.

     

    Is there a way to control the plugins, eg turn off Sony TV and Mediabox nc +?

     

    VD can run by reading the state of some free binary switch :)

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    52 minutes ago, adamkorski said:

     

    Is there a way to control the plugins, eg turn off Sony TV and Mediabox nc +?

     

    VD can run by reading the state of some free binary switch :)

     

    currently not, not even semi-virtual devices created with plugins (unless one patch database to lie about device type). Sure, spare switch is always good idea ^^

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    I'm having the same issue. I'm in Hungary, using a HCL with 4.120. I have checked and tried everything, but no devices discovered.

    BTW, how do you pronounce Fibaro? Is it Fih Bar Oh? Or Fibar-oh (like fiber)? or fi bar oh (fi as in five, bar as in bar)?

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    for me the first one works the best - fih bar oh

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    Thanks Tinman. I get it to recognize around 75% of the time.

     

    UPDATE !! WHEW !!

    I figured it out finally!

    Fibaro HCL by default uses an NTP server, yet it shows the wrong time and date (off by a month, almost).

    Manually setting the time or changing the NTP server would fix the date/time issue.

    Which then would fix the Alexa device discovery. Hope this will help others running into the same issue.

    Edited by pbalogh77
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    Thanks everyone for your suggestions on getting devices on a HC2 being seen in Amazon Echo. Previously,  I had Echo working perfectly with two Homeseer controllers, but having moved to HC2, I can now view all my scenes in Echo, but not the devices. I am in Australia, but this shouldn't be the problem. I have checked the date/time  from my time server on the HC2 and this is within a minute of the time on Echo. Any suggestions from you will be greatly appreciated. I took a series of screen shots that will explain my current position very easily (read in numbered sequence). I have tried to remove everything and start over again, but to no avail. For those of you in NZ and Australia I would be happy to call you if you had a few minutes to discuss. I can be emailed at raeldk AT gmail DOT com.

    Many thanks

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