Same friendly name in different device groups

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Mario asked Oct 25, '21

Same friendly name in different device groups

Hi everyone,

The problem I am going to talk about has been discussed on several threads in the comunity forum however i would like to post it again just because i have read something in the documentation which makes me think things could have changed.

As the title hints you cannot name to devices with exactly the same friendly name, arrange them in separate device groups (each with it´s own echo dot) and hope that Alexa targets the correct device. Eg:

Room1: [Ceiling, Blind, Echo Dot 1]

Room2: [Ceiling, Blind, Echo Dot 2]

Instruction: "Alexa, turn the Ceiling on"

Answer: "Several devices have been detected with the same name..."

The problem is that the documentation explicitly states that alexa will take contextual information from the device groups to target the correct device:

Anchor link to the image (https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/docs/alexa/smarthome/understand-the-smart-home-skill-api.html#how-the-smart-home-api-works)

Maybe i am missunderstanding something.

Any clarification is welcomed.

alexa smart home groups

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Samuel Barr commented · Feb 03 at 03:49 PM

This has been an issue for years and I am trying to engage with Amazon support to see if I can get it escalated so that it can finally be looked at.

What I have found is that for some crazy reason and even through Alexa knows she is in a specific room (or Group) with a set of named devices that there is no logic check that if I request a device with a device that has the same name elsewhere inside and outside of that group Alexa can't handle it and will flip flop between switching that device or the other... its crazy and very frustrating.

Here is the setup:-

Group: Living Room
Living Room Echo (This is inside the group)
TV
Table Lamp
Floor Lamp
Lamps (light group that contains both lamps above passed through from Home Assistant)
Main Light

Group: Hall
Main Light

Group: Master Bedroom
Master Bedroom Echo (This is inside the group)
TV
Bedside Lamp 1
Bedside Lamp 2
Lamps (light group that contains both bedside lamps passed from Home Assistant)
Main Light

Group: Bedroom 2
Bedroom 2 Echo (This is inside the group)
TV
Lamp
Play Right (hue lights)
Play Left (hue lights)
Main Light

Group: Landing
Lamp

Here is what happens:-

Lamps example
I know that currently Alexa can't distinguish between Light and Lamps say either one and all the lights come on in the room, so to get round that have a specific lamps device that is a light group exposed to Alexa from Home Assistant.

So I walk into the Master Bedroom and I say "Alexa, turn on the lamps" and she turns on the lamps because there is a light in the Master Bedroom called lamps... great it works there, I turn the lamps off with the command... it works. Next I go downstairs into the Living Room and say "Alexa, turn on the lamps" and the lamps don't come on and its like nothing has happened BUT actually it has cause shes actually turned on the lamps in the Master Bedroom with that command despite it being requested from the Echo in the living room group which also has a device called lamps.

Now within the Living Room say "Alexa turn on the Living Room lamps" and the lamps come on, why does it need Living Room Lamps, she knows she is in the living room group.

TV Example

Exactly the same scenario above but with TV, I say in the Master Bedroom "Alexa turn on the TV" but nothing happens in the Master Bedroom but it does in the Living Room cause she's turned on the TV in there. If I stay in the Master Bedroom and say "Alexa, turn on the Master Bedroom TV" it works fine calling that specific group for that specific device.

What I tried

Resetting Alexa, Deleting All Devices from the APP and the Alexa website, renaming all devices so they would be unique enough (Master Bedroom TV, Master Bedroom Lamps etc) and no matter what I've tried I run into an issue.

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