Amazon Alexa and Echo FAQ

Panrich

Foodie2 wrote: »

Very grateful for any help. I have just bought an Echo.

I go to the Amazon Alexa Uk site and try to download . It asks if I want to open ITunes. Says it needs to change store. I agree to that but then am just changed to ITunes with no mention of Alexa ap at all.

Has happened 5 times now.

Also tried changing my region in Settings to UK, still no joy.

Thank you so much !

Here's what I posted when I got my echo:

I have an iphone and found it very frustrating to find good information on how to get the app. In the end, I discovered that if I logged out of my account on my phone first and set the region to UK and then google 'alexa iphone app' to link to the app in the store from there, it works well. Create a new account in the UK and set the payment option to none as the app is free and away you go. I actually had to restart my phone before it would complete the download.

I basically followed this guys youtube instruction


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joAUAa2eD-k

viperlogic

emmetkenny wrote: »

Say 101 and 102?

that works alright but would prefer to say the channel name!

TitianGerm

viperlogic wrote: »

that works alright but would prefer to say the channel name!

I've just checked and she's picking up my channel names, can mute sound, volume up/down and channel up/down.

viperlogic

emmetkenny wrote: »

I've just checked and she's picking up my channel names, can mute sound, volume up/down and channel up/down.

no issue with other channel names, just rte1 and rte2 as she thinks im saying 41 and 42! I wouldn't say I would have a strong accent.

Alexa/you have any issues with RTE1 and RTE2?

TitianGerm

viperlogic wrote: »

no issue with other channel names, just rte1 and rte2 as she thinks im saying 41 and 42! I wouldn't say I would have a strong accent.

Alexa/you have any issues with RTE1 and RTE2?

No RTEs are working fine for me, changes first go.

Foodie2

Panrich,thank you so much. Have it working now !

This is a tricky one.

I have Newstalk working as I use it all the time.

Would anyone know would there be a way to listen back to earlier shows ( like you can using the ap ) but using Alexa?? Long shot I know.

Thanks again everyone, what a great thread.

flangemeistro

Hey guys I know I've posted a few times about this issue but no one has been able to help me.
Alexa has gone to absolute ****e in the last month in relation to controlling my Hue lights, which is what I use it for 90% of the time.

The errors range from,
"Hue isn't responding"
"This device is disabled"
"This scene is disabled"
"Two devices share the same name"
"Hmmmmm I can't help you with that"

I'm ready to throw her out the window and the only reason I won't is because herself will be absolutely delighted and get to say I told you so.

And before anyone asks, no I don't have two devices or scenes with the same names,
No I don't have any devices or scenes disabled.

Anyway in desperation last night I reset my hue hub which was an absolute disaster as it wouldn't discover any of my bulbs or strips afterwards so I had to manually go around and input the serial number of every bulb then create my rooms and all my routines again.

Relinked my hue account to my hue skill and now things are worse than ever.
She won't control anything at all now whereas before she would at least turn on and off the rooms.
I'm at my wit's end and basically what I want to know is if I do a hard reset on my Echo Dot will it forget all my old scenes, devices and groups so I can start from scratch or will it bring them all back once I log into my Amazon account?

Thanks.

Cabaal

Amazon UK will now deliver echo's to Ireland directly.
Not all features will work in Ireland still though, but at least you no longer have to use parcel motel.

Calling/messages is finally working for my echos now...whoop!

WhatsGoingOn2

Cabaal wrote: »

Amazon UK will now deliver echo's to Ireland directly.
Not all features will work in Ireland still though, but at least you no longer have to use parcel motel.

Calling/messages is finally working for my echos now...whoop!

And the Alexa app is now in the Irish Google Play store.
That will save me a lot of hassle setting up devices for family at Christmas

viperlogic

Cabaal wrote: »

Amazon UK will now deliver echo's to Ireland directly.
Not all features will work in Ireland still though, but at least you no longer have to use parcel motel.

Calling/messages is finally working for my echos now...whoop!

I already have two echo's but amazon still showing "This product only ships to the UK" for me!

Lord TSC

That's handy news. I literally just today decided to get one as an Xmas present for someone and was coming on to research it.

pnott

The Alexa app is now available on the iOS App Store. Drop in, calling and messages on Alexa is now available too.

coffee_cake

pnott wrote: »

The Alexa app is now available on the iOS App Store. Drop in, calling and messages on Alexa is now available too.

it's true!! that's exciting

degsie

pnott wrote: »

The Alexa app is now available on the iOS App Store. Drop in, calling and messages on Alexa is now available too.

Hasn't it always been there, or am I missing something?

bk

degsie wrote: »

Hasn't it always been there, or am I missing something?

No, it wasn't in the Irish store, UK, US, only. Though there is a trick to using the UK store for free apps.

bittihuduga

one question..
if i am on my echo with amazon id as user1 and if i login on my phone with amazon id as user1. is it possible to ring from my phone to echo?
i just want to call my echo or drop in echo when i am out.. but dont want to create second amazon account.

iamtony

flangemeistro wrote: »

Hey guys I know I've posted a few times about this issue but no one has been able to help me.
Alexa has gone to absolute ****e in the last month in relation to controlling my Hue lights, which is what I use it for 90% of the time.

The errors range from,
"Hue isn't responding"
"This device is disabled"
"This scene is disabled"
"Two devices share the same name"
"Hmmmmm I can't help you with that"

I'm ready to throw her out the window and the only reason I won't is because herself will be absolutely delighted and get to say I told you so.

And before anyone asks, no I don't have two devices or scenes with the same names,
No I don't have any devices or scenes disabled.

Anyway in desperation last night I reset my hue hub which was an absolute disaster as it wouldn't discover any of my bulbs or strips afterwards so I had to manually go around and input the serial number of every bulb then create my rooms and all my routines again.

Relinked my hue account to my hue skill and now things are worse than ever.
She won't control anything at all now whereas before she would at least turn on and off the rooms.
I'm at my wit's end and basically what I want to know is if I do a hard reset on my Echo Dot will it forget all my old scenes, devices and groups so I can start from scratch or will it bring them all back once I log into my Amazon account?

Thanks.

wow. Your having good trouble. I don't know what's going on. Best advice I can give is reset everything and then update to the latest firmware on the echo and the hue. I was having problems when my missus and I both were involved. She set up the hue and named the bulbs and I set up Alexa and gave them different names so the groups overlapped. Don't know if it will help but just thought I'd share my experience. Everything is working flawlessly for me at the moment. The voice recognition is so accurate that it distinguishes between turn off the lights and turn off the light, that's impressive.

iamtony

Or your hue hub is dodgy:-)

flangemeistro

iamtony wrote: »

wow. Your having good trouble. I don't know what's going on. Best advice I can give is reset everything and then update to the latest firmware on the echo and the hue. I was having problems when my missus and I both were involved. She set up the hue and named the bulbs and I set up Alexa and gave them different names so the groups overlapped. Don't know if it will help but just thought I'd share my experience. Everything is working flawlessly for me at the moment. The voice recognition is so accurate that it distinguishes between turn off the lights and turn off the light, that's impressive.

Cheers so would you recommend resetting my Echo Dot and setting it up from scratch again?
Don't get me wrong it didn't miss a beat before the last update but since then it's just head melting.
If I reset my Dot will all scenes, devices and groups be forgotten or will they be stored in my Amazon account?
Also can anyone point me in the direction of an old Alexa APK before it got too smart for it's boots?

iamtony

flangemeistro wrote: »

Cheers so would you recommend resetting my Echo Dot and setting it up from scratch again?
Don't get me wrong it didn't miss a beat before the last update but since then it's just head melting.
If I reset my Dot will all scenes, devices and groups be forgotten or will they be stored in my Amazon account?
Also can anyone point me in the direction of an old Alexa APK before it got too smart for it's boots?

Not sure but looking good at the above posts you won't need the apks anymore as the irish playstore now has the proper version. No harm resetting the echo although when you set it back up on the same account it will already have the skills that were previously their. All I can say is have faith and try start again since yours seems to be so messed up and everyone else's is fine.

flangemeistro

I reset the Dot and it made no difference, all old and duplicate devices and scenes are still there but under different names.
And all I'm getting from her now is
Hhhmmm I'm having trouble reaching Philips Hue and
That command doesn't work on device "kitchen" "sitting room.
Head is melted!!!

ianx

I still don't have the Routines option appearing in either the web interface or the Android App (updated just this morning). Is anyone else experiencing this and has anyone resolved it?

Thanks

2nd Row Donkey

I'm trying to enable the kasa and yonomi skills. When I do so, it prompts me to link them to my alexa account, so I enter my username (email) and password for my kasa/yonomi account and then the app sort of bombs out back to the settings page and when I go back to the skill its not enabled.

This is on android and I'm using the new alexa app from the Irish Google play store.

Any advice.

ianx

ianx wrote: »

I still don't have the Routines option appearing in either the web interface or the Android App (updated just this morning). Is anyone else experiencing this and has anyone resolved it?

Thanks

Having just seen from the post above from "2nd Row Donkey" that the app is now available in Ireland Android store - I installed and Hey presto - Routines!

But I wonder what I lost by installing the Irish version.......

iamtony

flangemeistro wrote: »

I reset the Dot and it made no difference, all old and duplicate devices and scenes are still there but under different names.
And all I'm getting from her now is
Hhhmmm I'm having trouble reaching Philips Hue and
That command doesn't work on device "kitchen" "sitting room.
Head is melted!!!

Havent you tried deleting the hue app from your phone and reinstalling it fresh?

degsie

bk wrote: »

No, it wasn't in the Irish store, UK, US, only. Though there is a trick to using the UK store for free apps.

Ah, poster didn't specify IE store.

flangemeistro

iamtony wrote: »

Havent you tried deleting the hue app from your phone and reinstalling it fresh?

HALLELUJAH HALLELUJAH.
Cracked it at long last.
Had to go onto the Amazon Alexa website where you can forget all your devices and scenes as opposed to only disabling then in the app.
Opened up the Alexa app rediscovered all my devices and skills from my hue and Harmony and now Alexa is back to her best doing everything I ask.
To say I'm delighted is an understatement.

davo2001

flangemeistro wrote: »

HALLELUJAH HALLELUJAH.
Cracked it at long last.
Had to go onto the Amazon Alexa website where you can forget all your devices and scenes as opposed to only disabling then in the app.
Opened up the Alexa app rediscovered all my devices and skills from my hue and Harmony and now Alexa is back to her best doing everything I ask.
To say I'm delighted is an understatement.

Plus you get to tell the wife to F off

flangemeistro

davo2001 wrote: »

Plus you get to tell the wife to F off

A change from telling Alexa to F off for the last month.

hick

Hi Folks just double checking, about to buy Sonos One and want to make sure Alexa works and will control Spotify tunein etc

Ta!!