Amazon Alexa and Echo FAQ

limnam

Irish Gunner wrote: »

Ok trying to figure this out

Have Alexa in the kitchen and Echo in the front room. I have skills like pause tv and also use it for timers amongst other things. Doors in between the kitchen and front room

However when I say something like set timer for 10 minutes it sets timer on both. Or if I say pause TV one pauses it and other one starts it. So both picking up requests

Trying to locate how to reduce sensitivity of mic but not sure if possible so if
I am in kitchen Alexa will only pick it up and if in front room Echo will only pick it up

Anyone any ideas? First world problems :rolleyes:

Give them different wake up words?

Marlow

I did the same, as we have a fairly large kitchen/diningroom.

There is an echo dot near the dining table and a Sonos Move in the kitchen.

As the Sonos Move can't be changed, I set the echo dot to react to "Echo".

We also set them up, to control different portions of the light (Kitchen/Dining).

Again .. the same in other places of the house. Livingroom "Alexa" ... Hallways "Echo". So you don't trigger things on 2 of them, when a door is open.

Works a treat.

/M

caddy16

Hey folks,


Got hue bulbs & bridge last week and they work fine with the Halloween Hue apps on my phone. Is there anyway of getting the sound through echo devices. I've an echo show & standard echos.


Thanks.

donalh087

Apologies if this has been asked a million times already (I suspect it has but can't find it).

I am blue in the face trying to get Alexa to play podcasts from RTE. Easy for BBC podcasts but, surprise surprise, RTE don't appear to have addressed that yet. Am I wrong?

degsie

donalh087 wrote: »

Apologies if this has been asked a million times already (I suspect it has but can't find it).

I am blue in the face trying to get Alexa to play podcasts from RTE. Easy for BBC podcasts but, surprise surprise, RTE don't appear to have addressed that yet. Am I wrong?

Not wrong, we are akin to the dog looking for scraps from the UK/US table.

zinzan

Is anyone else having issues with Audible? Echo Show 5 has been unable to find some books that are there in audible app on phone, and I can play them on Echo Show 5 via Alexa app on phone. It's also not remembering 'where you left off' between audible app on phone and the echo show 5.
Have restarted everything, checked all enabled ok and nothing.Very frustrating.

paulski999

zinzan wrote: »

Is anyone else having issues with Audible? Echo Show 5 has been unable to find some books that are there in audible app on phone, and I can play them on Echo Show 5 via Alexa app on phone. It's also not remembering 'where you left off' between audible app on phone and the echo show 5.
Have restarted everything, checked all enabled ok and nothing.Very frustrating.

Usual advise, have you done an update on the Echo 5? I did one only recently. Not saying it will fix your issue but worth a shot

Pete123456

Is anybody planning on getting the 2020 echo or echo dot? Just came across them today

zinzan

paulski999 wrote: »

Usual advise, have you done an update on the Echo 5? I did one only recently. Not saying it will fix your issue but worth a shot

Running latest version - I think it was an update that caused the erratic behaviour to b honest.. hopefully they'll patch it out of it.

Gumbo

Pete123456 wrote: »

Is anybody planning on getting the 2020 echo or echo dot? Just came across them today

It looks different but doesn’t add much else according to reviews.
Unless you get it at a good price, or want the latest, the 3rd edition is fine and should be on offer on Black Friday.

Although I’m still waiting on my 2nd from prime day to arrive in the next 2 weeks.

scamalert

maybe someone with similar issue can help me as tried to find fix for ages and nothing.


ive setup hue light groups in alexa and they have worked fine until early last year or so, my bro used same account to setup lights in his house so now every freaking day i have where alexa gives the ping sound as it would turn on the lights in my house yet nothing happens, if i go into alexa app and groups i see lights like room 1, room 2 and so on have been replaced by likes of hue spot 6, hue 3 and so on, some of them show as newly discovered and some are unreachable.


tried reset skills, uninstall delete devices yet it still pops back up next day as newly discovered and replaced in groups with different lights :mad:.




now somehow by switching to another family members account managed to get promt to create sub account under it for my dot, thought grand finally a fix, named my dot added lights, and still day later issue happens again, yet this time lights do stay in the group as room 1 , 2, 3 etc. but once trying to turn on/off it gives the sound as if it does but nothing happens, and if trying to remove and re add the lights i get usual old ones like hue spot 6 or whatever.


my plugs seem to work fine, but somehow all the bedroom lights get scarbled by some stupid alexa auto discovery that seems to be running at some time on daily basis.


as lights work fine with hue app, yet somehow alexa manages to find lights that i have no clue off and replace them in groups, even on different account.


since there a button in alexa app to discover new devices, so im baffled why theres constant auto discovery even running as seems its def coded from amazon side, and every topic ive seen from amazon suggests removing or disabling skills devices to solve it :cool: thats not even a fix.

https://www.amazonforum.com/s/question/0D54P00006zSwOkSAK/how-do-i-stop-automatic-device-discovery

as the issue is described by many here, but seems no one has solution, as even dont use any other smart home light controls aside one hub, but re-adding of new lights/devices seems to continue.

If not suited here maybe mod can move it to hue lights section, as could be better luck there- as seems aside using hue app for controls theres probably no fix.

mrcheez

Not sure if this has been posted before, but is anyone else having issues playing RTE radio on TuneIn, or BBC News etc?

Also when I ask Alexa: "What's the latest?", she usually responds with "Here's the latest... from BBC World Service", but now it's "Here's the latest..." then silence.

She can't even sing Happy Birthday or play Storm sounds etc. Any ideas?

This issue started around 2 weeks ago. I'm using a 2nd Generation Echo Dot.

donalh087

Exactly the same problem as Mrcheez above. I use the Dot for Radio and Spotify. Both Tunein and Spotify work on my iPad, Spotify works on my Dot but Tunein doesn't. So I say 'Alexa, Play RTE Radio 1 on Tunein'. Alexa will repeat it as if it's going to happen and then, silence. Nada. I have booted my router, reconnected the iPad to the Dot and re-downloaded the app. I am about to chuck it in the bin, Any thoughts?

DelBoy Trotter

I recently got an Echo Show 8 and Alexa's voice is different than the Echo Dot that I have had for a year. Does anybody know how to change it to be the same as the Echo Dot?

mrcheez

donalh087 wrote: »

Exactly the same problem as Mrcheez above. I use the Dot for Radio and Spotify. Both Tunein and Spotify work on my iPad, Spotify works on my Dot but Tunein doesn't. So I say 'Alexa, Play RTE Radio 1 on Tunein'. Alexa will repeat it as if it's going to happen and then, silence. Nada. I have booted my router, reconnected the iPad to the Dot and re-downloaded the app. I am about to chuck it in the bin, Any thoughts?

I found this from 2019:

https://www.amazonforum.com/s/question/0D54P00006zSv8LSAS/alexa-echo-dot-2nd-generation-no-longer-playing-tunein-radio

seems like it might be a technical issue they need to resolve as it sounds similar... maybe give it a week and if no improvement I guess we need to raise this issue ourselves

My initial thought was that they had updated their service to only work with newer generation Echo Dots, but that would be bad form just dropping 2nd gen support like that

donalh087

OK, try moving your Echo/Dot closer to the Router. This has worked for me. It makes no sense as it worked at the old distance for years until last week. But, whatever the reason, it now works.

mrcheez

donalh087 wrote: »

OK, try moving your Echo/Dot closer to the Router. This has worked for me. It makes no sense as it worked at the old distance for years until last week. But, whatever the reason, it now works.

That makes no sense I'm afraid

Alexa will not respond if the signal is not sufficient (will show a red ring), and also why is Spotify working and I'm able to control my lights etc?

donalh087

Makes no sense to me either. Maybe Tunein requires a more consistent wifi signal. Spotify will tolerate a more spotty signal but Tunein won't? Absolutely just guessing.

mrcheez

I did another power cycle today but gave it a full minute before plugging it back in and thankfully it's back now! I note a lot of responses have changed so it must have been a firmware update that didn't go smoothly

wally79

donalh087 wrote: »

Makes no sense to me either. Maybe Tunein requires a more consistent wifi signal. Spotify will tolerate a more spotty signal but Tunein won't? Absolutely just guessing.

Did you plug it out to move it?

donalh087

Yes I did. But I had power cycled a few times in the old location with no luck. Moving it was the only thing that worked.

mrcheez

donalh087 wrote: »

Yes I did. But I had power cycled a few times in the old location with no luck. Moving it was the only thing that worked.

I'd say you had the same issue as I did and the device had to be completely powered down for over a minute before a complete restart took place (perhaps there's an inbuilt power reserve that takes a while to completely empty).

So it's likely you can put the device back in its original location.

jogdish

Playing RTE radio 1, constantly pauses and resumes all the time, what's going on?

youcancallmeal

jogdish wrote: »

Playing RTE radio 1, constantly pauses and resumes all the time, what's going on?

I haven't experienced this myself but my parents have said it's happening to them too

mrcheez

jogdish wrote: »

Playing RTE radio 1, constantly pauses and resumes all the time, what's going on?

Could be related to this supposed firmware update that has been causing issues... try unplugging for a minute and re-power

Gregor Samsa

I thought people here might appreciate this nugget from a BBC article about one of Alexa's upcoming improvements.

"One of most asked questions of Alexa is 'Turn on the lights', even by people who don't have smart lights connected to Alexa," he said.

"They think, 'Alexa is clever, so why can't it turn on my lights?'

Looks like it's not just our virtual assistants that need to get smarter.


https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54915777

Brian017

All 3 of my echo devices went offline today. Reset them and can't get past the connect to wifi part of the setup. Also tried rebooting the router. It's driving me demented

Eire Go Brach

Brian017 wrote: »

All 3 of my echo devices went offline today. Reset them and can't get past the connect to wifi part of the setup. Also tried rebooting the router. It's driving me demented

I have had issues with my virgin router recently. All my tp-link devices kept going offline. Turns out the router kept defaulting to 5ghz. So anything on 2.4 stopped working.
In my case rebooting the router fixed it. Might be worth digging into the settings on the router.

Edit: Looks like the Amazon devices are dual band.

hblock21

Does Alexa play songs from youtube if you ask it?

Gregor Samsa

hblock21 wrote: »

Does Alexa play songs from youtube if you ask it?

There’s no official YouTube skill for Alexa.

There’s ways to build your own, but they involve development and I’ve no idea how well they work.

Here’s one: https://medium.com/better-programming/how-to-play-youtube-audio-from-your-alexa-e2d4fb8b5ce9