Alexa Integration Issues?

[ttantalo]

Yes I agree ,but when only one company supports a device it's hard to let go especially when they had support and then pulled it.

[mikil123]

We’ve been working with the Amazon Alexa team on two issues:

1 – customers seeing duplicate devices in their Alexa apps
and more critically...
2 – some customers are suddenly unable to control their Insteon devices from Alexa GUI or VUI (they would still be able to control through our IFH apps)

Amazon has acknowledged that these issues are on their end and that they impact other smart home partners, not just Insteon integrations. Also, the two issues appear to share the same root cause. If you have duplicate device entries within the Alexa app, you will most likely have errors when attempting to control devices.

The Alexa group has indicated that this is high priority for them and that they will try and get a hotfix deployed this week. The fix is expected to restore the ability to control Insteon via Alexa but it will take more time to remove the duplicate entries.

We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

-Isaac

Thank you Isaac for an honest upfront answer.I (we) are all hoping this problem gets resolved. Unfortunately I and many others (that I read) are putting a hold on increasing our insteon device network until the issues are fixed Thanks much

[mikil123]

NOT FIXED? I still like probably thousands of others out there get the message" the insteon hub blah blah is not responding"??? I like many others have to "refind" the devices to get Alexa to work again. This happens at least once a day WOW!

[mikil123]

The issue is not fixed. I continue to receive the following message at least once per day: "The Insteon hub that the [light] is connected to is not responding". I can fix the issue (temporarily) by asking the Echo to discover devices.

Exactly I agree 110%

[Isaac]

For those that are still experiencing Alexa issues, please private message me with the following:

• The Alexa error message (please write out the exact message you are receiving)
• The date and time that you experienced the error (please specify time zone)
• Your Insteon Hub ID (can be found on the underside of your Insteon Hub or within the app under Settings > House)

We appreciate your patience while we investigate these issues.

Thank you,
Isaac

[markinco]

I've definitely experienced this issue intermittently over the last year or so and, while it's been annoying, it hasn't happened frequently enough to be too agitated. When the integration stops working, I've typically done some combination of rebooting things and waiting a bit to get Alexa talking to Insteon again. I hadn't tried re-discovering, but will do that to see if it works.

But over the last week or so, things have gotten *significantly* worse. It's happened pretty much every day and I've had trouble getting the integration working again...which led me here. So the issue is most definitely not fixed, from my point of view. Just wanted others to know that it's not just you.

Isaac, thanks for the offer. I'll reach out privately as well.

[rgnet5]

Confirmed that this is still a problem.

[jmsrolls]

My Insteon scene turns my house lights on at sundown. "Alexa, turn off the night lights" used to turn them off but no longer. Now Alexa tells me that the Insteon hub is not responding.

Is anyone working on a solution?

[stusviews]

My Insteon scene turns my house lights on at sundown. "Alexa, turn off the night lights" used to turn them off but no longer. Now Alexa tells me that the Insteon hub is not responding.

Is anyone working on a solution?

Is that the only command that's not supported? Do your other scenes/devices work?

[jmsrolls]

None of the Alexa commands work. Hub is not responding.

[stusviews]

Have you reached out to support?

[Formula84]

I know this is likely dumb question but can one use Alexa without an echo device? I have the iOS app installed and enabled the insteon skill, but it fails to discover devices in the app or on the web...

[lilyoyo1]

You need the device

[stusviews]

It's not actually an iOS app. It's an Alexa app written for iOS. As lilyoyo1 mentioned, you need the device the app is meant to control.

[ddmacpp]

Read this forum on Alexa. I get "insteon hub is not responding". Indeed the insteon apps appear to work well. But the issue is not fixed by Amazon. Indeed I noticed it has gotten more frequent. Never had problem before and have been using insteon with Alexa from the start. Re discovery in Alexa app almost always corrects but recently the problem reoccurs more frequently. See no duplicates in Alexa app or insteon app. Amazon just recently released update and they have had problems with iOS app with eg their music not showing in app but this was quickly fixed by them. Have not tried logging out etc as seems this is temporary fix anyway. Seems to be something with cloud talking to cloud.