Room awareness enhancement: add popular device types such as Fan, Air Conditioner, Set-top-box and let users change device type
Room awareness enhancement: add popular device types such as Fan, Air Conditioner, Set-top-box and let users change device type to their favorite. Now Alexa app allows changing device type between Light and Switch for some smart plug devices. But it would be great if for any device, users can define it as light, fan, air conditioner or set-top-box... and the room awareness feature will help simplify voice command. Users just can say: turn on the air conditioner, turn on the fan...
This device-type-changing feature will be very powerful when an infrared/RF universal remote control like Broadlink is connected to alexa. All traditional “dumb” devices can be voice controlled by alexa taking advantage of the room awareness feature.
Minh
shared this idea
14 comments
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Darryl Forde
commented
It was easy enough to implement room awareness for lights a couple years ago, there should be no reason why the functionality cannot be extended to other smart devices like fans etc. in 2020. Hoping that Amazon will comment on if/when this expanded functionality will be rolled out.
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Tim Loram
commented
Agree, this basic functionality should be supported across all display categories: https://developer.amazon.com/en-GB/docs/alexa/device-apis/alexa-discovery.html#display-categories
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Jeff Ferrell
commented
I agree with all we need this control. Brooke is spot on all those features I've been waiting for years.
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Suresh Kavan
commented
This is such a basic but critical function. Another example, all my lights in each bedroom are smart.
I want to say "Alexa, turn on the bedside lights" in any room - and since those lights are already in a group with that rooms Alexa device, it should just work. But it doesn't and I have to say "Alexa turn on the Guest Bedroom Bedside Lights". I should also be able to create nested groups. So I can say Alexa dim the main lights in any room. and so on.
I have been waiting for this for quite literally, years!
Could Amazon opine on whether this is in the works or is just something they can't/won't do for some reason.
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Carl
commented
+1
Fans, Blinds and other devices should use natural semantics with room awareness, my blinds / fans and other devices do not have names only for alexa and thats odd - such and easy fix and big win for alexa usage
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David Fail
commented
Another +1 for this!!!
I have multiple rooms with fans and would love to say “Alexa, set the fan to 50%” instead of telling her “the living room fan” or the “master bedroom fan” -
Ryan Coodey
commented
I have been waiting for this feature since first purchasing echos for the smart home several years ago... Not sure why this has not been a high priority. Why can we say "turn on the light" but not just as simply "turn on the fan". Please implement this.
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pr findlay
commented
why narrow it down to device type. if alexa knows where you are and you have a "train" grouped with your echo device, you should be able to say "alexa turn on the train" rather than "turn on the office train" (or whatever)
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Ludvik Jerabek
commented
This would be fantastic! When you have a massive house with many rooms this would be helpful.
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Ben Leow
commented
Right now, it works for lights, AC, TV, temperature sensor and speaker. No luck for fan.
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Mike Skovgaard
commented
There are lots of use cases for this in my home... Please implement this Amazon!
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Brooke Ruffin
commented
I agree we have Alexa all over our house, Master Bedroom, Son's bedroom, Daughter's bedroom, Office, Bonusroom, and Living room.
In each room we have Hue bulbs in lamps, ge switches for overhead lighting, and ge switches for fans.
We'd like even more granularity:
"Lamps on", turns on devices designated
"Lights on", turns on devices designated
"Fan on", turns on devices designated
"Goodnight", runs routine for that room
"Good morning ", runs routine for that roomRight now my son has to say something goofy like "Alexa, Billy's goodnight"
When we say goodnight to any Alexa device it locks the doors, turns off almost everything and lowers the thermostats upstairs and down. We should likely use something like Alexa, house goodnight or goodnight moon.
Honestly, it would be best to be able designate certain words as room only or housewide.
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Ranee E Capser
commented
I have two rooms (Living Room and Master Bedroom) with two Lutron Caseta smart switches in each. With the groups set up for room awareness, I can say "Turn on the lights" in either room and it works. However, when I say "Turn on the fan", Alexa responds with "A few things share the name fan", even though there is exactly one fan in each group with one Alexa device. I don't see why there should be a difference or why the lights work as expected and the fans don't.
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Edin Beslagic
commented
This is a great idea.
It was frustrating to deal with plugs in multiple rooms until I tried the very last thing I would think to do, which is to change their type to "lights" for a room-contextual operation.
It feels like any device and any label I assign to them "lights" (even though it's a "plug") should be treated that way.