Breakiing news: UK Amazon Echo works with Evohome!

[Conseils]

Sad to hear you had issues.

We, four of us at the moment as the kid(s) are home from University, use Alexa and our Evohome Honeywell Skill.

She works beautifully and all the time with no drop out, misses or unexpected behaviours (other than my 0.5C query ).
We have a number of custom zone names set up which is just fantastic and now with 4 users it's really getting a work out.

If it helps, our configuration is:
BT Internet >75 MBps
Netgear R8000 X6 Tri-band router
1 Echo and 3 Dots
Obviously the Honeywell gateway and Evohome with multiple valves

Alexa struggles with the following named zones for us which no doubt is down to our particular dialect of English...
Den
Lair
No problems with custom [Room/Zones] Upstairs, Downstairs and so on, added to the skill

No fault of the Honeywell system of course that. As we work with (train) Alexa no doubt she (and we) will get better and better!


Try listening to the 'Cards' and approving and rejecting as appropriate. I understand this assists with the training process of Alexa. It will also help you understand the room acoustics.

I found, by accident with the youngest, that placing Echo DOT on an Ikea Billy Shelf is a sure way to stop it understanding anything! From the instructions I understand ("at least eight inches from any walls and windows") they need to be clear of walls and other surrounding reflecting surfaces. Though my Echo is 10 CM from one LCD monitor and 30 CM from another in a small room. Perhaps the open front aspect and softer plastic face on these items is easier on the acoustics than hard reflecting windows, walls or wooden box of a Billy shelf.

Hope this helps?

Any advice on how to get IFTTT connected to Alexa ?

After an hour playing around with the official Honeywell Alexa Skill on the echo dot I've sadly come to the conclusion that it's just not usable at the moment.

Too many limitations and problems. For example:

I made a group called All Rooms and when I ask Alexa to make a change to that group, not only does it take a long time and painfully adjust each zone one at a time with separate requests, more often than not one of the 6 zones fails to change, with an "Alert: Failed Zone Change" email cheerfully delivered to my inbox...

In the hour that I was testing I received no less than 5 failed zone change alerts - so it's pretty unreliable. I've also been unable to figure out the correct wording to activate a quick action, and am aware that there is currently no way to cancel an override.

Yet another problem was some overrides I made (including an all zones one) simply appeared not to work - Alexa said "OK" after the command but nothing changed on the controller, at least within 5-10 minutes.

Then about half an hour later I noticed that all my zones were running at 20 degrees because it had belatedly actioned my all zones to 20 degree command at least 15 minutes late. Whoops.

So, not useful to me as it stands, and I'm glad I only paid for an echo dot not an echo... (Spotify support is very good though, so it will get good use for that if nothing else, and I'm sure other skills will be found that are useful in the future)

I think I'll give the IFTTT support a try instead as a bridge, if I can figure out how to connect it to Alexa...

[jzwack-honeywell]

I found, by accident with the youngest, that placing Echo DOT on an Ikea Billy Shelf is a sure way to stop it understanding anything! From the instructions I understand ("at least eight inches from any walls and windows") they need to be clear of walls and other surrounding reflecting surfaces. Though my Echo is 10 CM from one LCD monitor and 30 CM from another in a small room. Perhaps the open front aspect and softer plastic face on these items is easier on the acoustics than hard reflecting windows, walls or wooden box of a Billy shelf.

I've heard this a few times, and it's something they don't really mention as far as I've seen. But someone from Amazon has mentioned before that a high echo environment can sometimes cause problems as you mentioned.

[jzwack-honeywell]

One more update on the issues some of you are having with the skill "dropping out" and things not responding.

I think I've narrowed down the problem, but it might be until after the 1st of the year until I can get it really solved, or at least minimized.

In the meantime, if you experience the issue still, please continue to send me a PM with the approximate time you notice it and the email of your Honeywell account. It continues to help me prove my theory.

For now to fix it, just unlink and re-link the skill as you have been doing.

[Conseils]

I noted the television advertisement for the Amazon Echo uses a high degree of 'Echo'.

With my unit only 30 cm away I had anticipated it would kick in every time they use the wakeup word 'Alexa'.
It turns out the Echo only activates on the last instance. So clearly they did do some (probably much) testing to make sure it didn't accidentally trigger during broadcast of the advert.

P.S. not had the skill drop out to date (touches wooden desk). I will keep an eye on it over the next two weeks and drop you a message if it occurs.

[Mavis]

One more update on the issues some of you are having with the skill "dropping out" and things not responding.

I think I've narrowed down the problem, but it be until after the 1st of the year until I can get it really solved, or at least minimized.

In the meantime, if you experience the issue still, please continue to send me a PM with the approximate time you notice it and the email of your Honeywell account. It continues to help me prove my theory.

For now to fix it, just unlink and re-link the skill as you have been doing.

You have already got my contact details but shortly after I messaged you, it dropped again. I will today unlink and relink again and see how long it lasts again.

[radar2016]

(For now to fix it, just unlink and re-link the skill as you have been doing.)

I noticed my system had dropped out at around 4.00pm today.

[adamski]

so I'll do it here instead...

Alexa- you need a good talking too.

Alexa, why aren't the devices responding? you and I are going to fall out soon. You and evohome are being unreliable and you may need to get a divorce.
Evohome skill would get a five star review if it wasn't for these spats you two have. Maybe some councelling would help.

[Conseils]

Have you been helping Alexa?

so I'll do it here instead...

Alexa- you need a good talking too.

Alexa, why aren't the devices responding? you and I are going to fall out soon. You and evohome are being unreliable and you may need to get a divorce.
Evohome skill would get a five star review if it wasn't for these spats you two have. Maybe some councelling would help.

[Conseils]

Hi, I think the skill dropped out today UK time at somewhere between 10:00 and 12:00.
Alexa says "Sorry the device or group Study is not responding"

I could still use my Raspberry Pi and my web interface to set the temperature, as it also logs every 10 minutes. I also know that the system has been up for all 10 minute polls of the system temperatures over the preceeding 24 hours. Internet is still running as I am posting here and Alexa was playing audio from 2 hour sound tack of Birds singing. If the internet drops out she stops playing the track and lets me know she is having problems (A week ago, I upgraded my Netgear router to fix the security hole they kindly popped in it for me and observed this behaviour ).

Compliments of the season

Cheers Conseils

[MrB]

Just to say my Evohome / Alexa link has dropped twice in last week.
A Disable/Enable of the Skill got it working again.
No settings are lost, and Alexa states devices are Offline.

Everything, individually, for Alexa and Evohome works fine.

Guess they've had a tiff