Alex says, “Sorry, I couldn’t find (device name)”

[MichelR666]

Hi all,

New here. I ran a couple of searches on this one and didn’t find anything. I’ve had my Echo (well, two Echo and two Echo Dot) for about a month. I have some smart switches that worked well until today. I could just say “Alexa, turn on (device name)” to turn one on. Since this morning, she says, “Sorry, I couldn’t find (device name)”.

I have three such switches. Two of them are no longer recognized and for some reason the third one still works. Alexa accesses them through my SmartThings hub. I tried renaming and also deleting then re-adding. No luck. This is very odd. If I tap on the device in the Alexa app on my iPad, it turns on (or off). Also no problem controlling directly from the SmartThings app.

Any suggestion as to what might be causing this or what else I can try? Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks,
Michel

[renegade600]

do a power cycle with your dots.  unplug them for a few minutes then plug back in. 

[MichelR666]

Thanks, I hadn’t though of that. Unfortunately that didn’t help (I left them all unplugged for about 15 minutes).

[renegade600]

should have mentioned this, try a power cycle on your modem and router.  unplug both for a 20 count, then plug in the modem and wait until everything resets, then do the same with the router. 

[Laurel]

I've had my Alexa devices since day one, and I am finding Alexa is having lots of brain farts these days.  Very annoying.  She seems to have a bigger knowledge base and then all of sudden de nada. And customer service reps are not doing as well these days either.  Maybe growing too fast. I think the adding Alexa to .ca is causing some glitches.

[MichelR666]

I’m in Canada and I’m still linked to my U.S. account, so that can lead to some misunderstandings sometimes.

Sooo... I found a good thread on SmartThings Community. Apparently the Echo doesn’t like names with numbers in them much. Mine were named Squeeze 1 and Squeeze 2 (the one that worked was named iPad). So I gave them name with no number in them and now it works. This has worked flawlessly for a month, so go figure...

(“Squeeze” refers to two Logitech SqueezeBox Boom network music players, in case those reading this are wondering what the hell is a “Squeeze” device... )

[renegade600]

if you are going to use numbers, spell them out. 

[Snakeyes]

Have you tried deleting the devices from your Alexa app and then doing "discover devices"?

[MichelR666]

if you are going to use numbers, spell them out.

Yeah, that only occurred to me later. Weird quirk, but no biggie.

Snakeeyes: Yes, but that didn't help. It really was just the use of numbers (as digits) in the device names. No problem whatsoever since.

[TxBrandi]

(“Squeeze” refers to two Logitech SqueezeBox Boom network music players, in case those reading this are wondering what the hell is a “Squeeze” device... )
[/quote]

Why yes, i was wondering..... lol!