Problem using two Echos

[Rick Daly]

I have an Echo in my living room, and an Echo Dot in my den, two rooms away. Quite often, too often actually, I'll be in the living room, sitting right next to the Echo, not two feet away and ask Alexa something, and the reply comes from the Echo Dot in the den, which I really can't hear. I just hear it's saying something. How do I get around this problem?
Thanks.

[strayfish]

Give them different wake words. Alexa for one, Echo (or Amazon or Computer) for the other. Only the one you speak to will answer then.

[kenf]

I've got the same problem from my kitchen to my living room.  Two feet away from the show in the kitchen and the living room starts responding and setting timers.

While the rename it trick will work, I don't want to do that.  My goal is to have seemless access to Alexa in every room without having to remember room specific words. 

I bought a second z-wave hub, just so I can say "alexa, turn on the light" and have it know what I meant.

I've got what I want, providing the system correctly determines which one should pick up.

[strayfish]

I've got the same problem from my kitchen to my living room.  Two feet away from the show in the kitchen and the living room starts responding and setting timers.

While the rename it trick will work, I don't want to do that.  My goal is to have seemless access to Alexa in every room without having to remember room specific words. 

I bought a second z-wave hub, just so I can say "alexa, turn on the light" and have it know what I meant.

I've got what I want, providing the system correctly determines which one should pick up.

In that case, I'm not sure there's an answer. Mine are pretty much in a line through the house so I've named them alternately but just occasionally the one furthest away responds. Actually, more correctly, it responds first because the other also wakes but a millisecond behind so it shuts down again immediately. Any chance that's what's happening?

[kenf]

...snip..
Actually, more correctly, it responds first because the other also wakes but a millisecond behind so it shuts down again immediately. Any chance that's what's happening?

that's a good observation.  If I was in the mood to do science, I'd get a blue tooth speaker paired to a smartphone with a recorded command like "Alexa, what time is it"

Set up the speaker in various positions, and use the phone to play it, while I watched the Echo devices closely to see which picks up.  Make sure both have the same wake word.

Them experiment with different placement of the speaker and the two Echo devices.

It's possible the sound is getting to the farther echo faster/more clearly due to some unexpected reason. 

Or the two Echoes (in my case a Show and an Echo Gen1) run at different speeds and thus the "faster" one gets credit for figuring it out first.

Or the microphones are of differing quality, such that the father unit has "better" mics, so the audio is louder when Amazon analyzes it and presumes the command belongs to it.

Amazon added a feature to account for this very problem, so its not supposed to screw this up so easily.

[strayfish]

Could also be that they're on different frequencies on your network. Mine have three to choose from but I don't actually know if they switch - or are switched by the router - should one be over-subscribed. I may be talking out of my hat here but someone will no doubt disabuse me of my fantasy if I am!

[mike27oct]

>>>  While the rename it trick will work, I don't want to do that.  My goal is to have seemless access 

Saying this is like arguing with a Stop sign; you will have to deal with it.  Just so you know, we live surrounded by 8 Dots, 1 Echo, 2 Taps and some Google Homes.  We all co-exist, and it takes different names for the wake word.  Our scheme is Echo, and white Dots are named Alexa and Black Dots are named Echo. They are spaced out such that they don't interfere.

Google Home commands are sometimes answered by Dots  Now THAT would really drive you nutz!