echo and harmony

[Kelster66]

My echo will not connect with my Harmony at all. Harmony works fine with the app. Just unable to connect Echo to Harmony. Any thoughts?

[scottrods]

I'll add another post to see if it takes this to the top...

I have Just purchased the Echo, to help me understand ways to automate entertainment center by voice, for my aunt, who is A Quadriplegic. She can get around in a scooter chair with head movement controls and a puff blow device to select certain directions... she's getting pretty good at that. But she can't adjust or control her TV/Cable at all. So I bought the Harmony and the Echo to start learning how to make it happen for her. (Her husband isn't terribly tech savvy...)

Anyway, I have a problem where I can actually get the Hub to connect and It is easier to operate through an app called YONOMI... however, I cannot get the skills to stay enabled and linked. Apparently you have to have something that stays permanently on or you have to enable the skill each time, and linking it is not automatic and requires typing a password... which My Aunt cannot do.

Any input or suggestions would be helpful. I'm really excited by the technology and it's potential, just need a solid performing way to set this up for her without daily "fixes".

Can someone tell me how to keep them linked? or how to keep them enabled? or whatever is happening that's causing the disconnect at night or when I'm away from home?

I have pretty good details if someone needs more info as well.

[coyote]

Connectivity of these things is usually far more reliable if you give the devices hard-coded IP addresses rather than relying on DHCP. In Echo's case I don't think you can give it a specific IP address, but you can go into your wireless router and give it a reserved address - so that each time the MAC address of that Echo logs on, it is assigned the same IP address. Do the same for Harmony, unless you can assign it an IP address directly.

That might help.

The other alternative: be patient! It took more than a dozen tries for me to get Alexa and Hue linked. I was frustrated to the point that I was about to bring the Hue back for a refund, but finally it linked up and is working consistently ever since.

[scottrods]

Again, I got it all working last night before going to bed. So I ran it through a few commands and non commands to insure it wasn't a fluke... I Sync'd Harmony, I reset Devices in YONOMI, and Asked Alexa to refresh devices as well... eventually it all worked as I had programmed or set up the TV, PS3, Sound Bar and all. Got up this morning and got ready for work and went in and shot a few commands in and all worked as it did last night. So I went off to work thinking "I Got it! YaayY!

This evening, I got home from work and Asked Alexa to turn on a movie again... FLAWLESS!

I sat and did my evening surf on the forums I frequent waiting on my wife to come home and her parents who also live with us. They all got home at the same time... after all the greetings and "my day" stuff... I was going to show my wife how I'd succeeded in making this stuff work and I asked Alexa to "Turn On A Movie" deliberately giving the "perfect command"... and got a Null answer back from Alexa... saying video playback is not available on this device.

I am running Alexa, Harmony Hub (Going into the hub app, it all functions like I set it up as well), and have downloaded and activated and enabled the YONOMI app to "help with interface for Alexa"... I don't have any other home automation items yet, and again, this whole exercise was to help my Aunt be more independent. It's truly not about me so much... Although I do have high hopes of playing with and automating things around the house eventually.

I don't think any of the other "Home Automation" hubs like Google Home and Apple Home are nearly close to the Alexa as far as control features. I truly want to help them set up her ability to control TV, Cable, and Audio components as she sits in a Scooter chair with head controls, or lays in bed all day each day. This has to be miserable. Anything to give her some control over her world is my goal.

I know this is a long read, and the worst part... I'm just OK at the tech stuff, when we start getting into assigning IP addresses and DHCP stuff... I just don't have the time normally to learn how to do all of it. I was hoping Alexa would be a more "plug and play" situation... If you can tell me how to assign an IP address to my stuff... I'd give it a go, but trying to learn without having more background in that level of computer and internet It type stuff. I can't do it. I'm getting too old for this... LOL

[SoundPerson]

I know this won't help but, I fought for 4 days over Christmas to get Harmony Hub and Echo to do the same thing twice. Eventually gave up. Sent the Harmony Hub back to Amazon. Forward planning on the "just in case it don't work" front...

[scottrods]

So... Update:

After a week or so of playing with things and trying different commands, I finally renamed my "A Movie" command to just "Movie" and now for several days I have had consistent functionality.

So far I've been enjoying the music side of Alexa more than anything, just asking for it to play whatever Genre... pretty awesome on that side. Now that I have it set up and working consistently, I am about to add a fire Stick to the mix and see what happens... Anyone know if the remote that comes with the new Fire Stick is the same one that you can "add" to Alexa controls?  And... will I need to use that remote at all with the Echo? I really want full voice control... again... this is all just me, learning and working things out so I can get my Aunt up and running with Voice only control of as much of her environment as possible... eventually Lighting and everything will be desired as well.