Amazon EchoControl LastVoiceCommand doesn't update anmore

[Larsen (Locke)]

please notice the discussion here:

Amazon Echo Control - lastVoiceCommand not receiving updates

My lastVoiceCommand stopped working again I trigger the refreshActivity through the dummy but openHAB doesn´t get the latest voice commands.

[binderth (Thomas Binder)]

@binderth

I think it’s because of a (more restictive) rate limit for more sensitive data as “lastVoiceCommand”.

We have 7 echoes here in the house and I just unlinked the “lastVoiceCommand” items from six of them. Perhaps this will allow us to stay below the rate limit. at leaste there’s no more 429 or 503 error after one of the 6 echoes received an command.
I’ll report back.

[Bredmich (Michael)]

@binderth

I think it’s because of a (more restictive) rate limit for more sensitive data as “lastVoiceCommand”.

Can´t confirm that.
Even the first commands in the morning are ignored, after atleast 8 hours without any command.
Sometimes the last command in the evening works.

[Lamerjack (Enrico)]

here the same…
The only command that was processed yesterday was one at 19:00…

[papaPhiL (Philipp Fink)]

We have 7 echoes here in the house and I just unlinked the “lastVoiceCommand” items from six of them. Perhaps this will allow us to stay below the rate limit. at leaste there’s no more 429 or 503 error after one of the 6 echoes received an command.
I’ll report back.

did that help?

[binderth (Thomas Binder)]

@papaPhiL

did that help?

not really. I still think it has something to do with rate limits, because I keep getting those 429 errors and 503 thrown in between. Perhaps we use our alexas to often - and especially with music.
but that brings me to another idea, perhaps I’ll also unlink the items for album covers and titles…

[RalphSester]

Hi there,

I have problems too:

Since a few days, my SmartHome/J-Binding auf Amazon EchoControl goes offline every 5 Minutes and comes back. The Error there is:

2025-07-08 15:27:09.832 [WARN ] [rol.internal.util.HttpRequestBuilder] - Parsing json failed: false
com.google.gson.JsonParseException: Empty result

Now I have changed back to the official binding. Here I have the error:

GET url 'https://alexa.amazon.de/api/phoenix' failed: null

on the account-Thing. The Account-Thing stays in OFFLINE-State - but the Device-Things are going ONLINE and they are working ?!!? - But no feedback of LastVoiceCommand or changes on Media or Volume Channels.

So at this time whether the official binding nor the smarthome/j binding are running stable.
I am not sure, which binding is the better solution for OH 4.3.X at this time and which binding would be supported and fixed.

Some suggestions what to do (I am not able to fix the error myself)…
@J-N-K: Are you still supporting these bindings ?

Ralph

[Larsen (Locke)]

@binderth

I still think it has something to do with rate limits, because I keep getting those 429 errors and 503 thrown in between. Perhaps we use our alexas to often - and especially with music.
but that brings me to another idea, perhaps I’ll also unlink the items for album

I don’t think so. The problem is reported in the ha-forum too and there it was solved by a change of the interface. Unfortunately @J-N-K seems out of business as he was the only one taking care about the echo binding.

[binderth (Thomas Binder)]

@Larsen

I don’t think so. The problem is reported in the ha-forum too and there it was solved by a change of the interface.

Still doesn’t rule out unwanted overreach on quotas. 429 errors explicitly cover rate limit violations. Don’t you get those in your logs?

[vguna (Veit)]

@Larsen

The problem is reported in the ha-forum too and there it was solved by a change of the interface.

Hey, could you share that link please?

[binderth (Thomas Binder)]

@vguna

Hey, could you share that link please?

was posted in the parallel thread as posted above: Amazon EchoControl LastVoiceCommand doesn't update anmore - #21 by Larsen

Is there a way to combine threads on this forum? I’ve got the feeling, we repeat ourselves in both threads - or could a moderator at least close one and link to the other?
I would close this one but even as the author I don’t see a button to close this thread…

[scheuerer]

Has this thread here the same root cause?

Amazon Alexa Account login issue

Same issue with https://alexa.amazon.es/api/phoenix guessing Amazon have changed something?

Our body’s from HA has solved their problem meanwhile…

Here is the Github link, were the HA guys have changed their stuff to get their Things running again.

https://github.com/home-assistant/core/pull/148365

[Jagohu (Jago)]

Has anyone tried yet on Openhab 5.0?

[binderth (Thomas Binder)]

Look here:

Tibber [OH5]

Updated to OH5 in docker few days ago and now the data isn’t updated anymore. While upgrading to OH5 in docker I also migrated from OH4 (Pi) with the “old” binding to the new one. I only use the “current price” item as it is present in my rules already but also added a “Spot price” item to the price#spot-prices channel. For all the other items I created new items via “Add Points to Model”. None of the items get updated from what I can see. At first i didn’t find out, because the “current price…

[AlexMartin13 (Alex Martin)]

I’ve been using smartHomeJ’s binding for the last year in order to still get the lastVoiceCommand to work, and assumed that the official binding didn’t support it at all any more. However, the binding notes for v5.0.0 mention it in the first line:

The lastVoiceCommand channel of the amazonechocontrol binding changed its behavior in version 5.0.0. Due to a wrong implementation the channel changed it’s state to an empty string if the same command was received again. This has been corrected. If you want to be notified about every state update, please adjust your rule triggers to “received update”. If you want to be notified about state changes (i.e. different commands), use “state changed”.

Does that mean it should work on 5.0.0 using the official binding?

[Larsen (Locke)]

Most (or all?) of the features of the smarthomej version have been picked for the official OH5 binding.

But my experience after the change/bug within the amazon API is

• in OH4.3 lastVoiceCommand worked sporadically with huge delays. Triggering the refresh channel had no effect anymore
• in OH5 lastVoiceCommand is not working at all (which is not worse than sporadically)

[Jagohu (Jago)]

So what have the HomeAssistant folks done to fix their side?

[sihui]

@Jagohu

So what have the HomeAssistant folks done to fix their side?

ioBroker is also fixed:

https://github.com/openhab/openhab-addons/issues/18899#issuecomment-3067245074

[lsiepel (Leo)]

multiple users report the amazon service works as before.

Please confirm this issue is fixed?

Might need a bridge disable/enable.

[Dom76 (Deiber)]

I have been using version 5 on Rpi5 for a few days and the lastvoicecommande command works but sporadically, sometimes immediately and sometimes after a few seconds. I have the impression that this also varies depending on the type of echo used (I have several different models depending on the room).