Rollershutters stops operating with Alexa today, direction inverted

You don’t: ON = OPEN/UP; OFF = CLOSE/DOWN

If this is the case, using a Rollershutter item makes sense. However, as you mentioned your blind integration consuming the MQTT messages will need to be updated to support UP, DOWN and STOP commands instead of position level.

For the STOP support, assuming you have to push the same button direction that your blind is transitioning to, you will need to cache the previous command triggered so you can send it again.

How did you define your blind groups?

Thanks for all, probably in a future I try to migrate to UP/DOWN/STOP. By now is working correctly with percent values, as I have adapted to it.

The groups are defined with Alexa phone App, on device section, as Groups. Something has changed on Skill, because it was working until lasts versions of Skill.

Ruben

If you deleted your previous items, you need to add the newly discovered one to your Alexa groups.

I only have deleted two items, and added again… but I am not sure if in all groups. Tomorrow I check it again (now is impossible or my wife could kill me :smiley: )

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I had the same problem, and simply changing to “{alexa=“Shutter”}” fixed it for me.

However, I still have the same problem I always had, namely that shutters are not properly assigned to the room they’re in. E.g. if I’m in the bedroom and say “close shutter” then it actually closes the shutter in the bathroom. I have to say “close shutter in bedroom” to make Alexa close the correct shutter.

This room assignment works great for lamps and switches, but for shutters it doesn’t seem to work properly. Any hope to have that fixed at some point?

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Your assessment is spot on. Unfortunately, the room awareness feature is handled on the Alexa side and we have no control at the skill level. So there is not much that can be done other than implement the workaround below using the Amazon Echo Control binding.

Great reply, I’ll give that a try - thank you very much! :grinning:

I have already check it… and doesn’t works :-(… Groups through Alexa App doesn’t works for Blinds (although it works before the skill update).

Maybe fixed changing to “Shutters” as madshi say? (or he is refering to other thing?)

Ruben

I tested the “{alexa=“Shutter”}” feature as well. Basically “up” and “down” are working as expected.
I have some strange behaviour with “stop”.
I say “Alexa stoppe Rollo” sometimes it works, sometimes not.
So I checked the event.log and I see that the spoken command “stoppe Rollo” is always recognized.
But it is not always handed over to my rollershutter item. I do not have this issue with “open” and “up”.
Someone else can reproduce this behaviour?

Rollershutter rk1 "Rollo"   {alexa="Shutter", channel="loxone:miniserver:EE...2292"}

Tested… also for this, direction is also correct but not work into group. I can’t say “Down Salon” as before, or “Down Persianas” (I have groups in Alexa App with this names, and it works before update). Alexa say that this is not compatible. But with Lights for example it still works, so I think is something related to semantic meanings.

alexa="Shutter" [inverted=false, actionMappings="Close=0,Open=100,Lower=0,Raise=100"]

Tested also adding, category=“EXTERIOR_BLIND”, because I have this before syntax change, but it doesn’t affect to the behavior, work ok individually, but not with group.

Ruben

More information, is something related to “Blind” or “Shutter” property. If I add a dimming Light defined as this:

Dimmer it_regcorten "Luz corten [%d %%]"  <light> { alexa="PowerController.powerState,BrightnessController.brightness" [category="LIGHT"], channel="mqtt:topic:mosquitto:regulable:llumcorten" }

Group action works, and if I say “Up Salon” it rises dimming light if I put in this group. So is something related to “blinds” property.

Ruben

So I am able to reproduce to some degree after you pointed this out. I think the issue is that the term “stop” (similar to “cancel”) can be interpreted as “don’t do anything”. It can be tricky sometimes even though you noticed that your voice request was translated as expected.

Unfortunately, this is not something we have control at the skill level. One recommendation to improve the success rate, I found during my testing, is to add a small pause between the “stop” action and the name of the device.

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Could you provide the exact utterances that you are using in your own language to control your blind and light groups? The problem here is that up/down actions aren’t supported in English language. So it makes it hard to understand what the issue is. Since you are comparing to lights, I am inclined to say you are actually requesting increase/decrease but with blind in the mix, it could be open/close or raise/lower.

No problem. I am trying to do a workaround (not working at moment), but I try to explain.

I create in Alexa App several groups, one for each room, and one for all blinds. In each room I put the blinds of that room, example “Office”. And in Blinds grous I put all blinds, and call them “persianas” (blinds in spanish).

When I say “encender oficina” (swtich on office), the lights go on. If I say “subir oficina” (I am not sure if could be “up office” or “raise office”, all the blinds in the group go up like I say “blind X up” for each one). If I say this on a group without that kind of items (no blinds or no dimmer lights), Alexa say that there aren’t compatible objects in this group. This is what is happening now after Alexa Skill update. Until now it was working and was very useful.

Do you undersand?
Ruben

For blinds, you should be using “open” (abrir) or “close” (cerrar). I just ran a test and it is working. “lower” and “raise” along with “increase” and “decrease” will only affect lights.

I have found a workaround that is working.
If I replace “Blinds” for “BrightnessController.brightness”, it works now. Only Alexa tells me that is a Dimmer, but no problem, because I only activate through voice or OpenHAB.
Original:

Rollershutter persiana6 "Persiana Seis" <persiana> { alexa="Blind" [inverted=false, actionMappings="Close=0,Open=100,Lower=0,Raise=100"], channel="mqtt:topic:mosquitto:persianes:P6" }

Changed to:

Dimmer TestPersiana "Persiana Prueba" {alexa="BrightnessController.brightness" [category="EXTERIOR_BLIND", actionMappings="Close=0,Open=100,Lower=0,Raise=100"], channel="mqtt:topic:mosquitto:persianes:P6"}

No need to change things or sitemap.
Ruben

Ohhh shit!!! :man_facepalming::man_facepalming::man_facepalming::man_facepalming::man_facepalming::man_facepalming:… that is true… omg… with open or close it works.
“Mea culpa”, before I always use up and down.

Thanks so much. I keep all as Rollshutter and blinds now.
Ruben

I tested another workaround. I changed the word for STOP via the supportedCommands Option. With the new stop recognition shutter stops immediately. But it does not “feel good” because I have no good phrase.
I wanted to use “halte” (hold) at first place but it seems to be interpreted to stop alexa as well.

Keep in mind that the “stop” action is a hack at the skill level that uses the Alexa native playback stop capability in the background. So there is no way around using that term unfortunately. This is the same for “resume” and “pause” actions.