@Steve_J have you tagged your devices per the alexa docs? There are v2 tags [ “Lighting… and v3 tags alexa=…
You need one of these types of tags on your items. Sorry forgot that in my list of steps.
I use items files which is where I add the tags, I am unfamiliar how to do it if your items are defined in paper ui.
Should I try uninstalling cloud connector and the reinstalling it??
Sorry to ask again, are you sure you can switch the shelly on/off from IOS or Android App with WiFi switched off? This would prove that your cloud cnnector works fine.
Yes I just tried again. Wifi off and lights work from app
ok so it is with Alexa not recognizing your items. Did you define your items via Paper UI or do you use .items files for the definition? Something which looks like
Switch LightBagnoP1_Switch "Luce del Bagno Primo Piano" <light> (gLights_P1,gLights) ["Lighting"] { channel="openwebnet:bus_on_off_switch:OWNBridge:LightBagnoP1:switch" }
You have to use tags for Alexa to recognize your items correctly, which are specified in square brakets (see “[Lighting]” for example). If you use Paper UI to define items I don’t know how to help you to specify tags.
Ok that may be my problem. I am doing everything in Paper ui. To be honest I dont know any other way. I am really not so good at this stuff. Maybe its just over my head.
I will try my luck. I can define items in Rest API, right? If so what do I choose there? And probably a stupid question but what is the channel? yours being openwebnet…
Unfortunately I can’t help you more than this as I’m running on MQTT 1.x which is deprecated, and you are probably running on MQTT 2.x binding. I don’t know how to define an item with MQTT 2.x.
So After lots of hints on how to operate my MQTT shellies with openhab and Alexa I have finally figured it out. I was able to add a tag in Rest API to my devices. It still took Alexa awhile to discover the devices but she did. Again thanks for all your help and time spent!!
Great!! happy to hear.
Just for your information, at the beginning of my journey with OpenHAB also I decided to use PaperUI to define things and items, but as long as I learnt more about the platform I decided then to move to item definition based on files, as they are more “controllable” and you have more options.
What I’m referring to is what you can find in the official documentation at the following links, just in case one day you decide to change as I did.
https://www.openhab.org/docs/configuration/things.html#defining-things-using-files
https://www.openhab.org/docs/configuration/items.html#introduction (method nr. 2)
ciao!
I know this is solved, but I’d like to share “my” way of controlling my Shellys nonetheless: I use Tasmota on the Shellys instead of their default firmware. Tasmota has built-in hue bridge emulation, so the switches can be directly controlled via Alexa. Because they still send status updates to MQTT you still have full visibility in OpenHAB. They of course can also still be controlled via OpenHAB. Best of both worlds IMHO.
