Quote:
Originally Posted by OtinG
Not unless they have changed the way in which routines work. It has been a few months since I messed with creating them, but back then you could NEVER EVER say "off". Routines simply don't understand the term "off", or "on" as far as that goes. You simply say "[ROUTINE NAME]" by itself as there is no ON or OFF. Routines are simply activated/run. So the command Bathroom Lights will turn on the devices/scenes associated with the routine Bathroom Lights. You cannot say Bathroom Lights off. It is ignored because Alexa is not programmed to do that. You have to program a separate routine with a sufficiently unique name to turn off all the devices/scenes associated with the routine. This is the most incredibly stupid way of doing things, but we are talking about Amazon here and they constantly push the edge of stupidity way beyond what they should!
I think if you made two routines that were similar sounding, Alexa will get confused and blow a fuse. For example, routine Bathroom Lights ON and routine Bathroom Lights OFF will likely result in Alexa responding that you have two routines named Bathroom Lights and then nothing will happen--epic failure. At least that has been my experience with her and routines.
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You can create a
group (which is different from a routine) in the Alexa app, and name it anything you want, e.g. "go to the bathroom", then you can assign any devices you have to that group, e.g. all the lights between the bedroom and bathroom. Then you can tell any Echo in the house: "Alexa; turn got to the bathroom on." or "Alexa; turn go to the bathroom off."
I have several fixtures that have multiple bulbs in them, I don't want to have to tell Alexa to turn them on individually so I created a group called "Dining Room" and assigned all the bulbs in the dining room fixture to it. Now I can say "Alexa; Turn on (or off) the Dining Room" and she turns them all on (or off).