+17 votes
by (270 points)
Most frustrating thing about Alexa. Me: Alexa, turn off my living room tv. Alexa: There are multiple devices called living room TV. Which one did you want?  
Most frustrating thing about Alexa.

11 Answers

0 votes
by (3.1k points)
Thats the disadvantage of a big house with many living rooms.  
0 votes
by (750 points)
Rename them to ‘living room one TV’ and ‘living room two TV’ Problem solved
0 votes
by (3k points)
I think the repliers are missing the point. She often does this when there is only ONE thing close to that name.  
by (3k points)
@salisbury Ah no, I mean for instance I say "turn on hero" which is a routine to switch the main video to my PC and she will sometimes say there is more than one Hero. There quite absolutely is not anything else even close. It is totally intermittent. If you try enough times it will go through eventually. It seems things occasionally get duped in her memory and so there is no way for her to sort which because they are dups of the same thing.  
by (110 points)
@salisbury why would Alexa recognise a group name and not a device name? Still sounds very flawed and like a work around that should not be required. Like getting sold a phone with a dodgy antenna and taking it back and having them tell you “it’s fine just use WiFi calling”. It’s not the point.  
0 votes
by (270 points)
Yea I’m aware of tying to make the names more unique. The problem is, I have one TV in the living room and one in the office. Each room has only one light as well and Alexa responds similar with those. It seems kinda dumb to have to program routines just to do the single basic things it should do by default.  
0 votes
by (2k points)
And this is primarily reason I ditched Alexa for google home
0 votes
by (150 points)
I solved this after a few days with tech support. What it turns out has happened is there really are doubles of the same thing with the name. Hue made a double of @dissonancy's room for me and my wink hub had the same somehow. You can try and re name it in the hue or whatever app you have it linked with then you might suddenly see the double of it that's name didn't change. The way I got mine all set up was redoing all my devices. I forgot all of them and re added everything so I could keep track as I went and having more experience this time around it wasn't too bad. Bottom line there really is more than one thing that shares that name. She isn't crazy.  
by (150 points)
@salisbury I pretty much left all the names the same but it was a good refresh, adding things to appropriate groups while I went
0 votes
by (1.3k points)
Me: Alexa turn on the lamp -- Nothing happens. Me louder: Alexa turn on the lamp -- nothing happens Me yelling: Alexa turn on the lamp Alexa: I'm sorry I don't know how to laugh. Me: Honey I'll be back in a while, I'm going out to buy Google Home.  
by (3k points)
Yeah I have many of both. Google tends to be even worse most of the time for voice control. I used to try one then the other. These days I try Alexa a couple time and is it does not work I go a backup like a tablet or button.  
0 votes
by (2.5k points)
My living room TV command leads to this. Me: Alexa, turn on the living room TV Living Room TV turns on Alexa: I’m sorry but living room TV is not responding.  I used to have your issue. I found multiple devices named Living Room TV (one was a Fire TV). I still have this issue with my Master Bedroom lights, which occasionally throws me the error of multiple devices, even though I can only find one. One thing I have noticed is that the plural terms don’t work the same and groups with those names must be setup too. (Example - Master Bedroom Light vs Lights)
by (150 points)
@heaney @sibship you will probably find there is still a hidden double in there. I had to contact support and they could see 3 of the one light on the back end. After renaming it through it's main hub app I was suddenly able to spot the double but I found the solution was to forget all the devices and rediscover them.  
by (2.5k points)
Great point. I’ll contact support.  
0 votes
by (580 points)
This one's my favorite. Me- "Alexa, turn on the livingroom lamp" Alexa- "did you mean Livingroom lamp" Me- "yes" Alexa- "there's no device named livingroom lamp"
0 votes
by (150 points)
got to go with google
0 votes
by (320 points)
I tell my google to turn of the bathroom, it hears best room or bus room and turns of 21 lights. I've got about 60 lights, but only 21 turns off
by (110 points)
@chlorothiazide172 I have this issue but had a simple fix. Make a routine. When I say turn off best room, then turn off bathroom. Do this for all the things it keeps hearing wrong. Works a charm. My son's name is Blaze. It keeps hearing blazers light or blazing light instead of Blaze's light. So just made routines to correct them.  
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