I'm setting up a smart home and i need some help with Amazon Echo

[TheShrike]

I want to have an echo device in every room of my house. what i want to do is have each echo control only the devices in that room and not devices in other rooms. The living room echo must control only the devices in the living room, the master bedroom echo must control only the devices in the master bedroom and so on. Is that possible using echos.

Right now, i have devices in 2 rooms and have set up one group for each room with one echo in each. But, the echos can control all devices in the entire house. What am i doing wrong?

I also want to have the echos play different music through amazon music simultaneously. Currently, it says music is being streamed on another echo and asks whether to change the stream to this device.

I want to have 4 echos in the future if i can solve these problems.

 

[napstersquest]

Will having 4 different accounts be too much of a hassle? There might be anothee easier way, but sharing what came first in my mind

 

[TheShrike]

I don't want to have 4 accounts. I want 4 echo devices with one account

 

[rockyo27]

U can't make them respond differently with one account

 

[TheShrike]

Is there any alternative ( like Google home) that let's me completely isolate rooms

 

[ze_cook]

Right now, i have devices in 2 rooms and have set up one group for each room with one echo in each. But, the echos can control all devices in the entire house. What am i doing wrong?

If you give it a command with a named device, it'll execute the command wherever the device is. I too wish that weren't the case, and the only way is to use the same name for multiple devices and assign them to different groups, but that's a hack and not a proper solution. Would be great if amazon brings virtual isolation to the smart line-up, but don't hold your breath.

I also want to have the echos play different music through amazon music simultaneously. Currently, it says music is being streamed on another echo and asks whether to change the stream to this device.

Not possible, like Spotify amazon music allows only one stream to be played at once, across all devices (at least with the current plans).

Finally, amazon is losing huge amounts of money with alexa, and they're laying off people constantly. They apparently lost 10B USD in 2022 from alexa, with no well defined roadmap of bringing in profitability, and amazon does not keep loss making services around.

Alexa just cost Amazon another $46.7 million

"Alexus" voice assistant demoed 6 months before Alexa reveal, patent lawsuit said.

arstechnica.com

Amazon lays off Alexa employees as 2010s voice-assistant boom gives way to AI

Amazon has had a notoriously hard time making money from Alexa.

arstechnica.com

Amazon exec responsible for money-losers like Alexa and Fire Phone is departing

As of late 2022, Amazon's Alexa had reportedly lost the company $10 billion.

arstechnica.com

Amazon Alexa is a “colossal failure,” on pace to lose $10 billion this year

Layoffs reportedly hit the Alexa team hard as the company's biggest money loser.

arstechnica.com

Amazon begins layoffs of up to 10,000 jobs, blames “uncertain” economy

Amazon confirms Devices & Services layoffs; warehouse jobs apparently safe.

arstechnica.com

 

[gourav]

Having different echo devices control different rooms is not possible as long as they are on the same account. Reason being that these devices are not controlled by the echo device, but by Amazon servers. Now if Amazon wanted to implement something like this, they could. But they want to keep things easy to use for regular consumers and there isn't enough demand for such advanced features for them to implement it.

However, Alexa app does give you the option to define rooms and assign devices to it. Then echo will automatically prioritise devices in the same room. So if you have multiple lights, and you define Alexa to be in the same room as one, you might be able to achieve this. It's a bit of a hit and miss, so give it a try.

Will having 4 different accounts be too much of a hassle? There might be anothee easier way, but sharing what came first in my mind

This option, while valid, has a severe downside. When you use the wake word, different devices may hear it. Devices communicate among themselves to determine the loudness with which they heard it. Then the device which heard the loudest responds.

If devices are on different accounts, they'll not be aware of the other device's presence and not be able to communicate with them. So more often than not, you'll have multiple devices responding to the wake word. If my internet is not working and I say Alexa, both my Alexa devices respond saying internet is not available. But usually even if both light up, only one will actually respond.