Had a similar issue here and found a workaround (also v0.97). I have several “switch” entities exposed to Alexa, which suddenly stopped working few days ago. Turned out that port 8100 didn’t work anymore and I had to switch to 80. After trying out some things, I ended up with having connection again but the error you mentioned occured. Lights (i.e. switches) would switch on and off in a sec while Alexa said the “value is out of range for device…”. Those devices didn’t appear as “binary” anymore (on-off). Alexa showed the option to adjust brightness and would give back the mentioned error, even when set to 100%. However, I came across one device that still appeared “binary” and that one was “on” while I let Alexa look for new devices. Tried that with the other and bingo - got all of them as “binary” back again and Alexa was fine…
So, here’s the workaroudn in a nutshell:
Remove “broken” device from Alexa
Switch “on” the device in Home Assistant
Let Alexa look for new devices.
Voila! Hope this helps…
And here’s my (unqualified) theory after some digging:
I did find a problem so maybe just for switches you need this as Alexa seems to add a device by default as a light - which is the problem. I have already done the port 80 change
So, here’s the REVISED workaround in a nutshell for switches (Sonoff Tasmota):
1. Remove “broken” device from Alexa App
2. Switch “on” the device in Home Assistant (can be multiple)
3. “Add New Device” select “Switch” and then “Other”
4. Let Alexa discover new devices.
Hope this works for you and keeps the wife happy :o)
I just fixed my Alexa not talking to Hassio after adding a brand new dot (newer version). I switched to port 80 but when I added devices she would respond with “value is out of range for device X.” So I completed what @monbotpoo described. Went to the alexa app on my phone and deleted all the devices one by one. Turned on all the devices in Hassio and then in the alexa app:
To set up each device as a switch with on/off values instead of a light with dimming percentages.
This indeed worked and the documentation needs to be updated to let others know.
EDIT: IT DID REVERT BACK. UGH!
If you change ports you gotta rediscover. Also if you are running on hassio, you cannot change to port 80 because the hass user doesn’t have access to port 80.
This 100% depends on the number of alexa’s in your house.
For some inexplicable reason, amazon is rolling out firmware changes slowly (to gen1/2 echo dots). I have 2 dots, and it took 2 weeks to roll out the firmware to both devices. After the first device updated to the latest firmware, a simple home assistant restart fixes the issue if the other dots are on the old firmware. This unfortunately masks the issue for many people because they think they fixed everything. Then the second dot gets updated and everything breaks again. Rinse and repeat. Finally, when the last dot updates you can no longer ‘fix the issue’ and have to switch to port 80 and rediscover new devices and delete old devices. After that, there have been reports of still getting ‘x does not respond’ but the lights will turn on. But it’s unclear if these people have deleted the old devices or not. Personally, I have an instance of HA running with emulated hue connected to alexa on port 80 without any ‘x does not respond’. Because this issue is so wide spread and half of the users don’t know what they are doing, we don’t actually know the full extent of the issue. There is a PR out there that claims to fix the issue that may be merged soon. I personally am skeptical whether or not it will fix things.
I’ve resorted to always keep a custom_component for emulated_hue and brute force comment out any and all dimming settings that keep regressing almost every update. Somewhere in the hue<->alexa communication something always breaks and i don’t think it’s the component. I have tested factory fresh alexa straight out of the box, factory reset existing alexa (old and new), and the only common ground i can find is that from my 7 devices at least 6 report either value out of range with “stock” hue_api.py or a 90% chance of a comment “device x doesn’t seem to work properly” although it works.
So in conclusion here are my suspected factors for getting this:
something like if (entity_features & SUPPORT_BRIGHTNESS) or entity.domain != light.DOMAIN: (current line 574 in hue_api.py) does its best but does not work (i’ve seen many iterations of this)
the state of the device at (alexa-)discovery time may or may not play a role for above detection to work although i have had it go both ways
removing and re-discovering devices in a alexa may or may not be enough, i’ve had instances of (ghost) devices that survived until factory reset no matter what the json sends or doesn’t send
since there is very limited control or debugging for local alexa i’m afraid that game will be played forever and i’m of the opinion that alexa shuffles around things seemingly randomly. I tried keeping track of dot updates but even that doesn’t seem to be consistent. Emulated_hue is the best shot we got, and i’m happy we have it but it is a nightmare for switch users. I can’t tell if it is better for light hardware since i have none.
That being said, having to listen to “device x is not working properly” or whatever local equivalent is grating, especially in the middle of the night.
Yep, that’s part of the reason I left emulated_hue.
This is the other reason. Alexa clearly has a caching issue with discovery and performing a delete does not rectify the issue. I’d be willing to bet that only a factory reset will actually get rid of them.
I moved over to Alexa Smart Home Skill of Haaska. More functionality, Free, and NabuCasa uses the same component on home assistants side. So you can bet your ass that they will keep it up to date and working with alexa. Theres only 2 drawbacks: 1. It’s not a simple setup. 2. The commands to the lights are not local.
As for the more functionality, with this component everything differentiates itself. I.E. a dimmer is a dimmer, a switch is a switch, a cover is a cover, etc. They also have specialized commands like “alexa open x window” instead of us having to fake out a light. You can also query sensors that are connected “alexa, whats the temperature in the living room?”.
At this point i’d be willing to work my way reverse translating mongolian pdfs if need be, given the time i invested in trying to make local alexa a thing.
The commands to the lights are not local.
That’s a much harder pill to swallow. I really use home assistant in the first place because it allows me to be completely local. But then again, who am i kidding - this is a thread about alexa
Looked at it a while back. It’s in it’s infancy and very experimental but who knows how it may progress. One thing is for sure though. Alexa doesn’t want anyone using her outside of the cloud.
