Just implemented Cloud service for the first time. It appears that I no longer have the ability to set colors or brightness levels for lights and/or groups. I removed all my hue bulbs from Alexa Cloud and re-enabled the Hue skill in Alexa and those now work as they did, but this seems like a step backwards rather than forwards.
Am I missing something, or does anyone have some suggestions?
You’re missing info here.
Cloud service will expose home assistant to Alexa (and other devices). It has nothing to do with Hue, so you shouldn’t be mucking with that configuration at all.
So…
No, I am not moving from Emulated Hue.
I thought the purpose of the integration was to do away with so many “other” Alexa skills and allow us to control all of the devices in HA through one single skill. I can control the brightness and colors of my hue bulbs in HA, so why not via the cloud integration.
Also, I have Tuya, etc. and was hoping to do away with those skills/apps altogether and move to ESPhome, but if I lose the ability to voice control my lights, what is the point?
So you’re referring to removing the Hue Skill from Alexa, not home assistant?
If that’s the case, there may be functionality loss because the Alexa Hue skill is built by Phillips. They can tailor skills however they want. But, the current version of Nabu Casa supports brightness, color, and color temp. You did rediscover, correct?
I did rediscover. Interestingly, it picked up the hue bulbs even with the hue skill disabled. That being said, Alexa wouldn’t respond to those group commands because they were duplicated by HA. When I removed the Hue skill from Alexa, I could turn groups on/off, but not control color or brightness.
alexa has issues with caching
Did you remove the hue devices that were discovered again? If you have conflicting names in alexa, it causes problems.
EDIT: This is the process you should do
Remove Skill.
Add HA Skill.
Rediscover.
Delete old cached devices that appear again after discover.
At that point, none of your groups in alexa will work, they should all be deleted. You’ll have to remake groups.
If you didn’t have to remake groups, then she’s using her old cached connection to your devices, I.E. the hue skill.
I’ll give it another go. I watched the following video and he suggested moving all the groups over.
Wait, you’re referring to your home assistant groups not having the ability to control light brightness? Not the groups in Alexa?
Groups in home assistant don’t have the ability to set color or brightness, only lights.
Anything in the light domain will have light controls.
Anything in the switch domain will have switch controls.
etc…
group domain items can only be turned on or off.
So it sounds like groups should be excluded from the import/discovery and then added manually to the Alexa groups?
That’s what I do. I make my groups in the Alexa app. Or use a Light Group if you want a group of lights that is in HA and discovered by Alexa.
I came here wondering same thing as OP-- thanks for answer, light group works great vs standard group being sent over to Alexa. Cleaner than exposing individual lights and regrouping in Alexa.