There is no turn screen on/off option for Echo Show 8 3rd Gen?
I recently implemented some screen controls that should automatically detect your devices capabiltiies, but I don’t have any Echo devices with screens to actually test this myself.
@Drako74 maybe you can give some insight what is now working and not since I implemented the feature after your request.
Btw version 2.2.X (which is currently on test) adds support for shopping lists. I did not go all the way out to implement a widget etc. But there is now WHEN cards to get notified when a new item is added, as well as THEN cards to retrieve the current items, complete and delete specific items.
You can use this together with the Tasks app to store the list in Homey and have it shown as a widget. Or do what I did and send yourself a notification and with Shortcuts on iOS 27 automatically add items to a Apple Reminders list.
As for the other feature you suggested, I would still be interested to hear about the details. But from my understanding Alexa would still reply with something like “Sorry I can’t help you” on the spoken to device before you can start sending some custom voice reply. Which just does not feel like a good experience, so I’m not sure I will actually add this.
Hi Stefan @staeff
Happy to oblige.
And Hi John @John_William_Brekke
The Echo Show 8 & 15 don’t (for some extremely odd reason only known to Amazon) support that feature… it baffles me why the Echo Spot with its tiny screen that shows little more than a clock, and the 8’s smaller cousin the Echo Show 5 support this, but the larger n more expensive 8 & 15 don’t.
And to clarify, this is in no way a limitation of this specific app. I have previously tried another Alexa Echo app on Homey (one that has pretty big issues with authentication etc) and from other ecosystems, and it is the same exact behaviour there too.
I have a couple Echo Spot’s, a Show 5, a Show 8, and a Show 15. And I have tested it with all of them.
You can use the rather janky workaround of using the Then Flow card to get Alexa to run the command “screen off/on”, but I have found that unreliable (especially the “screen on”) and it doesn’t seem to work for screen brightness 
at all.
The new functionality that Stefan add for screen on/off and brightness works great for the models I mentioned though. If you want to try logging it with Amazon to see if they will correct that oversight for the 8 and 15 feel free. But I just gave up asking after a while.
Interesting… I know commands can turn the screen on/off, but it’s weird that there is no capabilities available for this on show 8 and 15… I do see my echo show 11 has it…
For reason only known to the evil overlords Amazon 
And if it works fine for the Spot, 5 & 11… I’m sure it’s most likely just a firmware issue 
Yeah… That would make sense 
Hello @staeff
You have resolved a lot of issues, thanks again! But it seems the connection failed again a lot with amazon.fr and Homey struggled to connect sometimes.
@SergeP @thierry_arguimbau, have you been facing some new issues ? Or everything is working nice on your side?
For me, I reconnect on automatic mode since this morning and everything was working well until 1pm: I had the same error message again every 5 minutes, each time Homey was trying to contact amazon.alexa.fr:
At some point (30 minutes later), the connection was established again and flow was working correctly. Then, it disconnect again, and this is happening again and again since.
As @thierry_arguimbau I tried amazon.alexa.nl but I never achieve to connect on it.
This weekend, results were exactly the same with the automatic connection.
latest report : 81e2b9d3-93c0-44d9-971f-4736fbf97864
Hmmmm… seen as how I’ve built a fair few DNS servers, and managed authoritative DNS in the enterprise environment before, this has been niggling at me something rotten…
So, I have a Homey Pro (2026) running the latest firmware, and the latest test version (2.2.3) of the Amazon Echo app. I am also running a pair of Pi-Hole DNS Blocking servers, which each uses its own recursive DNS forwarder (Unbound) rather than forwarding queries to an ISP or hosting provider (like CloudFlare) DNS servers. Admittedly my networking equipment is pretty much enterprise grade, but that wouldn’t affect DNS (unless it was a chronically slow network). I have a couple Echo Spot’s, an Echo Show 5, Show 8 & Show 15.
I tried switching my server setting in the app from Automatic (.co.uk) to the .fr server. Enabled the Diagnostic logging, then tried the routines list in Advanced Flow editor a few times, including doing a search for a routine by name.
Zero issues. And I tried it numerous times before I generated the Diagnostic Report:
6e320d4a-c354-4ebb-a671-ac3780e233cb
I found my lack of ability to get close to replicating the problem quite frustrating… so I tried Text to Speech, disconnecting and re-authenticating, everything I could think of. But it just works.
Sorry chaps, but I can’t reproduce it, so really don’t think it’s the app having a bug, but more likely either DNS in mainland Europe (Amazon are quite renowned for having DNS issues) or a network issue.
I should probably also note I don’t use a Freebox, I have an all Omada network including the router… but my DHCP dishes out my own DNS servers IPs, I don’t use ISP/hosting provider DNS at all on my network.
I only hope that this is of some help…
HI @staeff,
As @Jeremy_Gout, @thierry_arguimbau, No way to make App work definitively with Amazon servers.
Sometimes, very few times, I manage to get it connected and it works, but only for few minutes…
Sometimes (more often), it’s impossible to get connect : “Cannot resolve api.amazonalexa.com — your network returns no address for it. Check your router’s DNS server and any ad/tracker filtering.”, event after few attemps.
I don’t know what’s going on and I don’t know what to do with it but I’ve got 2 ideas :
- Could it be possible to add an option to enter directly a fixed IP address as Amazon server target ?
- Could it be possible to add an option to enter a personalized FQDN as Amazon server target ? I created a CNAME on my own domain name (like amazonalexa.mydomain.com) which targets api.amazonalexa.com, don’t know if this could work but if so, I could share it.
Regards,
SoPhos
Thanks for your investigation and detailed input. I’m also fairly certain that the problem is not with the app itself as the error also happens when simply running a HomeyScript too, which just tries to do a HEAD request against the domains. This also rules out that this is a pure Python behavior.
I’m less certain if blame should be put on Homey (because from the tests run by the affected users nslookup on a PC in the same network worked) or on the ISP/router (as all of them use free.fr and a Freebox). But most likely it is some combination of those two factors, because other users are not experiencing this problem for the same domain.
@SergeP as for a fixed IP that sadly won’t work as even in your logs the resolved IPs sometimes changed within a few minutes. Most likely this is just some load balancer and the IPs might be more stable in reality, but at some point the for sure will go stale. Putting your own domain will just need to do the same resolution chain that most likely will break, as well as introduce certificate issues. If you want to go in that direction I think the only realistic option is to host your own DNS server and have some job that resolves the correct IP every few minutes out of band and then responds directly with the IP instead of all those hops. But even there I’m not sure I could guarantee that this works with how elusive this issue has been.
Agreed, impossible to Connect to any server today..
is any French user here with no issue and using another router than free ?
from the screenshots I assume @Olivier67 is french for example. Are you experiencing any problems and which internet provider are you using?
hello @staeff
yes French, and no problem, It works very well, provider French “SOSH by orange”
Hello @Olivier67
Thanks for your comment ! It seems Free is the root cause for us..
I will need to négociate with Ms to change our service provider, hoping it will works 
I will Keep you in touch @staeff
Is there any way you can add a “then” action that makes the screen go back to the Home Screen? I use a routine at night when I go to sleep that plays music, but the display shows what is playing. I want it to show the Home Screen with the clock that automatically dimmers to red light. I currently have to say “Alexa go home” for it to do that. I would rather not have to say anything and just have going to the Home Screen as part of the routine.
Thanks for the app and your consideration of this feature if it can be done somehow.
That didn’t work for me.
You need to use the exact word combination that you would usually say. If that does not work try to create a routine on your echo and then run the routine via Homey.
