Oh my goodness!
Before I ask, I should say that as a developer, I'm Alexa's biggest fan!
I'm in no way wanting to harp on the development of the API, or the lovely lady who helps guides me through my day.
However, I have seen for many years the request to get DeviceNames returned with the respective ID's in the System.Context, and yet this still doesn't exist.
Why?
I would LOVE to easily act upon echos placement around the house.
I realize with smart home skills, the ability to say "turn on the lights", while standing in a particular room will allow the corresponding echo dot to send the request for that room.
My skill could also have this ability, however getting a user to correlate echo units to rooms, based on deviceId's is the biggest let down in the world.
So my skill limits this ability in favorite for long, drawn out request phrasing on behalf of the user.
"Alexa, ask home theater to play the movie Back to the Future Three in the Family Room"
or
"Alexa, ask home theater to play the next up episode for the Series Westworld in the computer lab"
I'm out of breath just reading that!
It would be better to have the deviceName in a friendly format, so the user can do a quick correlation in the services setup between Rooms. Period! Simple! Done!
Now the user says: "Alexa play the next up episode for Westworld"
and it will play, because the device was previously tied to the playback device in that room!
Please! Devs! read this, and consider this with a new release of the API.
Many thanks! and Biggest Fan!
Ben
