After all this time you guys still haven’t fixed the control of fan lights within routines. In the evening I have a routine to turn off the fan and the lights etc, but often if the lights aren’t on it turns them on. You’ve spent all your time with elaborate new stuff if no use to me but can’t get the simplest basic stuff working. This is really frustrating o have the most current firmware. Back to basics, guys. Back to basics.
There is a configuration, “Trust state”, you can enable, analogous to the V1 “Track State of Toggle Lights”. Unlike V1, this configuration is on a per-device basis. To set it:
- Tap the device
- Find and tap settings at the top right
- Tap “Trust State”
Now, when your integration tells the Bond to “Turn Off” a light/fan/etc., but the Bond believes the fan to already be off, it will do nothing. Of course, now you need to make sure that the state is correct. You can fix it on the same screen as “Trust State” if it’s incorrect, or use your physical remote to get it in sync.
To go into detail on why this is necessary, and some decisions we made here:
We’ve been talking about making this “Trust State” the default behavior. The problem is that it’d also be very frustrating for some users who don’t expect this behavior: imagine you use your physical remote a lot, and the Bond’s state gets out of sync. Then, say, you see the light on, and ask Alexa to “Turn Off” the light, the Bond thinks that the light is already off… so it does nothing. They need to ask Alexa to “Turn On” the light to turn it off!
This is why we have this configuration: for some users, using the physical remote is very important, and this behavior would be a dealbreaker. For other users (such as yourself), the Bond seemingly not being aware of its own state and turning a light off when you want it on is a dealbreaker. So we need to support both of these classes of users… I do think we need to present this “trust state” option in the setup flow, perhaps, and make it very clear why it exists.
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I have the old original Bond, a couple of years old. Is it obsolete already?
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No, all models of Bond hardware have the same features, the new one has some areas where it performs better, that’s all. (WiFi compatibility, faster boot, bigger database) We put a lot of effort in to not leaving the old model behind.
Are you already on the new (“Bond Home”) app?
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Never heard about it. Installing/updating now. I’ll give it a go.
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Okay, let me know if you run into any issues making the switch.
I did the firmware update, got to 100% and said rebooting, the it said connection error 101 or something. I waited, then unplugged for a minute, plugged it can in, and the light turned orange. I tried to reset with paperclip, and now it is flashing green. The app still shows rev 1.138.1 and has a red dot. There is a circular “waiting” symbol on the screen. I tried to add another bridge, it found it, asked for network and password (same network as my phone), but couldnt connect to it. Still flashing green.
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Okay, I’ll ask the mobile team what might be going on there.
To troubleshoot, can you unplug it, plug it back in, and then as soon as the lights go green, try to set it up? The different timing might give you different results.
I finally got it working after several measures including deleting hub and clearing memory. I’ve reprogrammed one fan but I can’t get Alexa to control it. I disabled and re-enabled skill and did discovery. No joy. I love Bond but it seems overly frustrating to get working. Sometimes I want to beat it with a hammer and throw it in the trash, but eventually I get it working. Somehow.
Andy
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Oh, right, should have mentioned. There’s a V2 Alexa skill too, also named “Bond Home”. You’ll want to delete your old Bond Alexa devices.
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Thank you. Finally got one fully implemented. I will do the other two later today.
Thank you.
Andy
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I finally have all 3 of my ceiling fans and lights working with Bond again. I had no idea there was a new app or a new skill. I was very disappointed that I had to basically start from scratch after updating them. The transition from one version to the next is always more difficult than it should, and my app should have notified me to update. I don’t even recall a notification from the company that a ew app and skill were availsble. You make a fine product which is difficult to implement and maintain but at least it seems to be stable for now.
The fix state option is nice, however, if we could get an integration phrase so that we can toggle the “fix”/sync state via Alexa/Google without having to open the application to fix would be great.
Thanks for bearing with us. We still haven’t let everyone know about the new platform. We’ve been gradually letting our users know so as not to overwhelm our team, and to make sure everything goes smoothly on your side. Of course, there are still some kinks in the process, but we’re working on it 
Once everyone’s made the jump to the new app I think things will be a lot more stable.
Interesting, I’ll relay this suggestion to the engineer in charge of integrations, what sort of wording do you think would be appropriate here?
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“Hey [Alexa/Google] fix toggle state on [Device Name]” would be ideal. However, if the platforms require more specific language - “Hey [Alexa/Google] fix toggle state on Bond [Device Name]” would be equally sufficient.
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A command like "Alexa, tell bond home that [device] is on/off would be nice.
@joaoricardo for viz.
Keep in mind there’s two types of Alexa skills: “Smart Home Skill” and “Custom Skill”.
The Bond Home Alexa skill is a “Smart Home Skill”. This makes it very easy to use, but it is highly restrictive.
Sadly there’s no Smart Home Skill API for that. — We could technically abuse the mode capability, but that would be awkward to the point of being unusable:
Hey Google/Alexa, set [Device Name] to fix state mode.
Then there’s another suggestion:
That is very possible, but only with a separate Custom Skill.
We currently do not plan to build and maintain a separate Custom Skill alongside the Smart Home skill, but if we did, this would be one of the features.
A note for Smart by Bond users: This issue does not apply. This issue is caused by a design issue in the legacy remote control devices, and we are doing our best to make a workaround.
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Right. I wasn’t thinking. No need for another skill.
And if the voice command to fix the state was that confusing, I wouldn’t remember it anyway.
The per - device memory in the new app generally works pretty well for me. I’m the bedrooms my fan lights are not connected to separate switches and we nearly always use voice commands so everything works well with a tracked state. The kitchen fan/light is also switch controlled so I keep tracking off for it and most of the time it responds correctly.
The only problem I have is with the TV, which I have set as a “generic device” just to turn it on or off. We also use the TV remote and physical buttons often so I have state tracking turned off. Even with tracking turned off, though, sometimes bond fails to send a command unless we says the right way to switch the toggle. (I’ll say “turn on the TV” three times and the bond never flashes and then “turn off the TV” works.) I think the problem with the TV is aggravated by the fact that it’s in the living room where we have a Cortana speaker interfacing with SmartThings instead of an Alexa. (The integration through SmartThings is much better than my IFTTT set up was.)
I also sometimes have issues with the toggle state specifically in Alexa routines. I added a “wait” step in the routines between each Bond device and it works much better. So instead of a routine that says turn off all the lights at 11pm, I turn them off one at a time with a 5 second pause in between each.
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I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Doesn’t the Bond have an RF receiver? (usually used for adding new devices). Could the bond always listen for the remote command, so if I use the physical remote, both the fan and the bond receive it; and the bond tracks the state and knows whether the light is on or off?