Amazon Ends Support for a Very Popular Service
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You know what's used by millions of people each day? Shipping giant Amazon's services. Prime customers receive fixed shipping and exclusive offers. With Amazon Alexa, smart home enthusiasts can enjoy intelligent household control by voice at any time. It can be used to control smart devices, such as smart locks, robot vacuum cleaners, and smart lamps, without the need for a smartphone. Alternatively, Alexa can be used to play music or create calendar entries. In recent months, one manufacturer has experienced numerous outages. Now, Amazon has discontinued one of its popular services.
The End of "Works with Alexa" for some Sengled Bulbs
These are extremely popular: the Amazon services, including Prime, Prime Video, and Amazon Alexa. In addition to discounts, customers receive exclusive movie or series titles or the ability to make their home 'smarter'. Most manufacturers of smart devices offer the "Works with Alexa" service. Alexa is an assistant that enables voice control of smart devices, such as robot vacuum cleaners (Best Of list) or smart locks.
An Amazon Echo (Best Of list) is required for voice control. Another requirement is for the product to carry the "Works with Alexa" label. This is usually printed on the device packaging.
Among the brands that offer devices compatible with Alexa is Sengled. Apart from smart light bulbs, the manufacturer's product portfolio also includes intelligent sockets. After one manufacturer experienced months of outages and voice control that did not work via Alexa, Amazon officially pulled the plug and withdrew compatibility from the manufacturer.
Months of Failure without any Hope
All Sengled light bulbs connected via WLAN are affected. A connection with Alexa is no longer possible. Lamps from the brand that work via Zigbee, Matter, or Bluetooth will most likely continue to offer Alexa compatibility because the withdrawn voice control function is bypassed. Sengled products that cannot be connected to Alexa can no longer be controlled using the voice assistant. They will continue to work in the Sengled app — but only as long as the manufacturer's servers are retained.
However, there have already been complaints from customers. Meanwhile, there is no communication from the manufacturer. Sengled has not even commented on the matter ever since problems arose. Amazon itself has informed those affected about the outages and confirmed that the products can no longer be controlled via Alexa.
An Amazon spokesperson shared with TechHive as follows:
"We have high expectations for the Alexa experience". "Sengled's Alexa feature has been affected by a series of lengthy outages over the past few months that could not be resolved, leaving customers unable to control their light bulbs via Alexa. The feature will no longer be available in our Skill Store from tomorrow."
An Amazon Spokesperson shared the following statement with nextpit:
Amazon has not discontinued the Works with Alexa certification program, which remains active with thousands of compatible devices from hundreds of manufacturers. We removed the Sengled Alexa skill from the Alexa Skills Store after a series of prolonged outages over several months. Smart home products that receive Works with Alexa (WWA) certification must continue to adhere to stringent requirements to maintain the WWA badge. Each WWA-certified product sold on the Amazon retail site must maintain reliable service and high user satisfaction. Reliable service means service without latency issues, invocation failures and outages. Sengled light bulbs with Zigbee, Matter, or Bluetooth connectivity that do not require the Sengled skill and continue to be fully controllable with Alexa.
Meanwhile, the Sengled subreddit shows an astonishing picture. Users blame both Sengled and Amazon for the non-existent performance of the Alexa function and shared workarounds. Quite a few are planning to switch to established manufacturers such as Hue (Best Of list) or Govee — and frankly, this is the easiest step for all who are affected.
