I had my alarm.com account linked to Alexa, and it was working. I read where I could create a voice pin to now be able to use Alexa to turn off my Alarm and the way to do that was to unlink my account and relink, where I would be prompted with the appropriate setup script. I did that several times, but was never prompted, but Alexa was still able to login into alarm.com. I then read, I needed to turn on two factor authentication, which I did, but after that Alexa can no longer log into alarm.com. I have since turned off two factor authentication, but Alexa still cannot log back into my alarm.com account, even after unlinking and relinking several times.
There are two different Alarm.com skills, one is just called Alarm.com, the other is called Alarm.com Smart Home. You must use the Alarm.com Smart Home skill for secure commands.
Can you confirm the skill you are using?
To clarify regarding 2FA, the ADC instructions are linked below. Make sure all have been followed and you’ve deleted the prior instance:
Alarm.com supports device authentication for Amazon Alexa. However, authenticating on the Alarm.com skill will not authenticate for Amazon Smart Home. To support Smart Home on an account, we recommend creating a secondary login with access to only thermostats and lights.
Note: Authenticating Two Factor with Alexa does not authenticate individual devices but authenticates the Amazon account to use Alarm.com.
To authenticate Amazon as trusted account:
Enable the Alarm.com Skill. For more information, see Connect Amazon Alexa with Alarm.com.
Start talking to Alarm.com on your Amazon Echo device. Say “Alexa, talk to Alarm.com”.
Alexa will respond “This device has not been authenticated…” You will receive a text message with a six-digit code to authenticate the Amazon Alexa device.
To authenticate the device say: “Alexa, tell Alarm.com to authenticate with code from text message”.
If the code was not heard correctly by Alexa, try again. For best results, say each digit individually.
If Alexa is unable to understand your code you can retrieve a new code by starting the process over or saying: “Alexa, tell Alarm.com I need another code.”.
The Amazon account has now been authenticated to use Alarm.com
Important: If you decide to turn off and on 2FA and authenticate Amazon Alexa again, another instance will appear in your trusted devices on the Alarm.com website, alongside your other Amazon Alexa. We recommend removing the previous instance.
I confirmed it is the Smart Home skill. I unlinked and relinked again this morning and Alexa is still giving me the unable to login message
If you go into the Alarm.com website and click on Settings > Login Information. Do you see any instances of Alexa still listed as trusted device regarding 2FA?
I have never gotten to the point of seeing Alexa listed as a trusted device regarding 2FA. All that is shown is my windows browser. I also created a second login to my alarm.com account this morning with limited access and used that to enable the Alexa smart home alarm.com skill, once without 2FA authentication and then with it turned on for that user. Alexa is still not able to connect and still getting the login fail from her and no alarm.com showing up in the second user account information. I will be off line until mid afternoon, and will look for your further suggestions to try then. Appreciate your support on this.
Aha, I think I see the confusion in this case. The instructions from ADC on this are a bit unclear.
The Smart Home Skill does not support 2FA. Just the Alarm.com skill.
For the Smart Home skill you should just create a new Alarm.com user with limited custom access, but not 2FA.
2FA can then be used for your logins that have system access.
Try deleting the user you created and create a new user with custom access. Sync that user to Amazon without 2FA. Any luck?
I created a new user with limited access and did not turn on 2FA for this account… I disabled the alarm.com skill and enabled again using the new limited user access. I asked Alexa to discover and she came back with no new skills found. When I asked her to connect with alarm.com she says login failed and tells me to relink the alarm.com skill. I did this, asked her to discover, she came back with no new skills found, and told me to relink again, just like she has been doing since I encountered this problem after turning on 2FA on my main account.
The discover will automatically start, typically. I am a little confused on the response you are getting. Does the echo indicate that a discovery has started at first? It would then later say “No new Smart Home Devices found.”
So when you connect manually it appears successful and it is only when you ask Alexa to do something that you get the response that login failed?
Can you try removing both the Alarm.com and Alarm.com Smart Home Skills, then disable 2FA on your ADC login.
Wait 5 minutes, then try connecting again to just the Alarm.com skill. What is the result?
I removed all users from my alarm.com account except me, disabled 2FA, removed the alarm.com smart home skill, waited 30 minutes, and asked Alexa to connect to Alarm.com. Got the cant login message, which I would expect since the skill was not enabled at this point. I then enabled the alarm.com skill and asked Alexa to connect to alarm.com, and also got the same cant login message. When I enable the alarm.com skill, the app tells me devices must be discovered before using with Alexa and then I have to hit the discover button. After a short wile the app comes back with a check mark and I have to hit done button. Then I am back in the Smart Home app device page. At this point in the app it never says it found or didn’t find anything. I then went to Alexa voice and ask her to connect to alarm.com and still get the “can not login” message and it asks me to unlink the skill and re enable it again. It is at this point I ask Alexa, using voice, to discover and she comes back with no new devices found. I guess since I used the app to discover right after enabling, I should not expect it to find any new skills at this point, although the app never indicated it found any new skills either. So yes to your statement, I appear to manually be able to enable the skill, and only when go to voice do I get the login failed message. I have never actually seen, even when voice was working, an actual alarm.com device appear in the Alexa smart home app, so voice is the only way I have to communicate using Alexa with alarm.com. I have always assume it is because I am not using my alarm panel to control any zwave devices, and just want to use Alexa to check my arming status, and to arm/disarm my alarm panel.
I removed all users from my alarm.com account except me, disabled 2FA, removed the alarm.com smart home skill, waited 30 minutes, and asked Alexa to connect to Alarm.com. Got the cant login message, which I would expect since the skill was not enabled at this point. I then enabled the alarm.com skill and asked Alexa to connect to alarm.com, and also got the same cant login message.
Just to clear the slate in this case, if you do not have Z-wave devices at all, the regular Alarm.com Skill is the one you would want to use. The Smart Home Skill is just for use with thermostats and lights.
So, just to be sure, you should always be trying the regular Alarm.com Skill. You may already be doing that, just want to be sure.
Either way, it is odd to successfully connect then get an unable to login message. It is stranger considering you said the Skill was working for a while before trying to use 2FA. It sounds like configuration on the account (either Amazon or ADC) may be stuck.
When did you first attempt this change where the skill wouldn’t login successfully? Was it on the day of the initial forum post here?
Have you altered your Alarm.com password since then?
There are four skills to chose from
alarm.com
alarm.com app
alarm.comsecurity
alarm.comsmart home
I have tried them all, but they all say “smart home” when you enable them and appear to all be the same skill, just listed differently when searching for the skill.
I turned on 2FA the day I started this post, 11/19/18, and that is when I started getting the login failure for the first time. I have never changed my main password since creating my alarm.com account. I don’t remember how many months the skill had been working, but it has been a long time, and never had the login problem until turned on 2FA
There is a bit of confusion I think. Where are you seeing the four results? There are only two Alexa Skills:
“Alarm.com”
“Alarm.com Smart Home”
Make sure you are using the Alexa App on your smartphone. Click the Skills and Games in the menu, then search for Alarm.com. Those should be the two results. I just ran a search in the Alexa app to confirm and only those two are results.
Select “Alarm.com”
Select Enable
Type in your credentials for Alarm.com. This login event will be visible in history. If unsuccessful it should prompt you on that page to retry due to invalid credentials.
When successful it will prompt you to allow secure actions or not.
I have a droid phone, might be different on iPhone. I followed your instructions and just searching for alarm.com I get the following
alarm.com
alarm.comsecurity
alarm.comapp
If I search for alarm.com s I get the following
alarm.com security
alarm.com smart home
I have enabled/disabled them all and makes no difference, and I never am prompted to allow secure actions or not. It always enables without asking me anything else
I have a droid phone, might be different on iPhone. I followed your instructions and just searching for alarm.com I get the following alarm.com alarm.comsecurity alarm.comappIf I search for alarm.com s I get the following
alarm.com security
alarm.com smart home
I am using an Android phone, but that should not matter. The search results should be the same.
There are only two Alexa Skills:
I’m concerned either we may not be looking in the same spot or something else is amiss if you are seeing other results. It may be relevant to the problem at hand.
Can you post a screenshot of your search results where you are searching?
Good news, I now have it working. The search results I have been getting, that are different than yours, came from me being in the Alexa app where it lists all your enabled skills. There is a icon at the bottom of this screen that says “Enable Smart Home Skills” When selecting that button a search screen comes up, and that is where I was entering alarm.com and getting the search results I indicated in earlier post. Based on your last response, I went into chrome and searched for the alarm.com skill, I selected one of the results that took me into my Amazon account and brought up the alarm.com skill there, where it gave me the option to enable, which I did. This time it acted like you have been telling me it should all this time, and I was prompted to create a four digit pin, which I did. After that I can now use voice to arm and disarm with the pin. Don’t know why searching within the Alexa app gave me a different result, something might have been cached, who knows. Thanks so much for hanging in there with me on this and working to get my issue resolved