When I first got my Echo, several months ago, it worked great at controlling my lights. I could say "Alexa, turn off the lights in my bedroom," and she would do it with no complaints. The lights would go off and she would just say "Ok."
Then one day she responded with something like "Sorry, I couldn't find a device or group named lights in my bedroom in Daithi's profile." So, I tried again speaking more slowly, but got the same result. Tried again, same result. Then I screamed at her and tossed in a couple of cuss words. Not surprisingly, she still refused to turn on my lights.
After I calmed down, I tried just saying, "Alexa, turn off my bedroom." It worked! Apparently, Amazon "upgraded" the software and screwed something up. After a few weeks I tried "Alexa, turn off the lights in my bedroom," and it was working again, but now I had gotten so used to saying "Alexa, turn off my bedroom," that I just stuck with the shorter phrase.
A couple days ago, I said, "Alexa, turn off my bedroom." and she said, "I've found several devices matching that name which one did you want?" What the hell?! If I say "bedroom" she turns off the lights in my bedroom, but I only have one group named bedroom or even containing the word bedroom. So, instead of screaming again, I tried "Alexa, turn off bedroom." It works.
This is really annoying. I've been a software developer for over 30 years, and we have this concept we use that is known as "testing." Apparently, the software developers who work for Amazon are unfamiliar with the concept. There is unit testing of code, user testing, beta testing, regression testing (which makes sure you don't break something that was working), and others. Arghhhh! Amazon coders, please do some testing before pushing out buggy code.
I'm not looking for any answers, or anything like that. I'm just venting. I also still really like my Echo.