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Not able to use Alexa with Telus Home Assistant
The other day I went to turn on one of my Telus digital boxes via Alexa and it responded by saying sorry XXXXTV is not responding. I tried the other two cable boxes via Alexa and they too would not respond, giving me the same answer Sorry... I tried manually turn on or off via the app and still nothing. I unabled the skill in the Alexa app rebooted my phone then tried to enable the Telus Home Assistant skill again. It goes through the process. Brings up the Telus login page I input my credentials correctly and then it states "Linking Accounts" then it says "unable to link accounts try again later" This has been for the last 48 hours. I will mention that the skill has worked without problems for close to a year. I did notice that the Alexa app has gone through an update on June 01, 2026. Anyone else having this problem and able to fix?
An update: We identified the issue late last week and worked with our vendor to resolve the Skills issue. Our testing showed it was working fine as of Friday. Can you confirm that it is? If not, please disable it then re-enable it and try again.
Thank you so much for your patience with us!tgrosse tgrosse ecoulter Marie17 ketev48046
Edit: Marked as Solution for visbility
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So just to be clear. My Alexa app is working with everything else other than a Telus Home Assistant device. I can turn on lights via Alexa via another 3rd party Alexa skill ect. I did have full control over my Telus Optik digital boxes and PVR through the Alexa app until Thursday April 11th. That's when upon issuing a command such as Alexa turn on my living room TV box it replied sorry that device is not responding. I have 3 boxes in our home and Alexa gave the same reply for all three. Prior to that I could change channels via Alexa and bring up the program guide. The guide thing is a little tricky, so I don't use it much. Anyway, when it went down which it has before the solution was to disable the Telus Home Assistant skill from the Alexa app and then re-enable it. This cn only be done through the Alexa app not on its web page. This would usually have you back and running. This time however whenever the re-enabling process tries to relink your Telus account to the Alexa app after you sign into your Telus account it responds "Unable to link the skill at this time. Please try again later." That's where I'm stuck right now since April 11th. Telus support has been and I say this kindly "not of any assistance". The amount of effort required to actually speak to someone and then find out this person has less knowledge in regards to the problem than you do is really frustrating. We have set a new definition for the term "technical support". I'll leave it at that, respectively.
TELUS_SupportOfficial Support Team
Hey Bearsfan We've sent a PM your way to request your account details. Our technical teams need a few account examples to properly investigate and get this resolved, so we appreciate your help!
I also have this issue with my alarm panel.
Does anyone know of a fix, work around or ETA to when this issue will be resolved? My TELUS system stopped working with my Alexa on Friday, June 13 and I have not been able to re-link the accounts since my Alexa works with every other SmartHome device that I have but will not control or relink with the Telus home assistant Help.
The Alexa integration with Telus Home Assistant started having issues as of June 14th. I can confirm that Google is still working with Telus Home Assistant. On past issues, they sent a message off to the development team to address the code issues on the latest update. Hope this gets resolved soon.
I've been having the same issue for over a week. Attempting to add the Telus Home Assistant skill to Alexa fails with error "Unable to link the skill at this time."
I just tried today and it worked for me now with Alexa.
Thanks. I tried it after getting your message and it works for me now too.
June 24th. Was able to link the skill to Alexa finally and seems to be working again. Tried it after reading the other 2 comments that showed they were able to get it up and running, thanks. Just wondering, did any of you get a notification from support that it was working again or did you just happen to try it on your own?
No notice from Telus. I just tried it when someone else said it was fixed. I did tell Telus it was working now and they said they are monitoring it still.
Has anyone found a solution? As a quadriplegic who relies on Alexa to control Telus optic, this has been very frustrating.
- TELUS_Support
Hi jkl67890 - our team is aware of the issue and we are working with the proper team to resolve it as soon as possible. So sorry this is affecting you
I am a quadriplegic and rely on the skill. It has essentially taken away the ability to use OPTIK TV. It has now been weeks, when you expect to have a solution to the problem? The alternative is to change providers. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Any update?
Hi,
I have not been able to control the TV using Amazon Alexa since the last update. The best able to his turn the optic box on and off. It will not change channels, show the menu, or anything else.
Is there a solution?
So here we go again. Had this problem 2 months ago and it somehow fixed itself. I'm not being negative to Telus but just stating the facts. It was restored with no help of TELUS support on our end. In fact, when dealing with TELUS support it was I who had to tell the agent how the skill worked and it was not an app that I download from google play (LOL).
The same thing has happened again. Alexa saying the digital or pvr box not responding. Unlinked skill in Alexa app. Deleted cache in Alexa app. Deleted data in Alexa App reinstalled Alexa app. Went to skills. Found Telus home assistant and went through linking TELUS account to skill and the old familiar problem unable to link account at this time reappeared. Tried multiple time with correct username and password. This is the same problem as before. Went to check if it's on my side. I know the procedure so well by now. Went to google assistant and all is well. All Telus TV devices responded to Google command via app and voice on same network. S
o please, Telus Support don't ask me to reinstall the app, don't ask me to reboot my phone, don't ask me to do all the ridiculous things you usually ask your money paying clients to do. Just say our app is ****. We don't know how to fix it. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't and we acknowledge we've not been able to make it stable for years.
- FuzzyLogic
Community Power User
I don't use Alexa with Telus Home Assistant but I do use Alexa. It's great when it works but lately it fails on the simplest tasks. It's really gone downhill since the introduction of Alexa+/AI. One day a simple command works the next day the same command fails?! Nothing has changed on my end. I've had similar experiences with Alexa linked services that work and then suddenly don't. Very frustrating but, in my case, the blame is clearly related to Alexa.
Understood. I actually did not opt for Alex+ for other reasons. In my case Alexa has always and still works great with my other smart home devices connected through other 3rd party skills available on the Alexa App. It's always the Telus Home Assistant skill that is the only skill that can control the Telus boxes other than google Assistant. Not being able to link Telus account to the Alexa skill is the giveaway that it's on the Telus side again. Also, all other 3rd party skills work fine on the Alexa app. What's really frustrating, and I've been a Telus customer for many years, is the customer support knowledge in solving the problem. It's not good is the kindest way I can say it. I was excited when I saw the new Telus Smart Home skill on Alexa. Hoping this was the upgrade with the reliability we were hoping for. Unfortunately the new skill does not have the ability to control the Telus TV boxes.
Some more information. As I said the problem now is trying to link the telus account with Amazon App. It fails to complete the process. I then picked the new Telus smart home skill from the Amazon skills list and tried adding it to my skills. It went through the process without a problem and was added to my Alexa skills. So that is another indication that there is something wrong with the Telus Home Assistant and Alexa App. While the Alexa app is working with a number of other 3rd party skills it only has trouble with the Telus Home Assistant skill on my phone. Clearing Cache, Deleting Data again and uninstalling the Alexa app again. Will reinstall and try again later.
My brother is having issues again. Anyone else? Disabled the skill and try to re-enable and won’t work.
Same here. Super frustrating. Also this entire form experience is junk.
Same here. Cannot connect Telus Home Assistant to Alexa again.Like before. How do we reach Telus? Their virtual assistant is useless.
- TELUS_Support
tgrosse ecoulter Marie17 ketev48046 Thanks for the feedback. We've flagged this to our Product/Dev team and they're investigating. If/when we have any updates to share, we definitely will.
- TELUS_Support
An update: We identified the issue late last week and worked with our vendor to resolve the Skills issue. Our testing showed it was working fine as of Friday. Can you confirm that it is? If not, please disable it then re-enable it and try again.
Thank you so much for your patience with us!tgrosse tgrosse ecoulter Marie17 ketev48046
Edit: Marked as Solution for visbility
