Alexa, about Discovery of Smart Skill

Question

I refer this Smart Home Skill API Reference, and implement nodejs lambda function. The document said that if encounter any error when discovering, just response an empty DiscoverAppliancesResponse, and not an error message.

My question is, when accessToken is expired, or in-valid. Then return am empty DiscoverAppliancesResponse too ? Or, any error message about invalid access token, let Alexa server refresh access token.

Answer 1

Good question. I've always just thought that discovery is all about looking for new devices. If the network isn't working for any reason, then new devices cannot be found, and the appropriate response is to return with "none found" (eg. an empty array).

It would be nice to provide more information to the user about why their devices are not getting discovered, but the API does not appear to provide any way to do so.