- Understanding Alexa-and Echo
- Meet Amazon's Echo Devices
- Setting Up Your Echo Device
- Working with Alexa
- Using the Alexa App
- Working with Alexa's Skills
- Using Alexa to Control Your Smart Devices
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Using Alexa to Control Your Smart Devices
All this talk about Alexa and voice commands and skills leads us to the topic you’re probably most interested in—how to use Alexa with your smart home devices.
Here’s the good news: Alexa is compatible with the majority of smart home hubs and devices on the market today. That means you can control these devices, individually or collectively, via Alexa voice commands. And that’s a very neat thing.
What’s Compatible?
What smart home devices does Alexa work with? It’s a long list, and includes most major smart home systems and devices, including Insteon, SmartThings, and Wink. You can find a complete list at www.amazon.com/alexa-smart-home/b?node=13575751011.
In addition, many other smart devices work with Alexa when they’re connected to an Alexa-compatible hub, such as the Insteon, SmartThings, and Wink hubs. In short, there’s not a whole lot that doesn’t work with Alexa, which is good.
Connect a Smart Device to Alexa
Before you connect any smart device to Alexa, make sure the device is connected to its own smartphone app and to your Wi-Fi network, typically via the device’s or system’s hub. For example, if you’re connecting a Wink-compatible device, make sure it’s connected to the Wink Hub; if you’re connecting a Philips Hue smart light, make sure it’s connected to the Hue Hub. Your Echo device connects to the smart device via the connected hub.
From within the Alexa app on your smartphone, tap the Menu button to display the left navigation panel.
Tap Smart Home.
Scroll to the Your Smart Home Skills section. Any skills you’ve previously installed are displayed here. Tap Get More Smart Home Skills.
Additional smart home skills are now displayed. Browse or search the list to find the skill for the smart device you want to connect and then tap that skill to open the skill screen.
Read about the selected skill and tap Enable.
If you’re prompted to sign in to the account for your smart device, do so now.
If you’re prompted to let Alexa control your smart device, tap Yes now.
When the connection is complete, tap Back to the App to return to the Alexa app.
Working with Device Groups
One of the nice things about Alexa is that you can control multiple devices from multiple companies. Now, you can control each device individually with its own unique voice command, but you can also create a single command to control multiple devices at one time. This is useful, for example, for controlling all the lights in a single room, even if those lights come from different manufacturers.
You do this by creating what Alexa calls a group. When you add all the lights in your room to a “living room lights” group, for example, you can control all those lights just by telling Alexa to do something to the living room lights, such as, “Alexa, turn off the living room lights.” One command takes care of multiple devices when you have them linked together in a group.
Create a Device Group
- From the left navigation menu, tap Smart Home.
- In the Your Groups section, tap Create Group.
- Type a name for this group into the Enter a Group Name box.
- Tap to select those devices you want to include in the group.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and tap Save. Your new group is now saved and ready to use.
Controlling a Smart Device with Alexa
After you’ve connected all your smart devices to Alexa, installed all the pertinent skills, and created groups of devices for easier operations, you can start using Alexa to control those devices. As with anything related to Alexa, all you have to do is say “Alexa,” followed by your command.
What you can control depends on the devices you’ve connected and groups you’ve created. Some devices only let you perform simple on/off operations with Alexa, like this:
Alexa, turn on the hallway fan.
Other devices let you perform more sophisticated operations, such as dimming lights and such, like this:
Alexa, dim the Hue lights to 50 percent.
Of course, groups have their own commands, like this:
Alexa, turn off the bedroom lights.
And if you’ve connected a smart thermostat, like the Ecobee or Nest, you can use Alexa to control your temperature, like this:
Alexa, set the house temperature to 70 degrees.
Or this:
Alexa, lower the living room temperature.
You can use Alexa to control all manner of smart devices. For example, both GE and Whirlpool offer appliances that can be voice-controlled by Alexa. Alexa even lets you guide your Roomba vacuum cleaner around the room via voice commands. The sky’s the limit!
To learn more about what you can do with a particular device, go the Smart Home screen in the Alexa smartphone app and tap the skill for that device. Most skills have examples of commands you can use.
