My Amazon Alexa smart home ecosystem has been well-crafted and put together to best serve my wife and family. It has made our lives easier at nearly every step, mostly because I’ve curated a mixture of smart home devices that work well together. Utilizing my smart home devices gets the most out of my house because I know what’s going on in most areas of the house.
I can set the thermostat from my phone when I’m out. I can monitor the driveway through a smart speaker. My phone gets a message when the laundry is done. It’s fun to curate a smart home that works within itself. The star of the show is my Amazon Echo Show 8, mainly because of its Thread Border Router capability. It can connect the devices and run the mesh network that keeps them communicating. My family uses our Amazon Echo smart speakers (we have three of them) all the time and these commands are the ones we use more frequently.
“Alexa, let there be light.”
This controls much of the upstairs
Credit: Chris Hachey / MakeUseOf
We have an Echo Show 8 in the kitchen, an Echo Spot in the guest bedroom, and an Echo Show 5 in the master bedroom. When I’m walking up the stairs, I’m usually carrying something to bring from the first floor upstairs. Being able to say “let there be light” as a part of an automation I created is excellent.
Most of the time, I use this when I’m carrying my toddler or baby up and don’t have hands to turn on every light. I set this automation to turn on multiple lights. We have two Kasa smart plugs in my daughter’s room that both switch on and illuminate her mounted wall lights. The smart bulb in her bedside lamp also turns on.
The command also turns on the Amazon smart plug in our room, which is connected to one of the bedside lamps as well as two smart bulbs, which are located in the other bedside lamp and another lamp in the reading nook area. That one command turns on six different devices.
Brand
Amazon
Connectivity
Wi-Fi (2.4GHz)
Integrations
Amazon Alexa
Schedules
Yes
Electrical rating
120VAC, 60Hz 15A
Dimensions
3.2 x 1.5 x 2.2 inches
An Amazon Smart Plug is a particularly simple smart plug to utilize. It works with Amazon Alexa and fits well into many smart home ecosystems.
“Alexa, extinguish the flame.”
I thought I was clever with this one
Credit: Shaun Cichacki/MUO
Probably more because I’m a nerd, I thought this was a fun way to shut off the lights. So, everything that is turned on with the previous command is turned off with this one.
I don’t have to give Alexa separate commands to turn off the lights in the two rooms. Six devices turn off with these four words.
This has worked pretty well, even if I’ve had issues with my smart bulbs connecting in the bedroom before. My master bedroom is the farthest away from the router, so I had to put my smart bulbs on their own separate network to make them easier to control.
Once I did that, they worked perfectly with Alexa’s commands. Alexa allows you to group your devices together, so when I was setting up the automations for these commands, I could just include all the devices in one group, compared to having to list them individually in the setup.
The Alexa app will actually walk you through how to add devices to certain groups and, once you’ve done that, present the room or group options for you to choose, rather than forcing you to add the devices to your account individually and then lumping them in.
“Alexa, play (insert artist or song).”
I can add a music service on the backend
We have a lot of dance parties in my kitchen. My toddler has actually gotten good at asking Alexa to play a specific song or artist and the smart speaker understands her.
Whether we’re rocking out to Elton John, Chappell Roan, or the soundtracks from the Sing movie franchise (my daughter’s current obsession), we just have to ask the smart speaker to play the music and it does. The great part about having an Amazon Prime account is access to Amazon Music.
If you don’t specify another music platform, it will play whatever you ask of it on Amazon Music. This is fine, but we don’t have Amazon Music Unlimited, meaning we don’t have unlimited skips. When you have a toddler who wants to change a song frequently, it’s not as ideal.
Because of this, we usually end the command by saying “on Spotify.” Amazon Alexa works with numerous music streaming platforms and our personal favorite is Spotify.
Playing music from Spotify or any other supported music platform is easy after you connect your music account to your Alexa account. This also allows you to listen to podcasts, audiobooks, and anything else you might be enjoying on a service.
“Alexa, show me the front door.”
This is a big help for my peace of mind
Brent Dirks / MakeUseOfCredit: Brent Dirks / MakeUseOf
We have two Ring Video Doorbells that the previous owners of our home had installed. One is at our front door and one is next to our garage. We also have a Ring Floodlight Cam Wired Pro in our backyard.
Because Ring cameras integrate so easily with Alexa, I can ask my Echo Show 8 to show me a view of the Ring feed and it gives me the same view as if I were to open the Ring app on my phone. This makes it easy to see who might have rung the doorbell or which package was just being dropped off by the garage.
It also helps me see if the garage door is open before I go upstairs and go to bed, in case I forgot to shut it. This lets me check that without having to go and open the door of the garage.
You can set it so that your feed comes up as soon as someone rings the doorbell or as soon as you ask to see it. It provides an eased state of mind, knowing I can see what’s going on around my house with a few words.
Resolution
1080p
Field of View
155° horizontal, 90° vertical
Power Source
Built-in Rechargeable Battery or Wired
Brand
Ring
Hub Required
No
The Ring Video Doorbell records video and can be shown on different screens and devices. It is a solid doorbell with clear video footage.
“Alexa, make an announcement.”
This might be the most useful one of all
Diego Thomazini / ShutterstockCredit: Diego Thomazini / Shutterstock
Because we have multiple Alexa-enabled speakers, we frequently use them to communicate with the other people in the house. In your Alexa app, you can specify which speakers you want to speak to when you’re making an announcement.
By making an announcement, the speaker you’re talking into will record what you’re saying and project it as a voice note to the other smart speakers. My wife and I will frequently speak to one another this way when one of us is downstairs and the other one is upstairs.
It’s an easy way to ask someone to bring something up with them if they are coming upstairs or to tell someone something from a different level of the floor. You can also use the Alexa app to type a message and have the smart assistant say it out loud. That will come from Alexa’s voice, not yours.
It makes such a difference rather than trying to yell from a different floor or having to take your phone out and call someone. It saves us so much time and hassle.
These Alexa commands are the most used ones in my home
As an Amazon Alexa family, we are used to utilizing her to communicate with the rest of the house. I love being able to say some words and have a part of my home respond in turn. I am always looking for new ways to improve my smart home and having devices that connect to Alexa is something I’m going to continue to do.
