It seems everywhere you look these days, it’s all about home automation made easy. That’s great if you’re building a custom home and can built the system into the infrastructure of the home, but what if you aren’t building a new home? You can still automate many aspects of your home without ripping into your walls or the need to rewire anything. In fact, if you have Wifi you can do quite a bit of home automation by yourself.
If you’re new to DIY projects or aren’t very tech savvy you may want to start off with one of the easiest to use home automation gadgets available. The Amazon Echo is an incredibly easy to use piece of technology that even the least technologically inclined person can use. Simply plug it in and connect to your Wifi and you’re ready to go.
What is the Amazon Echo?
Amazon Echo is a hands-free speaker you control with your voice. Echo connects to the Alexa Voice Service, to play music, provide information, news, sports scores, weather, and more—instantly. All you have to do is ask.
Echo has seven microphones and beam forming technology so it can hear you from across the room—even while music is playing. Echo is also an expertly tuned speaker that can fill any room with 360° immersive sound. When you want to use Echo, just say the wake word “Alexa” and Echo responds instantly.
In a nutshell Amazon Echo is Alexa. You may have seen the commercials on TV for Alexa. Alexa can tell you the time simply by asking “Alexa, what time is it?” She can set reminders, and send them to your phone or she can set a timer (or two or more) for that pie you just put in the oven. Alexa will play games with you, play music and read to you using Audible.
Shop with Alexa
If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can ask Alexa to order from your history. If you’ve ordered shampoo from Amazon you can ask Alexa to reorder from your history. She’ll use the default credit card on file. All you have to do is ask.
Order a pizza!
Amazon and Dominoes have partnered so you can now order a pizza with just a command. You’ll need to create a pizza profile before your first order but after that all you have to do is say “Alexa, open Domino’s and place my Easy Order”.
The Amazon Echo software is updated regularly. The folks at Amazon are always making her more user friendly and pairing her with more home products. Currently Amazon Echo works with Belkin Wemo, Insteon, Semsi WiFi, Nest, Wink, Honeywell, D-Link and the list keeps growing and growing.
If you’re interested in automating your home the Amazon Echo is an affordable and easy to use product that can get you started. It’s also scalable so you can add either an additional Amazon Echo to your home or you can use one of the new Echo Dots available soon.