The upside of being married to a tech geek is pretty obvious: lots and lots of gadgets. When it comes to a new product launch, it’s pretty much a guarantee that Mr. Ice Cream and his Dad will be on the phone gabbing about all the awesome new features and discussing their plans to get it. Whether it is a smart light bulb, a new feature announced on the iPhone or a new system for home automation, Mr. Ice Cream’s tech insight is always up to date. In preparation for Amazon’s prime day I thought I would write about one of our favorite Amazon products. I don’t know if it will be on sale on Tuesday, but if it is I highly recommend snagging it.
Mr. Ice Cream is always wiring up our house for the newest home automation, but it’s not always the smoothest integration and usually takes some tweaking. For instance, until Mr. Ice Cream figured out a way to link our individual locations to our house, there was a period where the lights would shut off as soon as he left, even when I was still home. Most recently, Mr. Ice Cream has been testing out different ways to use voice commands to control our lights, tv, etc. For a while we accumulated such a complicated list of commands to do anything that I typically opted for the old fashioned way – using the remote or manually flipping switches on. Needless to say, it was going to take a lot for a new voice command system to catch my eye – and until recently, I’ll be honest, I didn’t think it was possible. Then we got Alexa.
Alexa (Amazon Echo) is Amazon’s home automation hub. It is subtly stationed on our kitchen counter and has worked seamlessly since day one. Alexa is by far the best voice controlled gadget that we have used and we love it. To show you just how awesome Alexa is here is a glimpse of our typical morning:
Walk downstairs with M. “Alexa turn the downstairs lights on 10 percent,” because at 5:00am no one wants the blaring brightness of full powered lights.
- Place M’s bottle in hot water. “Alexa set timer for 10 minutes.” A few minutes later M starts to cry because he see his bottle, “Alexa how much time is left?“
- Once M is situated with his bottle, “Alexa turn on NPR” to hear the morning news. Roughly 15 minutes later M indicates he wants to hear his tunes, “Alexa play M’s playlist on Spotify.“
- “Alexa turn the kitchen lights on 80 percent” because I know by the second song (“Rolling” by Hap Palmer) M is going to start turning circles, get dizzy and lose his balance.
- While Mr. Ice Cream and I take turns making breakfast and showering, “Alexa turn on Apple TV” so M can watch his show until his food is ready.
- After breakfast before I head up to get dressed, “Alexa what is the temperature today.“
If you think you don’t need Alexa, just try it and I’ll bet you change your mind.
blogger / apricot / 482 posts
So funny, because I was reading some other blogs this morning and came across another article mentioning Alexa, which made me think of your post. Apparently you can use Alexa to access more Prime deals: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/07/you-can-use-alexa-on-amazon-prime-day-to-access-even-more-deals/
blogger / apricot / 250 posts
@Mrs. Dolphin: great tip, I hadn’t heard that! Thanks!
My husband and I were watching an Alexa tutorial on YouTube and it was demonstrating how you can easily buy items, and our Alexa heard the commands and added all the items to our Amazon cart! Luckily you still have to confirm purchases. : )
blogger / apricot / 427 posts
Ohhh yes! I LOVE my Alexa. It was my most prized birthday gift
I will say that I don’t use it nearly as much as I should/could….but it is so, so handy when I want to play music while getting dinner ready and having a dance party with the kids in the kitchen. I also love it for checking the weather every day and occasionally the news.
apricot / 288 posts
It is nice to be able to call out to Alexa for her to turn off the kitchen lights when I’m on my way out the door with two kids and all our stuff. However, there was a period of time when Alexa simply would not follow directions (like my 3 year old) and I would have to repeat myself several times. It got to the point where when she would FINALLY turn off the lights, my three-year-old daughter would look at me with amazement, clap her hands and say “Mommy, she listened to you!”
blogger / apricot / 250 posts
@Mrs. Oyster: impromptu kitchen dance parties in the kitchen are one of my favorite activities with my little one too!
persimmon / 1345 posts
My daughter talks to Alexa all day. She’s almost 4. She came home from camp and said, mom there’s a girl named Alexa in my class!
blogger / apricot / 250 posts
@reyorra: kids are so funny! We have the opposite issue where sometimes Alexa is too sensitive to hearing her name.
blogger / apricot / 250 posts
@misolee: that’s adorable that your daughter talks to Alexa! I was so surprised when my in laws were visiting and asked M where Alexa was and he ran right over and pointed to it. : )
guest
How is it hooked up to your lights? I don’t get it.
wonderful olive / 19353 posts
@reyorra: LMFAO!!!!!!!!!
This sounds so cool! We’ve been interested in home automation for awhile, but just haven’t done the research to have it done. We have friends that are super into and some that are doing just the necessities. Thanks for introducing this! Helps narrow it down for me!
apricot / 288 posts
@Kim: We have Hue lights from Philips in several rooms in our house which are hooked up to our wifi and we can dim them or even change their color from our phones. I’m not sure how Alexa is programmed in to those settings (my husband set everything up), but it’s a great system for us! We even have one of the bulbs in our daughter’s bedroom lamp so we can dim the light or turn it off without entering her room late at night (so we don’t have to worry about waking her!).
blogger / apricot / 250 posts
@Kim: We have the same setup as @reyorra using smart bulbs and we love it!
guest
Ahhh, I see. Way too high tech for me haha. I don’t mind just getting up and turning a light on or off!