Home Automation

An Update on The Disembodied Female Voice Called Alexa That My Kids Always Hear Me Talking To

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When I last wrote about my Amazon echo I said I would be trying to teach it some smart things commands. Yeah, so I didn’t do that. Since setting up my Logitech Harmony with my echo to turn my TV on and off I haven’t really spent much time with the echo teaching it anything new. I’ve continue to use the echo. Apparently not as much as other people who are very vocal about how awesome it is however I am using it. My use case has become listening to music and checking the weather. Of course the main reason I bought the echo in the first place was I wanted to use voice commands to listen to music and my phone paired with a Bose Bluetooth speaker wasn’t doing that very well. With that fact in mind the echo is extremely successful at what I originally purchased it for

I did have hopes of using it for more than just music. I’m not sure if it’s usefulness hasn’t improved for me because I do not use Google for contacts, calendars, tasks. I also do not currently get my news from the radio or TV. I could see using an echo in my bedroom to listen to news stories as in getting ready in the morning however I don’t see the cost benefit of buying another device to do that specific task. The current echo I have is in our living room and suits its primary function very well in that location.

I could see over time having another device in different rooms however I’m holding back on that partly due to curiosity if Apple will release something to compete against the echo. They likely will however what the product turns out to be is anyone’s guess. And plenty of people are guessing, so I’m not going to. Until Apple makes an announcement I keep reading the weekly updates I get from Amazon on what new tricks the echo can perform to see if there’s any new features that will peak my interest. So far I’m still waiting.

One thing I do want to find time to focus on is ;to see if I can integrate my smart things with the echo a bit. That project however is not on the top of my hobby project list. Of course there’s a lot of specific things I want to do with my smart things that I haven’t done in over a year. Since we want to get a house at some point in the near term investing in any fixed devices such as power or light switches in this apartment doesn’t seem worth the value or time. All this extra integration might just wait until after we move.

Teaching Alexa New Commands

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Tonight I taught my Echo to turn on and off my media center using my Harmony Hub.  I showed MC and she was not impressed.  I am starting to think unless Alexa makes her a full breakfast and delivers it to her in bed she won’t be impressed by what it can do.

I also got the echo to take its own task list items I give it and add it to Trello so it is useful for me.

Next up is integrating smartthings commands.

I am not ashamed that I get excited by LED lightbulbs

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Today MC and I took some of our holiday to goto Home Depot.  We are looking at renovating our kitchen and we needed to investigate some details.  After we finished doing that I wanted to check out the lighting section.  Our fixtures in the ceiling are not big enough to allow me to put in 75 Watt equivalent CFL bulbs.  I have enough trouble seeing on a bright sunny day outside so I can use every extra lumen I can get.  I recently read about a flat LED bulb from Phillips.  The shape of the bulb had me curious if a 75 Watt equivalent would fit in the ceiling fixtures.  The only problem has been that the last Home Depot and every online store I have gone to have not had them in stock.  I am not ashamed to say I was very happy to see that this Home Depot had them in stock.  I picked up 4 of them to see if they would work out.  I was happy to see that the bulbs do fit perfectly in the fixtures were only 60 watt equivalent CFL’s fit before.  In our bedroom it was amazing how an extra 300-400 lumens make the room so much brighter.

Besides the fact that I now have brighter lighting in the apartment, these bulbs shouldn’t need to be changed until after Amelia is out of College.  That is assuming we still live in this apartment.  The LED bulbs will also allow me to dim them.  Master plan is to put in smart dimmer switches that plug into my home automation system.  The possibilities get interesting once i do that.  I hope to write about that once my plans start to materialize, but I am excited by the possibilities.  Yes I said it i am excited about new light bulbs and light switches. I had to think about why that was.  The reason I came to is I always loved Science Fiction.  I don’t yet have swooshing doors that open when i walk up to them but I can have lights that dim depending on the time of day or go off when people leave the room.  That on top of the fact that my iPad seems to do more than those PADD’s in Star Trek The Next Generation my 12 year old self would think I am living in a great Sci-Fi future.  Take that Star Trek!