Alexa Turns Three: The Evolution of Amazon's Alexa

Happy Birthday, Alexa!
The Amazon Echo Turns Three Years Old!

The Evolution of Alexa and the Amazon Echo

Time sure flies when you're having fun, as the saying goes.  It doesn't seem like Alexa has been around for three years! But today marks the third anniversary of the Echo's release.  Let's take a look at how Alexa has evolved over a three-year period.

Amazon Echo, Generation One, 2014

The Amazon Echo was the first Alexa-enabled product sold by Amazon. Initially, it was offered to Prime Members by invitation only, as well as to a couple of lucky Vine Reviewers.  Generation One Echos cost about $200, but early adopters received them at a 50% discount.  Echos remained an invitation-only item until well after the Holiday Season was over, making them a very hot gift item. And of course, by the time Amazon made them available to the General Public, they stopped the 50% discount for Prime Members.

Generation One Echos shipped with an included voice remote, another practice that was soon discontinued.  For most of 2015, the Echo was available in limited quantities, and was a very hard item to get.  In 2016, used and refurbished Echos started hitting the market, and in fact, refurbished Echos were a hot commodity during Amazon's second "Prime Day" in 2016.

Initially, the Echo was primarily a glorified version of Siri, combined with a voice-activated media player.  Few skills were available, and third-party manufacturers had not begun making the dozens of Alexa-compatible devices we can find today.  In fact, although they supported Pandora, Spotify, Sirius XM, and other music service support was yet to come.  In 2014, the most impressive thing about the Echo was its "cool factor." It was the first and only voice assistant that was NOT part of a phone OS at the time. It also performed better than Siri on many tasks.

Creating Groups with Alexa (Smart Home Series, Part 8)

Make Your Smart Devices Work Together
by Creating Alexa Groups

Control Devices Made by Different Manufacturers
with a Single Voice Command

  

This is Part 8 in a series about building an Alexa compatible Smart Home, and about learning to use the Alexa App.  Previous articles focused on setting up and using Alexa, as well as setting up a Smart Plug and a Smart Lighting System.  You can find Part 1 of this series here, as well as links to all 7 previous chapters in the Sidebar.

Today we're going to discuss something we've touched upon in previous articles: setting up Groups in Alexa. Setting up groups allows you to control various Smart Devices with a single Alexa command.

What is an Alexa Group?

 A Group is merely a collection of devices, gathered together, so you can control all at once.  We briefly touched on Groups in Part 1 of this series, in the section called "How Does the Echo Help with Your Smart Home?"  As noted then, each Smart Device comes with its own app that you typically need to use to set-up the device. Without the help of Alexa, you'd also need to use the app to control the device. This is all well and good when you have only Smart Devices from a single manufacturer, AND if you do not want to control things with your voice. But what if you have some Smart Light Bulbs, like a few Hue Lights, and other lights on Smart Outlets, like the WeMo? Do you really want to have to open a few different apps just to turn on your lights?  Setting up Alexa groups eliminates the need to do that.

A group is simply a set of devices and/or scenes, saved under a specified name. It is very similar to the concept of "rooms" used by the Hue Lighting System, except it's a thousand times more flexible. A group can consist of one or more device.  You may then activate the device or devices with a single command word.

For example, I have Hue Bulbs in both my bedroom and office. Both these rooms are on my top floor. I also have bedside lights controlled by a WeMo Smart Outlet.  I have all of these lights in a group called "Upstairs."  I can turn them all on by saying "Alexa, turn on Upstairs." Without this grouping, I'd have to say "Alexa, turn on Bedroom" to turn on the Hue Light in the bedroom, "Alexa, turn on Office," to turn on the Hue Light in the Office, and "Alexa, turn on Bedside," to turn on the bedside WeMo. Because I have all 3 lights in a group called "Upstairs," instead I can just say "Alexa, turn on Upstairs," and she turns on all 3 lights.

So Alexa allows me to place items from different rooms and  manufacturers into "groups" for easy control, as well as adding voice control capabilities to those devices.  It allows me to control sets of devices without having to open several apps. I can also add "Scenes" from the device's own app into an Alexa Group.  I can then access all those things at once, merely by commanding Alexa with the name of that group. Grouping can take a half dozen different commands, and unite them into a single word.

How Do I Set Up an Alexa Group?

You use the Alexa App to set up your Alexa Groups, of course. You can set up groups using either the ios (Apple) app, the android app, the Fire Tablet app, or the browser-based Alexa Web Portal. Before diving in, you need to make sure you have all of your apps and devices linked and prepared. So it's best to check those things first, and then you can go on and get grouping.

The Philips Hue Smart Lighting System, Part 2 (Smart Home Series, Part 7)

The Philips Hue Smart Lighting System, Part 2

Programming your Philips Smart Lights

Set your Lights to Turn On and Off Automatically,
Learn to Program Light Routines, and Explore New Hue Features

This is Part 2 of a tutorial on using the Philips Hue Smart Lighting System, and Part 7 of our series on building a Smart Home using Alexa.  Last week, we reviewed the Philips Hue System, talked about its various options, and learned how to set up the system. We learned how to use Alexa and the Amazon Echo to turn lights on and off.  This week, we will be looking at programming your Hue Lights so that they turn on and off automatically. You can read Part 1 of our Hue tutorial here, and you can read Part 1 of our Smart Home Series here. Links to other chapters can be found in the sidebar.

Automating your Philips Hue Bulbs

As we briefly discussed in Part 1, Philips Hue Bulbs can be controlled remotely, or programmed to come on automatically. Today, we're going to learn how to schedule your lights using the Hue App. Before setting up schedules, you need to have your bulbs installed and grouped into rooms.  (See Part 1 to learn how to do this.)  You will also need your mobile device, running the Hue App. (You can also do this on a Kindle Fire Tablet using the "All 4 Hue" app.) Presently, you can NOT set schedules and routines through the Web Portal; you can merely turn your lights on and off.  Most programming must be done through the Hue App.

What Types of Automation does Hue Offer?

Currently, the Hue System offers:

• Home & Away Scheduling: Also known as "Geofencing," you can set Hue to turn on certain rooms when you come home. Similarly, you can set Hue to turn off certain rooms (or all Hue devices) when you leave your house.
• Wake Up: You can set certain lights or rooms to turn on "Wake lights," as a supplement to or replacement for an alarm clock.
• Go to Sleep: You can program your lights to fade out or turn off in preparation for bed time.
• Timers: You can set a timer to have certain lights or rooms turn on or off in X number of minutes.
• Other Routines: This is where you can set traditional light timers, and "randomize" turn on/off times to make it look less like the lights are timer controlled. You can set up timers to turn lights on or off, and to dim or brighten lights in up to 4 rooms per "routine."
• Hue Labs Formulas: Hue Labs periodically introduces new "formulas" for lighting automation. These formulas can be installed to your Hue System through the app.

We will discuss each of these features, as well as how to set each up.  With the exception of Hue Labs Formulas, these functions are set up using the "Routines" tab of the app.  This is the tab accessed by tapping the "Clock" icon.

The Philips Hue Smart Lighting System, Part 1 (Smart Home Series, Part 6)

The Alexa-Compatible Philips Hue Smart Lighting System 

Automate Your Lights with Philips Hue and Alexa

This is part 6 in a series about building an Alexa Compatible Smart Home. Previous articles focused on The Alexa App itself, fun things to do with your Echo devices, and how to customize your Alexa and Echo experience. (See the sidebar for links to previous lessons. You can find Part 1 here.) Currently, we are talking about adding third-party devices to a Smart Home set up. Today, we'll be reviewing the Philips Hue System and discussing how to use it with your Alexa-enabled devices.

What is the Philips Hue?

Philips Hue is a wireless Smart lighting system.  Hue allows you to control and customize your lights in many ways.  At its most basic, you can turn your lights on and off via voice or via app.  At the more sophisticated end, you can create lighting groups, automate lighting schedules and tones, dim and brighten, as well as schedule. Hue lights eliminate the need for separate dimmers and timers. Hue bulbs can convert existing fixtures and lamps into Smart Appliances.  Hue also offers a wide variety of smart lighting products, such as lamps and strip lights, to help you light your space in many flexible ways.  They also offer installable dimmer switches and motion detectors to extend control-ability of your lighting.

Phillips Hue systems all begin with a Hue Hub. This is a small box that attaches to your router and pairs with your Hue Products.  Each hub (or bridge) can connect with at least 50 Hue products. (Phillips just released Generation 3 of the Hue Hub. Later generation hubs can handle a larger number of devices. Gen 1 hubs were capable of connecting with "up to 50" bulbs.)

The second vital part of the Hue system is the Hue App.  The app interfaces with your lights, and allows you to control and customize them in all the ways described above. The app is available for ios (Apple), Android, and Fire Tablets.  And of course, there is a Hue Alexa Skill.  Alexa works wonderfully with all parts of the Hue System. Alexa gives you voice control for your lights when you are home, and the Hue App gives you remote control when you are not at home.  Through the app, you can set up all types of lighting "scenes" and "routines."  It is also IFTTT compatible, for aficionados of that app.

And of course, the third part of the Hue System are the lighting products themselves.  Philips offers a full range of Hue-enabled Lighting Devices, from single bulbs, to lighting fixtures.  Their multi-color bulbs and lighting strips are two of their more popular products.  They offer flood light bulbs in both colored and plain white.  So you can buy lamps and fixtures with Hue compatibility built right in, or you can add bulbs to the lamps and fixtures you already own. All Hue lighting products are LED, for maximum energy efficiency and long life. Philips Hue Bulbs can reduce power costs in many ways.