The ability to turn on your lights with your voice is something that seems like it’s from Star Trek, Star Wars, or Iron Man. Now, you can easily turn on your lights, adjust your thermostat, and other things in your home with your voice for around $200.
Nothing is better than walking into a room in your house and saying: “Alexa, turn on the kitchen lights” and the lights turn on instantly without having to lift a finger! We will show you how to do this using Amazon Alexa and a few other components. If you are a fan of Google, you can do similar things with Google Home, but we will cover that in another blog post.
How to Automate Your Home with Amazon Echo
If you want to turn on your lights with your voice, you will need a few key components. A basic home automation setup can be purchased for around $200.
Amazon Echo Dot ($50) – This device is amazing and you can buy it from Amazon for around $50! It allows you to ask questions like the weather, play music from Pandora or Spotify, and most importantly, you can control your lights from your home.
Wink Hub 2 ($99) – The smart hub is the main “Brain” of any home automation system. We love the Wink Hub 2 which is available for around $99 on Amazon. The hub supports many protocols (Bluetooth LE, Kidde, Lutron Clear Connect, Wi-Fi, Z-Wave, and Zigbee) which is Geek for supporting a wide variety of “Smart” devices from light switches to sprinkler systems. It’s also completely configurable with your iPhone or Android device which makes it a breeze to get up and running.
Lutron Caséta Dimmer Switch ($60) – If you want to control your lights with your voice, you will need to replace your existing light switches with a “Smart Switch”. We love the Lutron Caseta Dimmer Switch models because they are reasonably priced and offer dimming for some of our favorite LED Light Bulbs.
How to Turn On Your Lights with Alexa
1. Ask Amazon Echo to do something…
Alexa, turn on the kitchen lights
2. Alexa Processes Your Request
The microphones on the Amazon Echo will process your request and send the command to your Wink Hub2 using WiFi.
3.) Hub Sends Command to the Light Switch
The Wink Hub 2 will process the command and send it to the Lutron light switch using the Lutron Clear Connect protocol.
4.) Your Lights Turn On
The light switch receives the command from the hub and turns on the light. The best part about using the Smart Switches is that you can still turn on and off your lights like you normally would. This makes it a perfect solution for families.
Controlling Other Parts of Your Home
The great part about the installation with the Amazon Echo and the Wink Hub 2 is that you can easily expand it to control more of your home. The Amazon Echo supports hundreds of Smart Home devices. Adding the Wink Hub offers even more options. Here are a few things that we have done in our own home:
Add additional Smart Outlets – This allows you to control plug-in lamps with your voice. For example, you can say: Alexa, turn on the living room lamp.
Add a Smart Thermostat – We have the Nest Learning Thermostat and control it with your voice (Alexa, set the temperature to 72 degrees). Check out our blog post on Smart Thermostats if you want to learn more.
Control Landscape Lighting – Using an exterior grade landscape switch, you can control outdoor landscape lighting or holiday decorations with your voice or remotely when paired with a hub. You can say: Alexa, turn on the landscape lights.
Playing Music in Your Home – You can say: Alexa, Play Pandora Rolling Stones to start hearing a Pandora Radio station based on the Rolling Stones. For better sound you can hook up the Echo to a home stereo or a sound bar using Bluetooth or the supplied cable.
Schedule Lighting – If you went the route of buying the hub (which we highly recommend) you can easily schedule lights to turn on and off at given times or a few hours before or after sunrise or sunset. We use this to automatically turn on our porch light.
Video Doorbell – Consider adding a Ring Video Doorbell (we love the Oil Rubbed Bronze) which allows you to see and talk to someone who is at your front door. It also doubles as a motion sensor which can be used to trigger other events in your home automation system.
Get the Weather – Ask the Amazon echo to tell you a joke (Alexa, tell me a joke) or for the weather (Alexa, what is the weather in Chicago). Our kids love this feature!
Need Additional Help?
Not sure what devices to buy to automate your home? Or, do you have a better suggestion? Leave a comment below and either myself or someone form the interior design team at Design Inside will help you out.
Need help with designing a stunning kitchen to put your Amazon Echo in? We offer interior design services for those who need a little design help to those that need a lot of design assistance with designing and furnishing their home. If you don’t live in the Chicago or Milwaukee area, fear not! We offer online interior design services allowing us to help you with your design problems anywhere in the world.