When you say that someday you’d like to live in a smart house, do you imagine yourself just sitting down on the couch while everything else around your house works to give you what you need, including a robot that obeys your every wish and command? Okay, there’s no such thing yet that can do all those things (and we say yet, because someday…) but the closest thing that we have right now is this newly-announced integration of Amazon Echo with SmartThings products.
Amazon Echo on the surface looks like just any other Bluetooth-enabled speakers, but is of course more than that. It allows you to do hands-free tasks like controlling the music, getting information from the Web, asking it for the weather and news, looking at things to buy and actually buying stuff. It is voice-controlled, as you have to prompt it by saying “Alexa” and then your command. It is cloud-based and learns from your behavior to make it even smarter.
And now, this new development will make it all the more integrated and smart as you can use it to control SmartThings products that are in your home, from lights, switches, or items that are plugged into the SmartThings Power Outlet. You just need to set up the integration, which is a little bit complicated, but when you have it running, it will probably make your life a little less complicated.
The Amazon Echo integration is compatible with the current SmartThings Hub and also the upcoming next-generation Hub. The latter is already up for pre-order for just $99 and has the capacity to help control and manage hundreds of smart products from the company as well.
SOURCE: SmartThings
The Amazon echo provides a perfect clearing house for smart device technologies. I have a hybrid house with Wink, Hue, and Wemo devices. My echo interfaces with all of them so I don’t need my phone or three separate apps to turn on/off lights, appliances, switches, etc. Allows grouping of these devices regardless of the maker.