What Makes Your Home Smart?

It is a work in progress but I have been working for the last year on making my home smart.  It all started when I got an Amazon Echo for Christmas last year.  At first we just enjoyed asking Alexa to play music and check the weather report for us.  Eventually I realized what a powerful little black tower my Alexa is.  Life with a family is busy and the kitchen is the hub of most activity.  Just a guess but probably 50% of our time at home is likely spent in that one room.  With that in mind how cool is it that you can turn off all the lights upstairs with your voice while standing in the kitchen?  You don’t even have to go upstairs to check if the lights are on.  You can just tell Alexa to turn them all off upstairs.

Here are a few of the very cool things I am doing and plan to do this year with our Echo.

1. Added an Echo Dot for upstairs. I love that I can listen to books while I am putting on makeup.
2. Just installed a wi-fi piece to my existing garage door to control the door including an alert if it is left open.
3. Wi-fi light switch that controls the lights beside our garage door. The ones we were always leaving on are now on a schedule so they turn on 30 minutes after sunset and stay on for 4 hours before turning off.
4. Motion sensitive light switches for the laundry and garage so when you are carrying a laundry basket or groceries you don’t have to struggle for the switch.
5. Next on my list are wi-fi light switches for upstairs. I need them for the kids rooms, hall lights and the bonus room.  Figure it will easily save me the cost of the switches when I can be sure the lights are off when we leave for the day.
6. Adding a few wi-fi light bulbs to lights downstairs like the one over the sink that has a very inconvenient place for the switch.
7. Wi-fi door lock for between the garage and house that will unlock when my smart phone gets close to it.

I am just getting started.  What products do you you love that you have already installed?  Have you discovered anything else Alexa can do to make life easier?  I would love to hear!