Alexa, the voice of the Amazon Echo, is set to take over your bedroom in just a few months. The device is already being used in many homes to control lights and appliances, but it’s only going to get more popular. Alexa will soon be able to control your bedtime routine, as well as your sleep habits. You can even ask her to play lullabies or read you a book before you go to bed. This technology is sure to revolutionize how we sleep and make our lives easier.
Alexa is great for all sorts of stuff, including smarthome control, but if you’re tired of having to turn off everything at night before you go to bed (or at least making sure it’s turned off), you can actually have Alexa do all that for you with a single command.
RELATED: How to Set Up Alexa Routines to Control Multiple Smarthome Devices at Once
We’ve talked about Alexa Routines before. It’s a feature that can make tasks around the house a lot easier and quicker, but Routines are also great for when you finally decide to shut down for the night and rest your weary eyes. Here are some common nighttime tasks that you can add to your Alexa Routine.
Turn Off Any Lights or Devices That Are Still On
Turning off all the lights in my house is probably one of the things I forget to do most often before I finally head to bed for the night. The advancement of LEDs has made my forgetfulness easier on my wallet, but it’s still a waste of electricity.
If you have smart lights sprawled across your home and they’re compatible with Alexa, you can add an action to your nightly Alexa Routine that has her turn off every single smart light for you. You’ll never have to worry again about whether or not you left the kitchen lights on.
And don’t worry; if a light is already off and you tell Alexa to turn that light off, it won’t simply toggle it and turn it back on. Smarthome devices are smart enough to know that if you want to turn a light off and it’s already turned off, it will simply just ignore your command and keep the light off.
Lock All the Doors
Maybe you lock your exterior doors right after you close them when you’re going in and out; maybe not. Most people lock them before going to sleep, but people can be forgetful sometimes. The good news is that you can have Alexa automatically do a check when you go off to bed and lock any of smart locks that you forgot to lock about.
Of course, this requires a smart lock that works with Alexa. If you don’t already have one, they can be a worthwhile investment if you tend to forget to lock your door or just hate using physical keys. Plus, most houses usually only have a couple of exterior doors, so you won’t be spending a ton of money to outfit an entire home with smart locks.
Turn On Any Fans or Other Nighttime Devices
While we turn off most devices at bedtime, there are some things that you may turn on once you get in bed, like a fan or a white noise machine. You can have Alexa turn these on if you’re using smart plugs with them.
Smart plugs are fairly cheap, but they’re a super simple way of turning “dumb” appliances into smarthome devices of sorts. You can use them to turn on or off something like a simple fan from your phone or using your voice, wherever you are.
Plus, you can add smart plugs to your Alexa Routines and have them turn on or off whenever you run a routine. I love having a fan running for white noise, so having Alexa automatically turn it on when it’s time for bed is convenient.
Get Alexa to say, “Good night” Back to You
Last but not least, if you want to give Alexa a bit more personality when she responds to your bedtime routine, you can have her say something back to you after you give her a voice command, instead of just saying “OK” or a quick confirmation chime.
To do this, you’ll add it as another action, just like you would with the lights, locks, smart plugs, etc. Only this time you’ll select “Alexa says” from the options.
You can select “Custom” and have her say whatever you want, or you can tap on “Phrases” and then “Good Night” to select from a list of nighttime-related phrases.
Of course, all of these are just the tip of the iceberg as far as what you could include in your own Alexa nighttime Routine, but this at least gives you some ideas to get started.
Heck, if you have a garage door that can connect to Alexa, you can even have her close it if you might have forgotten to, that way it’s not left open all night, which is something that happens more often than I’d care to admit!
