Amazon’s digital assistant can now control some of your smart devices for you, without you having to ask. But before you start dreaming about a day when Alexa has your coffee ready for you in the morning and your car is already warming up in the garage for your commute, know that her powers are somewhat limited in this first go-around.
To get started, set up “Hunches” in your Alexa app (iOS, Android). Pull up the app, tap Lake Tap in the lower right corner Settings, and scroll down a bit. Tap on Hunches when you see it, a screen will appear that looks like this:
Tap on “Set up automatic actions”, and you’ll get a small list of possible actions Alexa can take on your behalf. I mainly have smart bulbs at home, so I have no fewer than two to choose from:
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When you select an action, you will see a short video that tells you a bit more about Alexa’s automatic response. You can also tap More Info to get an idea of what parameters might cause Alexa to take her actions on your behalf. For example:
When you’re ready to turn on Alexa’s auto hunch, tap The next. In my case, I then have to choose which lights I want Alexa to control, but that’s it. My “hunch” is then set and I can go back to the Hunches section of my Alexa app to check when Alexa activates one.
To remove a hunch, click the gear icon in the top right corner of the Hunches screen. Look for the ‘Automatic actions’ section, tap any of the smart devices you see and you can turn an available automatic action on or off:
Alexa’s automatic actions currently only work for a subset of smart devices, including lights, thermostats, doors and switches.
When you’re done playing with hunches for this, you should check out Alexa’s brand new one too “Energy Dashboard” function to see how much juice your smart devices are using during the day.
To access, just tap Appliances at the bottom of your app, then tap it Energy dashboard box upwards. Once you’ve read a little about how it works and tap Browse devices continue. However, that is where I came; either the feature still hasn’t rolled out to me, or I need to adjust something with my connected bulbs so Alexa knows to add them to a dashboard.
Still, it will be a fun feature to play with. While it won’t be as accurate as, say, the energy readings you might get from a smart switch itself, it will at least be a good way to see if your appliances are using more energy than you’d like. Nobody enjoys that monthly pandemic energy bill.