Amazon Digital Assistant can now control some of your smart devices without the need for any applications. But before you start dreaming of a day when Alexa will make you coffee in the morning and the car will already be heated in the garage for your daily commute, you know that her powers have dwindled slightly on this first trip.
To get started, set up “Hunches” in your Alexa app (iOS, Android). Pull up on the app, tap it Month at the bottom right, tap Configurationand scroll down a bit. Tap Hunches when you see it, a screen that looks like this will open:
Tap “Set up automatic actions” and you’ll get a small list of potential actions that Alexa can do on your behalf. I mainly have smart lights in my house, so I have two to choose from:
G / O Media may receive a commission
When you select an action, you’ll get a short video that tells you a little more about Alexa’s automated response. You can also tap “Learn More” to find out what settings can cause Alexa to perform its actions on your behalf. For example:
If you’re ready to enable Alexa auto-presentation, tap Next. In my case, I have to choose which lights I want Alexa to control, but that’s it. Then my “foreboding” is set up and I can go back to Hunches part of my Alexa app to check when Alexa will activate one.
To remove a hunch, just click on the gear icon at the top right of the Hunches screen. Find the “Auto Actions” section, tap any smart device you see, and you can turn an available auto-action on or off:
Alexa’s automatic actions only work on a subset of smart devices at the moment, including lights, thermostats, doors, and switches.
Once you’ve finished playing with that desire, you should also check out Alexa’s new one “Power Control Panel” function to see how much juice your smart devices use throughout the day.
To access it, just tap Devices at the bottom of the app, then tap the button Energy control panel towards the top. Once you read a little about how it works and tap Browse by devices proceed. That’s what I was able to do, though; either the feature has not yet been deployed to me or I need to tweak something with my lights on so Alexa knows how to add them to a board.
Still, it will be a fun feature to play. While it won’t be as accurate as, for example, power readings that can be obtained from a single smart switch, it will at least provide a decent way to see if your devices use more power than you’d like. No one likes the monthly pandemic-powered energy bill.