What Alexa-enabled Gadgets Are Worth Trying?

With over 50,000 skills,  Alexa is the clear industry leader in the smart assistants' industry. If you've ever wanted a smart robot to do the chores for you, Alexa is as close as you can get to that dream. Even better, she's getting smarter and more capable of accomplishing commands as technology gets improved. 

The smart assistant is compatible with any type of gadget you can think of including light switches, thermostats, and security cameras. When you think about it, Alexa is simply a wireless speaker that will answer any of your queries. This is similar to Siri and Google Assistant. However, when you pair it with the smart appliances in your home, it's clear to see that it's much more practical.
Just by talking to it, you will receive help to do a variety of tasks around the house without you having to move an inch. Hence, everyday tasks are much easier to accomplish and definitely much more fun.

Below you will find a list of the best Alexa-enabled gadgets that you must get your hands on!

Home Control

Lights play a very important role not only for the home's aesthetics but also for our health. If you want a smart home, you should begin with the Philips Hue Starter Kit. As well as, you can also use the smart assistant to turn on the lights for the whole house. The best thing about it is that Philips has recently upgraded its app which means that you don't have to use your voice all the time.

Without a doubt LED lighting is increasingly becoming popular all over the world. The reason for this is because even though they're smart, they only require to be screwed in like an ordinary light bulb. Some of the commands Alexa can do are:

• Turn on the lights at a particular time

• Adjust the degrees of brightness

• Turn off the lights in whatever room you wish

If you want to do more with the smart light system and Alexa, you will have to consider purchasing light dimmers. With the dimmers, you will have to use a bridge for the bulbs to work.

Nest Learning Thermostat

This gadget is not only smart but also energy-efficient. In fact, through the innovative heating system integrated, it will reduce energy consumption by as much as 10% which means that you will save time and money. After you turn the heat up a for a few days at a particular time, Nest will remember and automatically warm up the room to your desired temperature. When you leave the home, it activates the GPS to know where you are and it automatically sets itself on Eco Temperature.

There are many features that this gadget includes in order to provide you with convenience. By using your voice the thermostat will:

• It remembers the previous temperatures and it builds a schedule around yours

• It gives you a report with how much you've saved on the electricity bill

• It produces a warning signal when temperatures are dangerously high or low

You can use the actual unit itself, the app, or your voice to control the temperature, turn it on/off, and you can even ask Alexa to read the report the smart thermostat produces.

Robot Vacuum Cleaner

Long gone are the days where you had to waste time and effort using a heavy and loud vacuum cleaner. Technology has advanced so far that you can make a robot clean better than you ever could. This is why you should consider a robot vacuum cleaner. By using your voice you can:

• Set the vacuum cleaner to start cleaning at a particular time

• Decide for how long it should clean

• Schedule it to clean a particular room only

You can use robotic pool cleaners to vacuum and mop your swimming pool as well. However, even though they're from the same category, they aren't Alexa-enabled so you cannot control them by using your voice. Nonetheless, after thorough research on different websites such as Popular.Reviews, it's clear to see that even though they lack such a feature, they're full of innovative and convenient features.  For example, they automatically calculate the route and size of the pool to avoid obstacles.  

Security

Perhaps, the biggest help smart assistants are with the security of your home. For example, the Nest Hello is a combination of a camera-doorbell which scans the faces of those that approach your home and it will tell you exactly who is at the door. It does this by using the pictures of your family and friends you ID within the app.

By using your voice, you can control the smart doorbell by asking to pull up the live feed on your smartphone. Even though you cannot have a 2-way conversation, you can ask Alexa to either lock or unlock the door. Of course, to do this, you will also need a smart lock.

Smart locks such as the August Smart Lock 2nd Gen uses geolocation and it detects when you're leaving or arriving home to know whether to lock or unlock the door. Through the Z-Wave Plus technology, you can easily integrate it with smart assistants to check on the status of the door, open or close the door, and to set up temporary passwords for visitors.