Gadgetory

Amazon echo is a voice-activated cloud-connected smart speaker with an artificial intelligence named Alexa packed inside along with streaming music and reading headlines and giving you the weather forecast Alexa has a growing role in the smart home to controlling smart gadgets like Philips Hughes color-changing bulbs and Belkin Wemo switches but Amazon echo also has a channel on IFFT a free online automation service that helps you sync it up with web services and other smart home gadgets and now you can actually create custom voice commands to control those other gadgets let's show you how to do it first you'll need to set your Amazon echo up just plug it in and download the Alexa app to your Android or iOS device and you'll be able to walk through the pairing process in just a couple of minutes next you'll want to go on to its website and if you haven't already create an account once you're all signed in you'll be able to activate that Amazon echo channel now it's time to craft a recipe that'll have Alexa doing our bidding once you're all logged in you're gonna want to click on my recipes on the IFFT home page then click create a recipe you'll see the if this then that template the if this is the trigger part of the equation that's the thing that's going to trigger your recipe and that's going to be Amazon echo so click on the blue this and then select Amazon Alexa that's the channel for Amazon echo you've got a number of different trigger options it can be when the timer goes off or when you add something to your to-do list but the one that we want is a specific phrase so select say a specific phrase as you're triggered so for us that's say Alexa trigger my recipe so I'm just going to write my recipe on the computer now that we've got the Amazon echo trigger setup let's go to the then that side of the equation that's going to be our action the thing that happens and we tell Alexa trigger my recipe for our purposes let's go with the Nest Learning Thermostat I like this one because Amazon echo isn't a works with nest advice it doesn't have a custom thermostat integration that's where it really shines it helps devices that don't normally work together work together I'm going to go with turn the fans on for 15 minutes but there's plenty more you can do to you can browse through all the channels on it to get some inspiration all using Alexa all thanks to IFFT i'm right chris for CNET appliances for more summer well covered chocol sina.com slash smart - huh