brightspark
Member
- Messages
- 41,270
- Location
- yarm stockton on tees
Been debating a new/old nokia 3310 for work. Leave the smart phone in the van.my phone![]()
My wife said to say she also has the IFTTT app and recommends having a look at that. She said it does things like turns on lights automatically when she comes within a certain distance of home etc. https://ifttt.com/amazon_alexaSo can you have multiple Echo Dots all controlling the same objects?
It would be a pin to have to go to one Echo Dot all the time.
Cheers
Peter
Funnily enough thats exactly what my wife said.Wont be long till we're all
![]()
![]()
Smart phone ??
View attachment 127793
We have a Google Home Mini in the kitchen. I've only had it since Christmas, but it has come in very handy. Today I was making a hot toddy for the wife because she's choked with the cold. I'll probably be choked with the cold soon too, so I made one for myself as well. The first recipe that comes up on the laptop has U.S. measurements for the ingredients and no option to switch to metric. "Ok Google, how much is 1 cup in millilitres?" I go through the rest of the ingredients on the list.
One quirk of the Mini is that if you pause music ("OK Google, Pause"), it will start up again if the side of the unit is tapped. I found this out by accident when the cat decided to use the Mini as a pillow and got a blast of Bon Jovi in her ear.
ive got something that turns everything on and off and its freeits called me finger
Yup. They are all attached to the same “home” so can control anything but some aspects, like timers, are local to the echo.So can you have multiple Echo Dots all controlling the same objects?
It would be a pin to have to go to one Echo Dot all the time.
Cheers
Peter
Thought an update may be of interest.
I now have one light and two sockets under control by Alexa. One socket is a posh "plug in" version (very well made and only about £11 from Lightinthebox) the other is one I made up using a separate 3A controller and bolted two single deep socket boxes together with a single socket on top. Most of the time they work on command works.
But, iIt was very bad at Christmas, we suspect the server for the actual control devices (ewelink) was struggling as everybody bought "Smart Home" for Christmas and they were overloaded. It took a few days for them to upgrade their servers! There are often delays between Amazon and Ewelink where having asked for a light to be turned on/off, I will be told by Alexa that the device cold not be controlled, only to find it goes on or off a few seconds later. My son is looking into developing a local app, so we don't have to deal with the ewelink server and can keep it much more local (and under our control). If anybody has any pointers, please let me know.
The other irritation is that Amazon don't seem to do timers. I'd like to do the bathroom fan heater through Alexa, but I don't want to have to go downstairs to turn it off every time. All I want is it to be on for say, 10 minutes after the initial "on" command. However, Amazon don't seem to do time delays and whilst ewelink do, the trigger from Alexa will turn them on, but when ewelink turns off, it doesn't seem to be recognised by Amazon. I got a very warm bathroom one night whilst experimenting!
Cheers
Peter