Alexa Routines and Skills

Ayresome

Ayresome

Active member
Further to the Smart Heating thread, I have now conquered the technical difficulties I had with Alexa and Siri (Siri has been binned) and have automated my lights and plugs. However I read up (somewhat bored in lockdown) that there are thousands of Alexa Skills and Routines that can be shared and I was wondering if anybody would share their skills or routines to help a novice start building them?

My first effort from yesterday was to wake me up at 7 am with the weather and turn on Radio 2. Not very adventurous but i only started looking at Alexa following the Smart Heating thread.

Alternatively, is there any decent websites I can visit to view these skills/routines?
 
We have ones for 10 minute heating boosts (to shut the cats up when they get rowdy) and one hour heating boosts.

One that turns on the receiver and sets input to Sonos, and plays a playlist on all Sonos devices

Landing and hall lights on at 20% once it gets dark

Garden lights on/off on routine

Presence mimicking routine for when we are away (tv on/off, lights etc)

Etc

You can have some fun with it as can make Alexa say things as part of the routine. Depends what decides you have in your home and how you use them. For example we have a goodnight routine that turns all devices off, sets lights to white and 40% on living room, kitchen, hall, stairs and our bedroom, they all go off after 5 mins except bedroom which is ten, although we can tuen it off with voice if done quicker. Used because those are the rooms we go in before bed and saves us doing one light at a time.

Harmony remotes can link in a lot of other tech so you can work into routines if not natively compatible (tv, consoles, receiver etc)
 
Also if you have hue you can use geofencing to turn on your drive lights, hall lights, kitchen lights or whatever you need when you get near home - useful for when we are bringing shopping in etc
 
If anyone wants some cheap smart home products look in lidl. Light strips, bulbs, hubs, switches, use zigbee so compatible with hue (except entertainment features)

My girlfriend HATED smart home stuff for the first 2 weeks and now she can’t live without it. It’s a culture change in the short term but works so well once you set it up properly. All our light switches are just for future owners/decor purposes now. Everything done via Alexa or routine

My home office / gaming room has 6 lights in it and doing them all manually would be a f’in ballache
 
Loved all this until SKY sent a new upgraded broadband box with a new code so had to reset everything. Took ages and still not all correct. For some reason I cannot get my living room lights working and my upstairs bedroom Alexa linked with the Amazon music account I have everywhere else in the house.

Its been a nightmare so good luck to anyone when the time comes for them to replace the box.
 
NortonExile said:
Loved all this until SKY sent a new upgraded broadband box with a new code so had to reset everything. Took ages and still not all correct. For some reason I cannot get my living room lights working and my upstairs bedroom Alexa linked with the Amazon music account I have everywhere else in the house.

Its been a nightmare so good luck to anyone when the time comes for them to replace the box.
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I've bought one of these https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-networking/deco/deco-m4/ and set up a new wireless network on it and all my alexa/hue/hive stuff is connected to that so when I switch broadband supplier then I'm not dependent on the new hubs network and everything still works.
 
Yeah
mr_spoons said:
I've bought one of these https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-networking/deco/deco-m4/ and set up a new wireless network on it and all my alexa/hue/hive stuff is connected to that so when I switch broadband supplier then I'm not dependent on the new hubs network and everything still works.
Click to expand...

I have the same deco set up but s4 3 pack, with one of the upstairs one backhauled via Ethernet outside the house so my office / gaming pc is on fastest connection.

Up problem can be all we by enable / disable skill sometimes - if it’s hue there is a group in fb Phillips hue uk that is good for support
 
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