Amazon Alexa

Home Automation Hubs and How to Pick One

As far as home automation hubs go, the sky is the limit… as far as cost anyway. There’s a pretty large range in what they can do and it all depends on what you want to do and how technical you are as well. If all you want to do is control a few items…Read more

Alexa Can Now Control Wink-Compatible Smart Locks

Recently Amazon has added smart lock capability to it’s Alexa smart home API. I’ve been patiently waiting for the fine folks at Homeseer to update their skill so that I can start doing the same without having to say “Alexa, tell Homeseer to lock the front door” etc…. Anyway, Wink has beaten them to the…Read more

Google Home Review

So I set up Google Home a couple of weeks ago and figured it had been up and running long enough for me to give a preliminary review. So far the WAF factor (as well as children) has been meh… Don’t get me wrong. I love gadgets. I love Google stuff. I was a big…Read more

Alexa, IFTTT and Homeseer

Just a quick and dirty demo of what I can do using the power of the Amazon Echo, IFTTT and Homeseer. There are several ways to control it. Alexa is limited to single statements and using IFTTT “triggers” and is also limited to whether IFTTT is being laggy or not. It’s usually pretty stable but…Read more