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Home automation! Tell us what you can do with your Google Assistants, Echoes, and Alexas for $2

Posted by Alex Sinclair in Tech

It's time for you to share some home automation hacks. Whether you have a Google Assistant, an Alexa, or another home assistant, we want to know what cool stuff you can do with it. Never mind telling it to play a song or asking it what else that actor has been in, tell us some hacks, tricks, and lesser-known bits of functionality.

You can enter this bounty with video or text. We're after a minimum of 50 words in either medium.

already paid

$10 / 30

Reward details

This reward closed to entries at 9:58am on March 12, 2024 but you can still reply, react, and join the conversation below! If you’d like to enter other rewards which are still open, click here.

Created at 10:27am, 6th March, 2024. Page last updated at 2:44pm, 16th May, 2024.
Deadline at 12:00am, 12th March, 2024.

FirestormGamingTeam 3/9/2024, 7:50:53 PM

So, for our home, we have four Alexas. One in the front room, one in the boy's room, and my room and the girl's room.

One thing we do is have an alarm go off at 7 am every morning at full volume so that's quite funny, we are also a family who loves music, at Christmas time, we use them to blare Christmas music out around the house.

The funniest way I use it is when say the little lads are in bed and not going to sleep and I suddenly come through on the Alexa "GO TO SLEEP PUNKS" and you hear giggling.

Alex SinclairMod3/12/2024, 10:07:38 AM

FirestormGamingTeam

I love how many of these entries are just pranks. We've been given tech that's the stuff of sci-fi dreams, and all we use it for is messing with each other.

FirestormGamingTeam 3/12/2024, 11:21:18 AM

Alex Sinclair

Pure human nature really, the more we can mess/scare each other without anyone getting hurt, you guarantee we are going to do it.

Sturmer 3/8/2024, 8:52:28 PM

Home automation has been quite the journey for me, starting with IKEA lamps and switches. My initial goal was to gain more control over their bulbs, especially to enable a 'night mode' where the lights dim to 10% power at night in specific areas.

Initially, the IKEA hubs didn't offer this functionality, but I discovered their bulbs and switches are ZigBee devices. So, I set up Home Assistant on my NAS server. Opting for convenience, I chose to build it using Docker. However, I soon learned that the Docker container for Home Assistant couldn't directly communicate with the Zigbee antenna via a virtual USB port. To solve this, I installed an MQTT broker to facilitate signal transmission in both directions.

Then, I faced another hurdle: my antenna didn't support zstack. I had to dismantle it, solder some wires, and flash a different firmware. After overcoming these challenges, I realized that the Home Assistant public blueprints for IKEA switches didn't offer the dimming functionality I wanted. This led me to delve into YAML coding, a language unfamiliar to me. Thanks to ChatGPT, I managed to navigate through issues with punctuation and formatting.

It's been a long and winding road, but now, whenever I embark on a nocturnal 'fridge hunt', I enjoy just the right amount of light. This journey into home automation has not only given me the control I desired but also enriched my understanding of smart home technology.

Alex SinclairMod3/12/2024, 10:10:07 AM

Sturmer

The midnight-snack-hunt lighting struggles are real. I love that you've gone to this effort to find a solution.

0ffworld 3/8/2024, 3:33:03 PM

I handle my parents' Amazon account. I'm not a huge fan of these devices myself but my sister gifted my parents an Echo Dot a year ago. My parents mostly use it for order notifications but the little thing has many more uses.

When I know my parents are watching a movie in the evening, I sometimes use the Alexa app to send text messages to the Echo Dot and have Alexa read them out. Of course, we use messaging apps on our phones but I find this way of messaging them really funny. 😂

Their home isn't super automated, so this is admittedly a very simple trick but amusing nonetheless.

Josh B 3/7/2024, 2:41:32 PM

My favourite is definitely that it's linked with our smart heating. I love to just be able to talk to alexa and have my heating and hot water boost turned on, especially convenient as we have 3 echo dots spread around the house--no faffing with boilers or even opening the phone app!

But let's be honest, the real best thing about alexa is the 10 second fart countdown!

Alex SinclairMod3/12/2024, 9:56:46 AM

Josh B

Ha! I did not know about the ten-second countdown, but an old housemate's favourite prank was shouting "Alexa, set an alarm for 4am." through his brother's letterbox

mar1gold 3/6/2024, 1:44:30 PM

This might be incredibly obvious to everyone but i like how with google homes you can get multiple, sync them up and then play music from all of them at once. It's good because i'm always scurrying around from room to room (I'm very scatterbrained heheh) and wanting to listen to music but my phone keeps telling me I'm listening to music too loudly on my headphones. Good for ear health and convenience!

Lanah Tyra 3/10/2024, 5:37:51 PM

No submission just a thought on the matter:

I really wanted to try and use my Alexa in the soundbar which came with my tablet, but most of the time it doesn't understand my Hunglish so I gave up on it. I wish these things were designed to respond to different accents / languages. I'm sure that can't be such a big deal with what AI can do these days.

Alex SinclairMod3/12/2024, 10:00:08 AM

Lanah Tyra

Very true. My Scottish friend really struggles with Alexas and doesn't much enjoy having to put on an English accent to be understood.

Lanah Tyra 3/12/2024, 10:39:04 AM

Alex Sinclair

This one is golden:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYvFxs32zvQ

We went to a tech exhibition with my colleagues in Scotland when I lived up there and were having a fun time trying to get Alexa understand us... we all failed apart from the Glaswegian lady who worked 40 years in theatre in York.

NicoleStaff3/12/2024, 10:45:42 AM

Lanah Tyra

This is so good - Alexa being Alexa, a Glaswegian being Glaswegian, that "English" accent and better still, she knows its going to be terrible before she does it 😂

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