4 Ways to Smartify Your Home

People seem to have one of two opinions regarding “smart homes”. They either 1) love smart devices and look for any and every opportunity to save time and effort for the simplest of tasks or 2) despise the idea of Big Brother using the power of robots to spy on innocents. Well, I definitely fall under the former as I am not too concerned with Big Brother knowing my grocery lists or how much I rely on Amazon– that is already clear to all *oops*.

If you’re like me and love the idea of simplifying and romanticizing your life, the best way to begin is to think of your five senses (sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste) and how they influence your daily routine. Granted, I have not found a way to use smart products to better my “taste”, but if you find a way for Alexa to complete my meal preps for me each week, please let a girl know!

4 Ways to Smartify Your Home

1. Create Seasonal Ambiance (Sight)

When my home celebrates the uniqueness of each season, it helps me enjoy my day-to-day routine so much more and encourages me to be thankful for the time of year no matter what. Of course, we can update our floral arrangements, swap out our pillowcases, and ensure we have our little trinkets on rotation, but there is one thing that Alexa helps with that has elevated our home’s atmosphere: leveraging the wonderful world of YouTube.

Every weekday at 7:15AM Alexa finds the most relevant YouTube video within the search “Spring Ambiance” (or whatever season it may be currently) and plays it from our Fire TV. Typically, it is a AI generated image of a romanticized seasonal landscape (e.g., a warm cafe surrounded colorful trees for autumn, a cozy living room with a flickering fireplace for winter). These softly moving images add so much to our living space and takes advantage of the television while it is not in use to highlight the existing seasonal decor in the room. The videos also usually have slow jazz playing the background which is a sophisticated way to upgrade the soundtrack of your day.

2. Optimize Your Morning Routine (Hearing)

I’m a podcast and audiobook girly. I have my go-to podcasts that keep me informed about the world and my latest read on standby once I’ve had my fill of news. One way I include Alexa in my mornings is by utilizing the Routines feature. With Routines, you can have Alexa identify a key phrase that when said will trigger a variety of actions.

For example, when I say “Alexa, good morning”, Alexa will tell me if I have any events in my calendar and the forecasted weather for the day before playing the latest Up First from NPR podcast. Because I frequently use this feature before I hop in the shower, it saves me from having to use my phone with wet hands. Although Alexa is louder than an iPhone, I recommend purchasing a waterproof speaker to hang in your shower that is Alexa-friendly. Once you pair it with Alexa, the speaker will connect automatically and continue your Routine. Here is the speaker we use in our home.

Alexa also connects directly to Audible and will play your audiobook from wherever you left it last–even if you were previously listening on another device! Having a hands-free way of playing/pausing my audiobook while I am cooking is like having a little helper do the one-off things that can distract you from the almost burning chicken on the stove top. Did I mention it will set timers too? Ugh, I love it.

3. Wake Up with Wax (Smell)

This is my favorite part of our newly-smartified home. Do you remember that episode of The Office where Michael wakes up to put bacon on a George Foreman grill then goes back to bed just so he can wake up to the smell of it in the morning? Well… I wanted that.

Not because I necessarily crave the smell of bacon, but I like the idea of starting the day off with my home smelling nice and fresh. After a bit of brainstorming, I bought some smart plug power strips and plugged my wax melters into them and set a Routine to have Alexa turn on the wax melters every weekday at 7:15 AM along with the seasonal ambiance YouTube videos. Let me tell you that this was the most genius thing I’ve ever done. Absolutely game-changing.

Note: For this to work, you must use a wax melter with only one setting (on/off). If your melter has a timing options (i.e., 3 hours, 6 hours, 9 hours), the power strip will only give the device power instead of turning it on. I found this out the hard way.

4. Light Up A Room (Touch, or rather, Touchless)

Turning the lights on and off with just a few words was the idea that introduced me to the concept of a “smart home”. My excitement when I realized I could achieve this luxury pretty simply was undiminishable. I was on a mission and no one could stop me.

Using the same smart plug power strips, I created “Rooms” in the Alexa app to group our living room outlets together (i.e., our end table lamps, twinkle lights, wax melter) as well as our bedroom outlets (i.e., nightstand lamp, seasonal lantern, wax melter). Now whenever I say “Alexa, turn on the living room”, the lights will pop on in that one room only. I also have it set up to where if I have not already turned on the living room, Alexa will automatically turn on our table lamps 30 minutes before sundown ensuring we have adequate light no matter the hour.

Here’s A Toast

The process of creating a smart home–or at least a smarter home–was such an enjoyable experience and the best kind of puzzle. Knowing that this kind of technology will only get better with time is exciting and encourages me to keep my eyes and ears open for new features and logic that can be incorporated into my home for an increasingly modernized experience. In conclusion, until I start staging a coup and have major secrets to hide, I will continue to look for unique ways to make day-to-day life simple and fun with smart devices!

Links to Products

1. Echo Dot
2. Fire TV
3. Smart Plug Power Strips
4. Shower Speaker
5. Wax Melter (living room hallway; plugs directly into the wall)
6. Wax Melter (living room/bedroom)
7. Twinkle Lights
8. Table Lamps
9. Seasonal Lantern

Cheers!

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