If you are ready to take your first step into home automation is lighting control is a great place to start.  With Amazon’s Echo and Alexa virtual assistant you can easily add voice controlled lights to your home.

What do you need for voice controlled lights?

Before we get into the light commands you can use with the Amazon Echo, let’s look at what you need to do to get started.

Alexa

The first thing you need is Alexa, the virtual assistant from amazon.  The lowest cost option is the hockey puck sized Amazon Echo Dot.  The Dot is only the beginning when it comes to Alexa enabled products though.  You can find larger smart speakers like the Echo for a better music experience and other Echo products that have touchscreens like the Show.

Click here to see the family of Alexa enabled products by Amazon

In addition to products made by amazon there is a growing market of third party products with Alexa built in.

Alexa compatible lighting

Next you need Alexa compatible lighting.  There hundreds or thousands of lighting products available that will work with Amazon’s Echo and Alexa, but, you can divide most of the devices into 2 main categories.

Smart Lighting categories

• Smart Switch and Plug based systems
• Smart Bulb based systems

Smart Switches and Plugs

In this category you find products like the Lutron Caseta family.  This starter kit is a great way to get started with Caseta.

Click here to check out the Caseta kit on Amzon

Smart switches replace the existing light switches in your home and can be turned on and off just like a regular switch or they can be controlled by a control system.

Smart plugs come in 2 forms, the first are small modules that plug into your existing outlets.  Then you simply plug a lamp or other appliance in to control it.  The second type of smart plug is one that replaces you existing wall socket.  This type provides a cleaner look, but does require a little more work to install.

Click here to learn more about my favorite Alexa compatible switches

Smart Bulbs

The most popular products in this category are the Philips Hue smart bulbs.  The best way to get started with the Hue system is a starter kit like this one.

Click here to check out the Philips Hue kit on Amazon

With this type of smart lighting all you need to do is replace your light bulb with a new smart bulb.  This makes the move to lighting control an easy transition.

Switches and Plugs vs Bulbs [which one should you choose]

Once installed and setup both systems work seamlessly with Alexa, so you can’t really go wrong.

I prefer hardwired switches and sockets.  Once installed they are permanently in place unlike bulbs that will eventually burn out and need replaced and then reconfigured.  Another advantage of using a switch based system is that one switch can control many bulbs, for example I control 6 can lights in my living room from 1 smart switch.  If you used smart bulbs you would have to buy 6 bulbs and then setup each of them.

Smart bulbs aren’t all bad either, one advantage of using a bulb system like the Philips Hue is that colored bulbs are available.  This means that in addition to on, off and dimming you can change the color to create a different look and feel.  The Hue bulbs can even be sound activated turning your house into a night club.  Another advantage of using bulbs is that they are easily moved, since no wiring is needed, you can move that lamp or bulb across the room and it will still function.  The last benefit of smart bulbs I’ll mention is that if you have multiple lights that operate on one switch you can control them individually.

There is one last place where I would recommend always using smart bulbs over switch based systems.  That is in apartments where you don’t plan to stay long.  Bulbs can be packed up and moved with little effort compared to rewiring switches.

Amazon Echo [Alexa] Light Commands

Now that you know what you need, lets see what you can do with Alexa to control your lights.  These commands are pretty standard and should work with most lighting systems.

Simple Lighting Voice Commands

Let’s start with and example of some simple commands.

In the example below, you can replace the underlined word with any device in your system.

• “Alexa, turn on the kitchen light”
• “Alexa, turn off my bathroom light”

Advanced Lighting Voice Commands

On and off is great, but you can do more than that with Alexa.

Again, the underlined word can be replaced with any device.

• “Alexa, brighten the kitchen light” this will increase the brightness
• “Alexa, dim the kitchen light” will dim a light
• “Alexa, set the porch light to 50%” you can say any level and the light will adjust to that level

Scene Commands

Scenes allow you to turn multiple lights on, off or to a desired level from one command.  If your lighting system supports scenes (the Caseta and Hue both do).  Once the scene is created in your lighting system you can activate it from the Echo with a command like this.

• “Alexa, turn on bedtime” In this case the scene name is bedtime, but it could be any scene you have created.

On thing to understand about scenes is that they can only be turned on, this is because the scene itself sets your lights to a predefined level either on or off.  For example, you could create a “Good night” scene to turn all the lights off, and a “Good morning” scene to turn the lights on.

Philips Hue Additional Commands

If you are using the Hue system with colored bulbs you can use additional commands to control the color of your lights.  Here are some Hue specific commands.

• “Alexa, turn my lights to blue” This would set all lights to the same color
• “Alexa, set bedroom to red” This command can be used to set a specific light and color
• “Alexa, make my living room warmer” This command makes a given rooms light a warmer or cooler color temperature

If you want a complete list, Tom’s guide has a list of 123 colors Alexa can change your lights to.

Bonus Tips

Here are 2 bonus tips to get more from your Echo and smart lighting.

Bonus Tip 1: Alexa Groups

If your lights do not support scenes.  The Alexa app can control multiple lights with one command.

Here’s how to do it.

• Open the Alexa App
• Press the “Menu” button and select “Smart Home”
• Select the “Groups” tab
• Press “Add Group”
• Give the group a name, press “Next”
• Select the devices and press “Save”

You can create as many groups as you want, I suggest creating a group for each room with more than one device in it.

Bonus Tip 2: Alexa Routines

Routines take groups a step further.  With routines you can turn different devices on and off as well as get news, weather or traffic information from Alexa.

Here’s the steps to create a routine

• Open the Alexa App
• Press the “Menu” button and select “Routines”
• Select the “+” button to create a new routine
• Give the routine a name
• Press “Add Action” to add the first action
• Add as many additional actions as you would like
• Press the “Create” button to save the routine

In addition to voice triggers routines can be triggered by time and date.

What are you going to do first?

Hopefully this inspired you to get started on your smart home journey.  Let me know what you plan to do first in the comments below.  If you already have Alexa linked to you lights what’s your favorite command or trick?