So Voice Assistants just aren’t your thing …
4 April 2021
I’ve been posting a lot about voice assistant integration in smart home as I plan to use the technology in our new home. But I’ve found voice commands to be unreliable at times and yelling at Alexa is usually easier than using the app on my phone. I thought there had to be a way to have the best of both worlds.
For those who have had it with Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa, there are a few ways you can streamline your smart home experience and leave voice controls behind forever.
You shouldn’t have to micromanage your smart home. If you want to abandon voice commands and streamline your smart home experience, then you need to start automating common tasks through schedules, routines and smart sensors.
The first step in automating your smart home is setting schedules for all your devices. Schedules control when your smart devices turn on and off, and can even adjust device settings, such as bulb brightness or hue. Most smart home apps have built-in scheduling tools that make it easy to program multiple devices at a time, so it should only take you a few minutes to set everything on a daily or weekly cycle.
An added benefit is manual adjustment of a smart device’s settings won’t affect its schedule. So you can turn devices on and off in-app without ruining your automation. Also keep in mind that scheduling isn’t limited to bulbs and plugs. You can also set your other wifi-connected devices on schedules. I have our Roomba smart vacuum set to vacuum on specific days when I leave the house to avoid any noise or disruption.
Smart Assistants allow you to set up routines, which are custom commands that fulfill multiple actions in one go. You can set up a one-button routine for “good morning” like I do that turns certain smart devices on — living room light, office light and TV to my favorite morning news channel, for example, or program a routine that turns off all your lights when your phone detects that you’ve left the house.
Routines give you a lot of room for creativity, and they save you from jumping between apps when you need to take your smart home off-schedule. I suggest starting with simple “Home and Away” routines, which automatically trigger smart devices when you leave or enter your home. That extra layer of automation is a major time-saver and it makes owning a smart home way more enjoyable.
Schedules and routines help automate your most common smart home tasks, but they don’t replace voice commands and in-app controls. If you want lights to turn on and off when you leave the room, for example, then you’re going to need some smart home sensors.
Smart home sensors use environmental factors like motion or temperature to trigger your smart bulbs, plugs, thermostat and other devices. Motion sensors see when you enter and leave a room, contact sensors fit in your doors and windows to tell if they’re opened or closed, and temperature sensors keep track of your home’s temperature and humidity — usually to provide more accurate readings for your thermostat or to control fans plugged into smart outlets.
Unfortunately, there are a limited number of smart home sensors on the market, and only a handful of existing sensors are multipurpose (others work with specific products or brands). It doesn’t help that Wyze has temporarily stopped selling its affordable smart sensors while it develops 2nd generation models (you can still get Wyze sensors with the Wyze Starter Bundle). Shelly’s Motion Sensor and Door/Window Sensors are other wifi sensors worth buying. They don’t require a hub and work with Alexa, HomeKit and Google Assistant. They’re the best option for people who want to automate their lighting without upgrading to a Z-Wave or Zigbee system.
If you plan on using a lot of smart sensors, I suggest skipping wifi sensors and using Z-Wave or Zigbee sensors instead. This is the direction I’m leaning for our smart home plan as dependence on wifi is dependence on internet access. As wifi smart home devices rely on cloud services for operation this means you must have solid, reliable internet access. If not, your devices won’t work. Using Z-Wave or Zigbee uses a different communications protocol based on local of edge compute so all of the intelligence is under your roof and will operate whether you have internet access or not. Z-Wave and Zigbee sensors also have better battery life and range than wifi devices.
Ecolink’s Motion Detector and Door and Window Sensor are two smart sensors worth looking at as great options but keep in mind that they require a compatible hub, like the Samsung SmartThings Hub or the Hubitat Elevation Hub. If you own an Amazon Echo display or speaker, then you could also use a Zigbee sensor, as Amazon Echo devices double as Zigbee hubs. You can also get Nest or Ecobee temperature sensors if you own Nest or Ecobee thermostats or a Hue Motion Sensor if you own Philips Hue bulbs.
Ecolink’s Motion Detector and Door and Window Sensor are two Z-Link smart sensors that are worth looking at. You can also get Nest or Ecobee temperature sensors if you own Nest or Ecobee thermostats or a Hue Motion Sensor if you own Philips Hue bulbs.
Living without voice commands is a lot easier once you’ve automated your smart home. By removing voice commands though, you’re stuck doing any manual adjustments from your phone. For more convenient manual controls, you’ll need a smart home control center, like a smart display or a tablet, dedicated to running the Alexa, Google Home, or Apple Homekit app.
Smart displays, like the Google Nest Hub and Echo Show, are smart speakers with touchscreens where you can put your smart home controls in one place and can even stream video from services like YouTube or Netflix. All smart displays have a switch to turn off their microphone, so you can handle everything from their touchscreen and never worry about voice commands.
But to be honest, smart displays are designed to work best with voice controls, but can be expensive and can take up a lot of space. You might be better off using a tablet as a control center instead, as tablets are thin, cheap, easy to move around, and run the same touch-friendly smart home apps as your phone. Plus, they can replicate the streaming and video chat functionality that you get with a bulkier smart speaker.
An Amazon Fire tablet is the cheapest solution, though it only works with Alexa. A low-end Android tablet like the Lenovo Tab M10 Plus costs more than a Fire tablet, but it can run Alexa and Google Assistant without much effort. Unfortunately, iPads are the only option for HomeKit users, but they can run the Alexa and Google Assistant apps. So that old iPad in the drawer that still runs pretty well will do the trick.
If you have an extra tablet lying around, you should try using it as your control center. But I would suggest buying a mount to stick the tablet on your wall or fridge. There are universal wall or fridge mounts that can fit any tablet, giving you a clean dedicated space to control your smart home, stream video or beam music to wireless speakers.
Automating smart home tasks and setting up a dedicated control center should streamline your smart home without the need for voice commands. But if you want precise, tactile controls for all the devices in your home, then it’s time to invest in some smart switches and buttons.
Smart switches and buttons are physical controls that you can program to adjust specific devices in your home. The best example of a smart switch is probably the Lutron Caseta Smart Dimmer, a physical dimmer control for your smart bulbs. The Lutron Caseta Smart Dimmer fully replaces your existing light switch and features on/off controls and buttons to adjust bulb brightness. It won’t confuse your guests because it works like a standard on/off switch in many ways. But the Lutron Caseta Smart Dimmer only works if it’s connected to a Lutron Smart Bridge. And it works with Alexa, HomeKit and Google Assistant.
Flic is a great smart button available to automate your smart home. It’s small, wire-free and programmable you can use to trigger any of your smart home devices. Flic buttons can also trigger smart home routines, maximizing your home automation and adding a new layer of tactile control to your smart home.
As you can see there are a lot of options if your preference is to automate your home without a voice assistant. And there are many more I didn’t include here. So do your homework to find out exactly what the best choice is for you and your smart home needs.
Personally I like the idea of automation as it can take all levels of tasks off your “to do” list. I have our outdoor lighting automated to turn on and off at dust and dawn so there’s always lighting around our home. We also have a motion sensor on our doors that will turn on the lights in the house if they’re opened during certain hours at night. So there can be some pretty significant benefits of automation.
As you can see there is a lot of flexibility with smart home. So make it whatever you want it to be, Are you a voice assistant fan? Alexa? HomeKit? Google? If not, I’m curious why. And if so, I hope some of what I shared here was helpful. Let us know your thoughts about this in the comments or send us an email as we love to hear from you!
Wishing you all a safe, healthy and happy Easter!
