When requesting tasks from Alexa, it is very comfortable and easy to recite some of the most useful Alexa commands with which to receive instant information or execute certain simple tasks with a simple command. But what if Alexa were able to make her own decisions based on context? That’s where routines come in.
What are routines?
The first thing you should be clear about is the concept. A routine, as its name suggests, is a task that is continuously repeated almost automatically after learning a habit or habit, and that is normally carried out without having to decide anything when carrying out the action. This, as far as artificial intelligence is concerned, may sound complex and complicated, but that’s where you should perform your duties.
In the Alexa routines we will define automated actions, so that, if A occurs, Alexa will execute B. It is something like predicting the future and defining what Alexa should do in case that future occurs. And nothing is easier to understand than with practical examples.
What kinds of routines can I program?
The limits of the routines will be set by your imagination. Well, that and the 99 routines that we can have programmed at most in your our Amazon account. Knowing that, we will only have to create our schedules so that the assistant works according to our needs.
For example, if you had a projector at home and had smart blinds and bulbs, you could create a routine that with the phrase “Alexa, prepare the cinema” did the following:
- Turn on the projector
- Lower the motorized screen
- Lower the blinds to be perfectly dark
- And turn off the lights when 90 seconds have passed and everything is ready.
In addition to programming routines that require a voice command, you can also program others that await a change of state from some smart device. For example, with smart doorbells. If someone knocked on the door, we could do the following:
- Turn on the hall light with the smart bulb to receive the person with the light on.
As we already told you in previous articles, we could also configure routines to use smart bulbs in the children’s room.
How can I create my routines for Alexa?
Creating your own routines is very simple. As always you will have to use the official application to manage everything, and from there plan the different approaches that you propose. These are the steps that you must follow when creating a routine:
- Open the Amazon Alexa app and open the side menu.
- Routines Selection.
- Click on the + symbol to create a new routine.
- In the first field we will put the name of the routine so that it is easy for us to identify it.
- In the second line we will have to define what will make this routine activate. The options will be 4: Voice, Schedule, Devices and Alarms. Each one has a different function:
- Voice: Will be the tasks that are activated with a voice command.
- Schedule: These routines will be activated at a set time. For example, knowing the news of the day every day at 9 in the morning.
- Devices: The routine will be activated when you receive a change of state from a device.
- Alarms: A predetermined alarm will trigger the routine as soon as you deactivate the alarm.
- With the “When” configured, it’s time to define the action, and that’s where the thousands of variables available will come into play, from Alexa responses, interaction with devices, news summary, sending messages, executing IFTTT actions and a long etcetera. .
The complexity of routines will be determined by details such as the number of smart devices you have at home and the number of actions you are able to link meaningfully. On many occasions, many of the daily tasks you do at home could be automated with Alexa, so the trick is to always keep the wizard in mind and think about what you could do automatically at all times.
How to automatically turn on the lights at a predetermined time
A practical case that could help you is to program the automatic ignition of certain house lights when it gets dark. To do this, do the following:
- Add a new routine and put the name that best create. For example, “Turn on Office”
- In “When”, we will select Time, and inside, we will choose Nightfall. You can fast-forward the feature a bit and specify that it kick in until 60 minutes before dusk.
- Select which days of the week you want the routine to apply.
- The next step is to select the action to perform, which will be related to a Device. There we will select the lights that we have configured, and we can save the routine.
From now on, the lights you selected will come on on the days you have chosen just after dark at the precise moment you have decided. Remember to turn them off! What if you create a routine to automatically turn them off at a certain time? Or when you say good night!
