How to Take Advantage of the Temperature Sensor of the Amazon Echo

The Amazon Echo and Echo Plus temperature sensor

All or practically the majority of users are very clear about the main virtues of the different Amazon Echos that the company currently has in its smart speaker catalogs.

For example, the Amazon Echo stands out for its switchboard compatible with the Zigbee standard that allows you to forget about buying bridges from other brands to manage devices such as smart bulbs among many others. In the same way, the Echo Plus stand out for a higher sound quality.

However, not all owners of a fourth-generation Amazon Echo or second-generation Echo Plus are aware that both models also include a temperature sensor . And you may be wondering what use something can have that, for example, you can know perfectly well by consulting numerous existing weather applications for Android or iOS mobile devices.

Well, this temperature sensor can be very practical in your day to day and even more so if you have a series of connected devices in your home. Because you will be able to create routines that are triggered depending on the temperature of your house. Thus, as if it were a thermostat, you could create an action that when it detects that a certain temperature is exceeded, turn on the ventilator or simply give you some kind of warning.

Because imagine that you leave the house and do not realize that you have left the window open. Your pet could freeze on a cold day. So if you want to prevent this type of situation, it could be interesting to take advantage of this included temperature sensor.

How to use the temperature sensor on your Echo device

To start and as a reminder again. The only devices with a temperature sensor today are the fourth-generation Echo and the second-generation Echo Plus. If one of these two devices is the one you have, read on.

To obtain the temperature of the sensor included in your Echo or Echo Plus what you must do is the following:

1. Open the Alexa app on your mobile device
2. Select the devices section
3. Now choose a group of existing smart home devices
4. Give the option to Edit
5. To finish, select the temperature sensor and click save

Ready, you can ask your Amazon Echo what is the temperature of that group to which it belongs and it will give it to you. For example, if the group is called Living Room and you ask “Alexa, what is the temperature of Living Room” it will tell you.

Create routines based on the temperature sensor

Ok, knowing the temperature of the room where the Amazon Echo 4th Gen or Echo Plus 2nd Gen is located is fine, but it is not the best or the most interesting thing you can do. Routines are the most engaging way to exploit the full potential this included sensor has to offer.

To create a routine from the temperature sensor you just have to do this:

1. Again, open the Alexa app on your mobile device
2. Give the option of More
3. Now access the Routines section
4. Hit the + icon to create a new one
5. Enter a name for the Routine
6. Now, tap on When and then on the Smart Home icon
7. There you will see your Echo, select it
8. The next screen gives you the option to establish if you want the warning when the temperature is above or below the value that you can set below
9. When you adjust those parameters, click on save and add the action to execute

Ready, how to see is very simple. Another option to do this or to get to that option of creating a new routine is the following:

1. Open the Alexa app
2. Go to the Devices option
3. Select Echo and Alexa
4. In the new list you will see, look for the 4th generation Echo or 2nd generation Echo Plus
5. Scroll down until you find the Temperature Sensor option and tap on it
6. On the next screen you will see that the option to Go to Routines appears

Ideas for taking advantage of the Amazon Echo’s temperature sensor

Okay, now it’s a matter of you coming up with ways to take advantage of these ambient-temperature-triggered routines . Something that in part will depend on the rest of the connected devices you have at home, but we are going to give you some ideas:

• If you have pets at home, you can use them to find out if the temperature may be too high or too low. When that happens, you can receive a notification in the Alexa app
• If you have an Alexa-compatible heating or air conditioning system, but no smart thermostat, you can turn it on based on temperature
• Change the color of your smart RGB lights based on temperature
• Launch IFTTT recipes based on temperature

These basic examples can be an initial starting point to later be combined with other actions, devices, and routines. And if not, unless you know that you can always know what the temperature is at home thanks to your Echo.