I have a different sort of post today since I’m getting a bit fatigued about going on and on about clothes sometimes. Today I wanted to talk about how essential Amazon’s Echo (aka Alexa) has become in my new life with the baby. Here are the top ways I use Alexa and if you don’t currently have a digital assistant I highly recommend looking into getting one. You don’t know how convenient it is until you start using it.
1) Turning on and off the lights. We have both a smart plug connected to lamps as well as a smart switch wired into the walls so that we can just “Alexa turn on the living room” or “Alexa turn on Emi’s room.” This is especially useful when carrying a squirming baby or if you have your hands full in general. You can also turn on and off lights from different rooms.
2) When I was using the Medela breast pump (reviewed here), it didn’t come with a timer. So I would always call out to Alexa “start a timer for 15 minutes.” Again, no need to fiddle with a timer when I have my hands busy setting up the breast pump.
3) We use Alexa’s pre-programmed soothing noises for Emi’s sound machine. We just say “Alexa turn on rains sounds” and it’ll go on for an hour (you can also loop it so it goes on until you tell it to stop). We still have a mobile sound machine for when she sleeps in her stroller or at a friend’s house but we saved money on not having to buy a permanent at home plugged-in sound machine.
4) My husband especially loves music so he tells Alexa to play music all the time. We have it connected to our Spotify account so that we can pull up all our favorite playlists and artists easily. He’s also trying to expand Emi’s musical tastes early lol.
5) And as a reader called out in my Fourth Trimester Essentials post, a video monitor is essential for sleep training. You need to know if she is crying because she flipped over and can’t flip back or because she’s just generally being fussy. We have our nest cam connected to our Amazon Show so that we can easily say “Alexa show me the crib” and I can monitor her from the living room.
6) We also have our Alexa connected to our nest thermostat so we can easily call out “Alexa set the temperature to 74” or “Alexa turn off the AC.” It makes it super easy to change the temperatures without having to walk up to the thermostat.
We love our Amazon echo system so much we have two echo dots and one echo spot (so basically an Alexa in every room). This is not sponsored by Amazon and I’m just a huge fan of the convenience of Alexa. Google Home is another virtual assistant that works just as well. But don’t mix the two ecosystems and just stick to one for convenience.
Anyone else have a virtual assistant integrated into their home life? What do you use it for most?