Echo & Alexa Forums
General Category => Amazon Echo Discussion => Topic started by: jwlv on April 08, 2015, 04:31:17 pm
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Really exciting day today! Amazon is officially supporting the Belkin WeMo and the Philips Hue.
Demo video #1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfWIFAcsO1k
Demo video #2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHrBs0EfiXw
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That is exciting! Especially for those who are wheelchair-bound!
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The scope of the control interface is a little limited. (at least it is for the HUE.) If you have the phone handy, use the phone for details. Voice commands for "Living room light on" and "Bedroom light on 50%" are great, but you cannot set colors for HUE lights or operate scenes.
I use a mix of the HUE app and IF This Then That (IFTTT) for timers and alarms. it worksa pretty well.
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Alexa works perfectly with the Wemo's. Setup took less then a minute and response time is instant. Echo just keeps getting better and better.
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I wanted to get the Phillips hue and 4 bulbs for my ceiling fan. I read in the other forum that it has to be connected to a router. Our router is all the way across our house in my daughter's room. This might be a stupid question but will it still work over our WiFi connection or am I doomed from the start?
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I wish. It needs to be plugged into a router. Fortunately I had a repeating router already setup downstairs to plug it into.
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I use all WeMo equipment so it all works over WiFi.
From what I hear with the Philips Hue, there is a base unit that must be plugged into a router.
Then all the light bulbs will communicate wirelessly to the base unit, which can then be controlled by your devices anywhere on the Internet. As for the maximum distance between your light bulbs and the base unit, I don't know. Every situation is different.
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The Hue hub must be plugged in to ethernet. It could be put in the daughters room as long as there is a path of lights through the house. (Each light acts as a repeater for the ZigBee signal). The only drawbacks are the continuous blue light from the hub and your having to go in the room to push the button for device registration.
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I'm disappointed that the WeMo light switch is not dimable. On the Belkin site, they suggested that they were considering adding dimming to their product, so I left a message saying that I'd like to replace my light switches to use with my Echo, but I'm holding out for dimable ones. I'd like to suggest that other Echo owners do the same in order to motivate Belkin to add a function that, in my opinion, should have been there from day one.
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We got our Echo and Wemo working together the other day and its very nice. I really like the grouping feature so I can say, "turn all lights off" where "all lights" is the group. I did have to rename my wemo devices to so that talking about them with Echo makes more sense.
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I think I've gone mad. I now have a total of 12 Wemo devices :)
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I have 4 lights and the coffee pot, don't have the Echo yet.
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We just added another Wemo light switch to control the whole house fan. Now we can say, "Alexa, turn the house fan on" and moments later its running. This is great since the switch box for the fan, and where I had to put the wemo, is not really convenient location wise. What I really want next is for Alexa to learn how to talk to the Nest thermostat.
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There is a semi-official way to control the Nest thermostat via Echo.
You have to use IFTTT. It's not a great way to do it, since you can only say one particular phrase to set the Nest's temperature, i.e. "Alexa, to-do, set temperature." IFTTT will read the to-do list and get the "set temperature" command. Then it'll set the Nest to a pre-defined temperature. You won't able to say things like "Alexa, set the temperature to 78." I didn't find this particularly useful, so I don't use it.
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I have the wemo bulbs but I believe the Wemo bulbs are not supported, just the switches. Of course I am only in the first 2 hours of testing..
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Just saw today, 6/24, that Amazon has the Wemo Light Switch for only $39.99.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DGEGJ02
When I got one almost a year ago, I paid $59.99 at Best Buy. Since then, I've been buying a few here and a few there. I have five Wemo Light Switches and six Wemo Switches and one Wemo Sensor currently.
$39.99 is the best price I've seen for a Wemo Light Switch. Get 'em while you can! Amazon's prices always seem to fluctuate wildly.
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Today 6/26, Amazon has the Wemo Switch for $38.42.
http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-WeMo-F7C027fcAPL-Discontinued-manufacturer/dp/B0089WFPRO
It shows that it is a discontinued model. I believe the reason why it is discontinued has to do with what's printed on the box. When Belkin initially made the Wemo Switch (about 2 years ago?), they only supported Apple IOS. It says that on the box. Android support (i.e. the Android app) was in the works, but they couldn't advertise that it works with Android at that time. Note that the discontinued model number ends with "xxxxxxxAPL." The current model number is exactly the same, but without the APL at the end. Now Belkin supports both Apple IOS and Android and the new model says that right on the new box. I have both the discontinued model and the current model. They look identical. They work identically. They run the same firmware version. They work on Apple IOS and Android. So what's the difference? I assume it's just the box that it comes in, where one says Apple IOS support, and the other says Apple IOS *and* Android support. Oh, and the price is lower on the discontinued model.
If I am wrong about this, please let me know!
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Any idea when Echo will support Nest Thermostats? I've check the web and found some SDK kits for this, but I'm not a programmer. LOL Anyway, who would I contact email or otherwise about getting Nest and Echo to work together. Does anybody know if Amazon is working on this at all? I presently have my Echo and Phillips Hue connected and Alexa does a great job their turning on and off my home lighting. By adding Nest.....that would be perfect. I didn't see a topic on this issue, so I'm posting one here.
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geebee,
Here is a thread where jwlv lays out the current situation with Echo/Nest.
http://www.echotalk.org/index.php/topic,131.msg599.html#msg599 (http://www.echotalk.org/index.php/topic,131.msg599.html#msg599)