Philips Hue Lighting and Amazon Echo

[Vortex12]

I was given an Amazon Echo (voice controlled internet of things gadget) for Christmas, and have become very impressed.

It makes a great voice controlled radio and music player, and frankly is pretty good value for that application alone. No doubt I'll get another one for the garage when the "fannying about" season starts.

Anyhow I am curious about using the Echo to control Philips Hue lights.

Does anybody here have first hand experience of this?

If I buy a Hue Starter Kit am I going to be impressed, or disappointed?

[Huge]

[Andy Burns]

Has your doll's house arrived yet?

[Bob Eager]

Or, to put it another way:

"Not in front of the servants"

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I love the idea of anyone - like the kids - being able to order up what they want from Amazon. Saves them having to nag you for something.

[Brian Gaff]

Does not the Echo, or hopefully the dot, need skills to be set up to do muchof this stuff in the first place so how wowould one get that written to control such lighting devices? Brian

[Brian Gaff]

They are actually saying now that its only when you say the reserved word that anything is sent outside to the cloud, but I'd suggest that by five years time it will be hard to not have this type of device in ones home aseveryone is doing it these days. Maybe its a fad, only time will tell. I'm sure one could like any device hack it to get at the microphones if one was so inclined. Brian

[Vortex12]

Annoyingly the voice ordering default is on, but simple to turn off.

[RJH]

I was watching Click last night - they featured the dolls house fiasco. And true to form, as soon as the presenter said the words 'Alexa buy' the flipping thing perked up and asked me to confirm my purchase :-)

[RJH]

The device has what are effectively macros - a string of words preprogrammed by the gadget manufacturer to carry out the function. Also 'if that then this' type things, to string together different gadgets.

That said, it doesn't seem to be be that difficult to do at home:

[Vortex12]

In my situation I have a couple of outside locations where I have mains, but no practical way to install a wired light circuit switched from the home. Hue lights are controlled from a separate "bridge" at 2.4GHz-ish. There is also a timer possibility which is itself interesting for an outside light by my gate.

The control supposedly has a range of 20+ metres so on paper that all looks good.

There is a so-called "skill" for Philips Hue that can be enabled but user feedback is very variable. There is also a (slightly baffling) applet creation tool called ifttt

Bewildering possibilities seem to exist:

I'm very tempted to indulge myself and but a Hue starter kit for 50-60 quid. Even if it does not work well with Echo it would solve a problem.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Many years ago, I used what was effectively a car remote to switch the outside lights mounted on the garage at a friend's place. Got a basic kit of parts from Jaycar. Vellerman probably did similar.

But these days you can buy 13 amp plug in units that do the same for not a lot.

[John Rumm]

There was a case recently where a smart 6 year old worked out that her mum's iphone could do one click ordering from Amazon. However mum had used the phone's fingerprint biometric scanner to lock the phone. That worked ok until the kid realised that she could borrow mum's finger while she was having a nap, and had a wale of a time ordering 15 pokemon themed goodies for her Christmas stocking!

[Vir Campestris]

From that source of all technical knowledge the ACLU.

How does it do it without having any internet traffic? (until the keyword)

Andy