How to set up Alexa to automatically turn off your smart devices

Amazon’s digital assistant can now control some of your smart devices for you, without any prompts. But before you start dreaming of a day when Alexa will brew your coffee in the morning and your car is already warming up in the garage for your commute, know that her powers were slightly reduced during that first go-around.

To get started, set up “Hunches” in your Alexa app (ios, Android). Open the app, tap More in the lower right corner, tap Settings, and scroll down a bit. Press on Intuitions when you see it, it will bring up a screen that looks like this:

Press on “Configure automatic actions”, and you will get a small list of potential actions that Alexa can do on your behalf. I mostly have smart lights around my house, so I have two to choose from:

When you select an action, you get a short video that tells you a bit more about Alexa’s automated response. You can also tap “Learn More” to get an idea of ​​the settings that might cause Alexa to act on your behalf. For example:

If you’re ready to turn on Alexa’s Auto Intuition, tap Next. In my case, I then have to choose which lights I want Alexa to control, but that’s it. My “intuition” is then configured, and I can return to Intuitions part of my Alexa app to check when Alexa will trigger one.

To remove a hunch, simply click on the gear icon in the upper right corner of the Intuitions screen. Find the ‘Automatic actions’ section, tap on all smart devices you see and you will be able to enable or disable an available auto action:

Alexa’s automatic actions only work for a subset of smart devices at the moment, including lights, thermostats, doors, and switches.

Once you’re done playing with your hunches, you should also check out the all-new “Energy dashboard” to see how much juice your smart devices are using throughout the day.

To access it, simply press Devices at the bottom of your app, then tap the Energy dashboard box up. Once you’ve read a bit about how it works and hit Browse devices proceed. That’s all I have, however; either the feature still hasn’t been deployed to me, or I need to adjust something with my lights connected so that Alexa knows how to add them to a dashboard.

Still, it’ll be a fun feature to play with. While not as accurate as, say, the energy readings you might get from a smart switch itself, it will at least provide a decent way to see if your devices are using more power than you are. would not like. No one is benefiting from this monthly energy bill fueled by a pandemic.