MAKE ALEXA EVEN SMARTER

6 applets

Amazon’s Alexa has taken homes by storm, either via Amazon’s own range of speakers or third-party products. However, the range of devices and services that Alexa plays nicely with by default is pretty limited. IFTTT provides the bridge between Alexa and a whole host of other smart home devices and services. First, a warning. Alexa support on IFTTT still seems patchy. We couldn’t get any of these services to work on one of our test devices, and other PC Pro readers have reported similar problems. It seems there are still kinks to be worked out. However, we’re assured that all of the following do work in some instances, meaning it’s a case of suck it and see.

If you’re constantly asking Alexa to add items to your to-do list, you might be frustrated that it doesn’t integrate nicely with your chosen to-do list app: only Any.do and Todoist are supported by Amazon itself. With IFTTT, Alexa todos can be synced to Google Calendar ( pcpro.link/273google) , Wunderlist ( pcpro.link/273wunder) and Evernote ( pcpro.link/273evernote), among other services.

Other smart home devices can also get the voice-control treatment. This applet ( pcpro.link/273nest) lets you tell Alexa the precise temperature for your Nest thermostat; this one lets you switch off the Hue lights at bedtime ( pcpro.link/273hue); and if you have all the correct components, telling Alexa to “trigger lock-down” will switch off your Hue lights, shut your garage door and silence your Android phone with this recipe ( pcpro.link/273lock).

We suggest you test Alexa/IFTTT integration with some free software services before investing in any smart home hardware, however.