Amazon’s Echo device can be a useful little piece of technology, and now it’s just gotten a little more useful for those who have a connected home using Samsung’s SmartThings devices. If you have a smarthome setup using those products, Amazon Echo now supports SmartThings which means you can set it up to do thins like turn on your TV, lamps, or other lights and devices around the home if you have the right equipment, like the SmartThings hub. Amazon states that Echo is gaining support for other connected home brands as well though so you aren’t limited to SmartThings products.
In addition to Samsung’s smart home products, Echo also supports Philips Hue, Wink, and Belkin WeMo products, so the possibilities of what you can use Echo to do are not necessarily endless, but you aren’t extremely limited either. As an example, since WeMo offers up connected smart home outlets, you could potentially use the Amazon Echo to turn on/off all kinds of things, technically whatever is plugged into those outlets, all using just your voice to get the job done which should make having a smart home not only easier, but also more fun and convenient as you wouldn’t even have to pull out your smartphone or tablet for various tasks.
Amazon mentions that while Echo will let you enable voice activated operation of various smart home products, it isn’t limited to just you. It will work with anyone’s voice, so presumably this is something you’ll want to take into consideration. For example, Plugging your Xbox One or PlayStation 4 into a connected smart WeMo Switch, and then setting up the Echo to turn on/off that switch could be troublesome if you have friends or family who might think it’s funny to turn the switch off when the system is in use. The Echo is also gaining support for listing off events from shared Google calendars, so this might be useful for someone with a busy schedule with plenty of things happening. If you don’t already have compatible smart home products or the Amazon Echo, Amazon has both and a range of other Echo-compatible products already available.