How to schedule your lights with Amazon Alexa

One of the smart things that Amazon did when they launched Alexa was making it open and available to developers and companies. This is versus other companies such as Apple who initially tried to keep Siri to themselves. This in turn allowed Amazon to gain a strong foothold in the digital assistant space.

Combine that with the company’s affordable smart speakers and suddenly you’ve got yourself a smart home ecosystem. If you’re bought into the Alexa ecosystem and have several smart lights that are compatible with your Echo speakers, did you know you can actually get the digital assistant to schedule them for you? Here’s how.

Schedule your lights with Alexa

Creating your routine

1. Launch the Alexa app on your phone
2. Make sure they are connected and listed under the “Devices” tab
3. Tap on the “More” tab
4. Tap on Routines
5. Tap the + icon at the top right corner of the app
6. Enter a name for the routine, so for example you could call it “Evening Lights”. Tap Next when you’re done

Creating a schedule

1. Tap on “When This Happens” and then tap on “Schedule”
2. Now you can choose your time and the days that you want this routine to take place
3. When you’re done selecting the time and day, tap on Next

Adding your smart lights to your routine

1. Tap Add Action and select “Smart Home”
2. Now tap on “All Devices”
3. Tap on the lights that you want included in this routine
4. Under “Power”, make sure it’s checked and toggled on (repeat this process for all the lights you want included)
5. Tap on Next when you’re done
6. In the “New Routine” page, tap on “Add Action” and select “Wait”. The idea here is to tell your lights to wait a certain period of time before they turn off. So for example you could set them to turn on at 7pm, and then wait a few hours before turning themselves off. If you’d rather just turn them off manually, then you can skip the rest of the guide.
7. Set a delay of your choosing. You can choose up to four hours as the maximum.
8. Tap on “Add Action” again and follow the steps above again, except this time under “Power”, make sure that it’s toggled to “off”. This will make Alexa turn off your lights after the waiting period is up.