Let’s take a look at the best Alexa routines within a few categories: productivity, family, and security.<\/p>\n
Table of Contents<\/p> Affiliate Disclosure<\/a>: This page contains affiliate links, which earn us commission at no cost to you.<\/em><\/p>\n While everyone is familiar with Alexa skills<\/a>, routines automate your home by working on their own without any commands from you. They are very customizable.<\/p>\n You can set up Alexa routines within the Amazon Alexa app. Click in the upper left and then routines will be in the dropdown list. From there, you can see your routines and add more.<\/p>\n Routines are basically formatted like “if this happens, then trigger that action,” similar to IFTTT. There are quite a few options for customizing the routines.<\/p>\n Triggers<\/strong> could be from a voice command, scheduled time, smart home device, location of your phone, alarm, or if an Echo button is pressed. After those triggers happen, it causes an action<\/strong>, like Alexa saying something through your Echo Dot<\/a> or a smart home device doing something.<\/p>\n If getting up in the morning isn’t your favorite, these Alexa routine ideas can make it more comfortable. You can set up these routines by having them start at a specific time (for example, 7 a.m. if that’s when you want to wake up). There is also an option to only have this routine on weekdays so you can sleep in on weekends.<\/p>\n A few ideas for waking up include:<\/p>\n For some of these Alexa routine ideas, you may want to think about putting an Echo Dot Kid’s Edition in your child’s room. This is basically the same thing as the other Dots, but it comes with a colorful case and a free year of FreeTime Unlimited<\/a>, which is a subscription for audio books for kids.<\/p>\n Now that you have a few Alexa routine ideas for getting started, here are a few tips as you set them up.<\/p>\n First, make sure that you specify how often the actions can be triggered.<\/p>\n For example, if someone is coming in and out, you don’t want Alexa to say “front door open” every time it’s opened. Click Anytime <\/strong>and then you’ll see\u00a0Suppress For.\u00a0<\/strong>There you can select how often you want the routine to run, whether it’s every few minutes or every few hours. The maximum amount of time to suppress is for 12 hours.<\/p>\n You also need to know how to set up announcements.<\/p>\n If you want Alexa to announce things across the home, make sure you select\u00a0Send Announcement <\/strong>under Messaging<\/strong>. The other option, Alexa Says<\/strong>,\u00a0will only speak through one Alexa device.<\/p>\n Similarly, you can select which Alexa devices will respond to your routine. You may want a routine to only work on one device, and for that you would just select that Echo Dot and none others for the routine.<\/p>\n To disable a routine, click where you would edit it, then toggle the button next to\u00a0Enabled.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n My favorite Alexa device for these routines is the Echo Dot v3. I can easily place these around my home since they are cheap enough. We compared the Echo Dot v2 and v3<\/a>\u00a0so you can see the differences.<\/p>\n![\"alexa](\"https:\/\/smarthomesolver.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Ultimate-alexa-routines-embed-min.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n25 Alexa Routine Ideas<\/span><\/h1>\n
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<\/div>\nWaking Up<\/span><\/h2>\n
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Have the lights slowly turn on in the morning.<\/strong> We have a small lamp by our bed that starts at 1% brightness, then goes to 20% brightness after a minute and 50% after two minutes. For now, each of these need to be set up as their own routines using Alexa, since there is no option to slowly fade the lights on. You can use any light that is compatible with Alexa. SmartThings compatible bulbs will also work if you are using the SmartThings hub<\/a> with your routines.<\/li>\n![\"echo](\"https:\/\/smarthomesolver.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/echo_button-compressor.jpg\")
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![\"alexa](\"https:\/\/smarthomesolver.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/alexa_morning_routine-compressor.png\")
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Coming Home & Evening<\/span><\/h2>\n
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![\"alexa](\"https:\/\/smarthomesolver.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/alexa_evening_routine-compressor.png\")
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Family<\/span><\/h2>\n
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Stop video games.\u00a0<\/strong>Put a multipurpose sensor on your TV stand cabinet. If it’s opened during homework time, you can send an announcement through Alexa “no video games! It’s time for homework right now.”<\/li>\n![\"alexa](\"https:\/\/smarthomesolver.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/alexa_routines_music-compressor.png\")
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Security<\/span><\/h2>\n
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\nImportant Routine Tips<\/span><\/h2>\n
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