The Echo is wonderful. We got ours recently on Amazon's Prime Days event and have really enjoyed using it. We feel she pays for herself in how convenient it is to speak out multiple timers while cooking in the kitchen, not to mention Hue integration. 

Sal wrote:

The Echo is wonderful. We got ours recently on Amazon's Prime Days event and have really enjoyed using it. We feel she pays for herself in how convenient it is to speak out multiple timers while cooking in the kitchen, not to mention Hue integration. 

Indeed. I love using the hands-free timer, too. It's also become very natural to tell Alexa to add groceries to the shopping list.

My morning wake-up routine consists of two commands. When my dog comes up to nudge me in the morning, I'll say "Alexa, what time is it." Then, I say "Alexa, trigger morning." The morning command turns on the lights, turns on the tv to the morning news station, and begins brewing coffee. All of this while I'm in bed and with my eyes still closed!

The possibilities with a BLGW and IFTTT are enormous. Still, I would like to start using the Echo to directly stream music to my BeoPlay bluetooth speakers. I can already use Siri for voice control to select music to send to the speakers. However, I like the idea of not needing to use my iPhone or Apple Watch. Alexa is always on and always listening.

I do find it humorous when I'm watching the series "Outlander" on TV. There is a character named "Alex" on the show. Whenever someone on the show mentions his name, Alexa always pipes in "I don't know what you want me to do" because she thought she was being asked to execute a command.

beojeff wrote:

I say "Alexa, trigger morning." The morning command turns on the lights, turns on the tv to the morning news station, and begins brewing coffee. All of this while I'm in bed and with my eyes still closed!

Is the above done with your gateway linked up with ALEXA? I'm wondering if I can have trigger commands like that without owning a BL/MLGW. What I'd like to know is the command "Trigger" and the keyword "morning" is that through IFTT and ancillary linked devices? 

Sal wrote:

beojeff wrote:

I say "Alexa, trigger morning." The morning command turns on the lights, turns on the tv to the morning news station, and begins brewing coffee. All of this while I'm in bed and with my eyes still closed!

Is the above done with your gateway linked up with ALEXA? I'm wondering if I can have trigger commands like that without owning a BL/MLGW. What I'd like to know is the command "Trigger" and the keyword "morning" is that through IFTT and ancillary linked devices? 

You could indeed set up an IFTTT recipe directly between the Echo and your Hue lights without a BLGW. The BLGW is just such a tidy way to keep everything organized together. Still, you can do this without the BLGW. You just go to the IFTTT website and start creating recipes between the Echo and Hue. The command "trigger" is what is used to act on an IFTTT recipe. The word after "trigger" is whatever word or words that you want to use to label that recipe.

I like using the BLGW because it's so easy to create macros using multiple systems. For example, you can create one macro to create Hue lights, Nest thermostat, B&O audio/video, and RadioRa 2 lights and power outlets. With the BLGW, you can use a BLGW macro as what you want a command to act upon in a recipe.

I've tried playing around with pairing BeoPlay bluetooth speakers but without success. It seems that you can only send music TO a bluetooth device from an Echo device with the Echo Dot. The full size Echo, however, does not support sending music out to bluetooth speakers.

I tried pairing a BeoPlay A2 to my Echo Dot. The Echo Dot could not find the A2. If anyone else has success with this. Please advise.

I was finally able to get the Echo Dot to find the BeoPlay A2 using bluetooth, but no sound was sent to the A2. I ultimately gave up trying to use bluetooth and connected the two together by cable. Now, I can give a voice command to play any artist, album, or playlist from Spotify and it plays on the A2.

Not sure that the advantages of this and similar devices outweighs the disadvantages.

Do you really want an always on listening device in your home? Sounds too much like Big Brother to me!

Graham

beojeff wrote:

You could indeed set up an IFTTT recipe directly between the Echo and your Hue lights without a BLGW. The BLGW is just such a tidy way to keep everything organized together. Still, you can do this without the BLGW. You just go to the IFTTT website and start creating recipes between the Echo and Hue. The command "trigger" is what is used to act on an IFTTT recipe. The word after "trigger" is whatever word or words that you want to use to label that recipe.

I like using the BLGW because it's so easy to create macros using multiple systems. For example, you can create one macro to create Hue lights, Nest thermostat, B&O audio/video, and RadioRa 2 lights and power outlets. With the BLGW, you can use a BLGW macro as what you want a command to act upon in a recipe.