While some of your best home memories may be turning lights on and off exactly 31 times before leaving the room, those days of physical entry are quickly consigned to the history books thanks to the smart home. One of the biggest benefits of smart lighting is the ability to control everything with your voice. Lighting systems like Philips Hue are compatible with all popular voice assistants like Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant. How do these systems work, how do you set them up and can they actually understand your commands? Here are the answers to all these questions and more.
What are voice activated devices?
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Voice-activated devices record the user’s audio commands and send those clips to remote servers for translation. It then returns commands or information to the device. In the case of smart lighting, the command might appear to say, “Hey Google, turn off all the lights” on your Google Nest Mini, which then records the clip over your home Wi-Fi to Google’s servers. , which translate it to the correct device command. That command is sent back to the Nest Mini, which detects that you want to do something with your smart bulbs, sends that command to your lights, and voila, your lights turn off.
This process touches on the inevitable issue of privacy, as there is some privacy concern for multinational mega-corporations that hoard user data as personal as voice clips. The big challenge is getting enough processing power to process voice commands locally on the device without having to send them somewhere else. We’re getting to that point, but we’re not there yet.
How to make a voice activated light switch?
Voice activation of smart lights occurs through one of three main voice assistants: Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri, or Amazon’s Alexa. Each of them has a platform on which these smart devices work alongside the rest of your smart home controls. Apple has HomeKit, Alexa Skills, and Google Home. These platforms process your voice commands and, after translating them, send them to your smart lights to execute them.
Any given smart light should include support for one (or ideally all) of these platforms to support voice commands. These platforms are available on phones, tablets, computers and smart speakers from the respective manufacturer. While you can, for example, issue Alexa commands through the Android app, you’ll typically have a more seamless experience controlling your Alexa-connected lights through an Amazon Echo device.
Once you’ve installed your smart lights and connected them to the proper platform during the setup process, you should be ready to go. The commands typically require a wake word or a physical key press to put the devices into listening mode. “OK Google,” “Alexa,” or “Hey Siri” are common trigger phrases. The commands are as simple as “turn on all lights”, although the selection of available controls is quite extensive. Let’s look at the popular Philips Hue bulb as an example.
Can Philips Hue be activated by voice?
Yes, Philips Hue bulbs can be activated by voice. Philips Hue works with Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri and Google Assistant after the initial setup process.
There are broad commands you can issue by voice, such as “All lights off” and “All lights on.” There is also some degree of brightness control, so you can ask to “make the hallway brighter”. You can also issue commands for specific smart light recipes in specific areas, such as “Activate Relaxation in Living Room.” Even if you don’t have a recipe set, you can tell Philips Hue to “turn bedroom lights red” if you have a colored smart bulb. If you just want to know what’s going on with your lights, ask, “What lights are on in the kitchen?” Philips has a less-hyped feature called Gentle Sleep & Wake, which will gradually dim the lights in plenty of time for you to sink into the blissful emptiness of sleep or wake up peacefully in the morning. These settings can also be applied using voice commands.
How to voice activate Hue lights?
Activating Hue lights with your voice is easy. To set it up, go to settings the Hue app menu on your phone and touch voice assistants. There you will find the three options. Choose the ones that correspond to the devices you use most frequently. For example, choose Siri and HomeKit if you use an iPhone, or alexa if you have an Echo Dot in the kitchen, for example. Follow the signs from there and you should be on your way.
Congratulations, you are now free from the shackles of manually manipulating devices and can invoke the gift of light with a single command.
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Source: newstars.edu.vn