Josh Hendrickson
The best smart homes utilize automation. But there’s a problem: automation requires expensive sensors and either a smart home hub or an Echo with Zigbee radios. That put the dream of automation out of reach. Wyze’s new sensors helped because they are cheap, but they only work with other Wyze products. Until now, that is. Wyze Sensors now work wth Alexa routines—and that’s fantastic.
Unfortunately, other smart home sensors aren’t common enough, and they tend to be very expensive. Often you can expect to pay $30 to $60 for a single sensor! That’s a shame because, with a proper smart home setup, your lights and plugs can manage themselves when you enter and leave a room. Controlling your home by voice is nice, but that’s a reactive technology. Smart sensors make your home proactive to your needs.
Between the cost of the sensors and the reliance on smart home hubs or ZigBee compatible Echo speakers, that kind of smart home automation was out of reach for mainstream users.
Wyze took another step to solve that problem today by introducing Alexa automations for its inexpensive Wyze sensors. Wyze sensors don’t need a smart home hub to work, just a Wyze cam. They’re perfect for self-monitoring your home, but they were limited to controlling other Wyze devices like Wyze Bulbs and plugs.
By adding Alexa’s routine support, Wyze greatly expanded its sensor capabilities. You can now control any of your Alexa-enabled smart home devices from your Wyze sensors. That includes smart light switches, thermostats, and even smart locks.
You can create a routine that turns on the lights in a room when you walk in, and another that turns them off after you leave. Or could add a contact sensor to your mailbox and create a routine that announces “the mail is here” when somebody opens it.
The updated Wyze Alexa skill is out now and is a free update. If you already have Wyze sensors and a Wyze Cam, an Echo, and other smart devices in your home, you owe it to yourself to set up some fantastic routines right now.
