• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind

2

Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock

3

Scott Bessent casually says the U.S. has more than $1 trillion in gold—and that it doesn’t matter for the dollar

1

The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind

2

Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock

3

Scott Bessent casually says the U.S. has more than $1 trillion in gold—and that it doesn’t matter for the dollar
TechAmazon Echo

5 things you can now do with your Amazon Echo and 3 things you can’t

By
Stacey Higginbotham
Stacey Higginbotham
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Stacey Higginbotham
Stacey Higginbotham
Down Arrow Button Icon
August 27, 2015, 11:36 AM ET
Stacey Higginbotham/Fortune
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Two months ago Amazon made its Echo voice controlled speaker/home automation device available to everyone for $179.99. At the time I told Fortune readers that they should really buy the Amazon Echo based on my experience with the device, which I had owned since December. If I didn’t convince you then, I’m back with some more inducements, and some tricks and tips for those that took my advice.

In the time since I’ve written that review Amazon has added support for more home automation products, including the Wink home hub and the SmartThings home automation hub. It has also fixed some of the issues with shared Google (GOOG) calendars so you can now get multiple calendars. The Amazon (AMZN)Echo is even developing a sense of humor and plays games. So without further ado, here’s what you can and still can’t do with the Amazon Echo.

Link it with Lutron lights: I love Lutron dimmers, and thanks to the link with the Wink hub I can now command my dining room lights, laundry room, and porch lights to go on and off or dim with my voice. I also included my dining room and porch lights as part of a group called Downstairs so I can tell the Echo “turn off downstairs” as I’m heading up to bed and every downstairs light that is connected to the Echo shuts off.

Turn on your humidifier: Actually, this could work with any appliance that you plug into an outlet and can be left on all the time. Using an approved Z-wave (it’s a type of radio) outlet that works with SmartThings, you can ask Alexa to turn on your humidifier (or whatever you have named that outlet) and it happens. You can also do this using the WeMo outlets that the Echo has supported for some time.

Provide a back door to your Sonos: This is somewhat janky, but you can control your Sonos speakers from the Amazon Echo if you only want to start and stop an existing playlist. The way to make this happen is to first hook your Sonos speakers up through your SmartThings account and then link the SmartThings kit to the Echo. The downside is the functionality is super limited. You can only play the current playlist and you can only start and stop the music using the same phrasing as you would for lights. So you’d say, “Alexa, turn on/off kitchen Sonos.”

Play Bingo: When your digital life gets to be too much and you need to take a break from the screen, just take a quick detour over to this site and print out these Bingo cards. Then visit the Skills section of the Amazon Alexa app and enable the Bingo app. Next, gather your friends and family, pass out some markers and your Bingo sheet print outs, tell the Echo “Alexa, open Bingo” and let Alexa call out the numbers for you.

Shared calendars: Simply ask Alexa, “What’s my calendar today” and she’ll let you know the number of things you have scheduled and what they are. Initially she couldn’t handle multiple calendars, but now you can go into the Alexa app (formerly called the Echo app) and check which calendars you want the Echo to pull from.

Now, before you get too excited about ordering Alexa to put your home into Away mode or lock it down for the night, here are the limits the device has today.

Nope, not gonna lock it: After hooking the Echo up to my Wink and SmartThings hubs I was somewhat dissapointed to see that it doesn’t control my Z-wave locks or other sensors, but I found the reason in a CNet article that explained that Amazon and its partners didn’t want burglers to be able to walk buy and command Alexa to open doors. Fair enough, although I was hoping to be able to create scenes that would allow me to tell the Echo to shut my house down for the night, which would include locking the doors.

That thermostat isn’t going to to play ball either: As part of shutting down the house for the evening, I wish Alexa would control my thermostats to raise the temperature in the summer and lower it in the winter downstairs, but neither my Nest thermostat (which is linked to my Wink system) showed up on the Amazon Echo, nor my Ecobee thermostat (which is linked up through the SmartThings platform) showed up. It appears that devices which are integrated with the hubs via an email link or a cloud-to-cloud interface don’t show up on the Echo.

100% accuracy: This is going to a biggie for people who will look at the thousands of dollars I spend on connected home gear and question my sanity. The Echo doesn’t always do what I tell it to. Sometimes it’s the Echo and sometimes it’s the light or the wireless or a gremlin causing a glitch I can’t replicate, but when I tell the Echo to turn off the kitchen lights sometimes they all go off but one. It happens most often with the GE Link lights in the kitchen and probably only one out of every 50 times with my Hue lights in the Living room. But it happens.

So today, the Echo can tell me my commute, offer me the news and my calendar, and let me control my lights, but it can’t control all of my connected gadgets. And it can’t even control my lights with 100% reliability. I’m okay with that, and expect it to continue to get better over time. It’s still the most used device in my house after the Sonos system.

Subscribe to Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the business of technology.

About the Author
By Stacey Higginbotham
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • TikTok icon
  • YouTube icon

Latest in Tech

All hail London—whatever the U.K.’s new Prime Minister says 
EuropeLetter from London
All hail London—whatever the U.K.’s new Prime Minister says 
By Kamal AhmedJuly 23, 2026
3 hours ago
MoonPay launches universal AI shopping wallet for non-technical Claude and ChatGPT consumers
CryptoAI agents
MoonPay launches universal AI shopping wallet for non-technical Claude and ChatGPT consumers
By Jeff John RobertsJuly 23, 2026
4 hours ago
AI coding company Cursor, soon to be acquired by SpaceX, expands its CFO council
NewslettersCFO Daily
AI coding company Cursor, soon to be acquired by SpaceX, expands its CFO council
By Sheryl EstradaJuly 23, 2026
4 hours ago
ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott pumping his fist.
AIServiceNow
Wall Street is finally starting to buy ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott’s story as the company beats Q2 earnings forecasts
By Jeremy KahnJuly 23, 2026
5 hours ago
Moonshot, DeepSeek, and the Great Chinese AI IPO Rush
Startups & VentureTerm Sheet
Moonshot, DeepSeek, and the Great Chinese AI IPO Rush
By Nicholas GordonJuly 23, 2026
5 hours ago
Paul Keary (L) and Mike Sutcliff (R).
CommentaryAI agents
Teneo & Thoughtworks CEOs: the AI race will be won with governance, not speed 
By Paul Keary and Mike SutcliffJuly 23, 2026
5 hours ago

Most Popular

The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind
Real Estate
The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind
By Nick LichtenbergJuly 22, 2026
1 day ago
Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock
Success
Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock
By Sasha RogelbergJuly 20, 2026
3 days ago
Scott Bessent casually says the U.S. has more than $1 trillion in gold—and that it doesn’t matter for the dollar
Economy
Scott Bessent casually says the U.S. has more than $1 trillion in gold—and that it doesn’t matter for the dollar
By Sasha RogelbergJuly 22, 2026
21 hours ago
Mathematicians grapple with a ‘very rapid and very unsettling change’ as AI cracks yet another century-old problem
AI
Mathematicians grapple with a ‘very rapid and very unsettling change’ as AI cracks yet another century-old problem
By Eva RoytburgJuly 21, 2026
2 days ago
Despite a $156 million contract, Knicks star Jalen Brunson still calls his parents for financial advice any time he makes a big purchase
Success
Despite a $156 million contract, Knicks star Jalen Brunson still calls his parents for financial advice any time he makes a big purchase
By Emma BurleighJuly 21, 2026
2 days ago
'The man who dies rich dies disgraced': The last time America had such wealth inequality, Andrew Carnegie knew he had to give it all away
Success
'The man who dies rich dies disgraced': The last time America had such wealth inequality, Andrew Carnegie knew he had to give it all away
By Nick LichtenbergJuly 22, 2026
24 hours ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.