If you’re like most people, you probably have an Amazon Echo device in your home. And if you’re an Amazon customer, you probably use it to control various devices in your home, like lights and thermostats. But what about when you don’t want the Echo device to talk to other devices in your home? What do you do? There are a few ways to mute the Echo device at certain times. One way is to set up a timer on the Echo device that will turn off the speaker after a certain amount of time. Another way is to set up a rule in your Amazon account that will turn off the speaker after a certain amount of time has passed. And finally, another way is to use an outlet timer on your phone or computer that will turn off the speaker after a certain amount of time has passed. whichever method you choose, make sure that it’s set up properly so that the Echo device can’t talk to other devices in your home anymore.
Why Would I Want to Do This?
Or maybe you just don’t want to accidentally activate Alexa. Granted, it’s likely rare when that happens, but it’s kind of annoying when it does.
In order to automatically mute your Echo, you’ll need to spend a little bit of cash in order to get what’s required, or you might already have what you need. You can use a smart outlet, like the ones in Belkin’s WeMo lineup, or just use a basic outlet timer for cheap that you can pick up at almost any store.
Since your really just shutting off the Echo entirely and powering it back up, it will take a minute or so for the device to fully boot up and be ready to receive voice commands. During that time, the Echo plays a brief soundscape and then says “Hello”, so you’ll hear this every time it powers on automatically using the outlet switch.
To set up your outlet switch, we have a guide that takes you through the process on Belkin’s WeMo Switch, as well as another guide on how to set up the automatic on/off features.
On a cheap basic timer, it depends what model it is, but it’s really just about pushing down the small buttons during the times that you want the Echo to be powered on. Sometimes timers will have little tabs that you move around to mark when you want the outlet to turn on and off.
While those basic timers are cheap and relatively easy to use, you have to adjust them manually on the timer itself if you ever want to make changes, whereas on a smart outlet switch you can adjust the times right from your phone quickly and easily without much hassle.
