Amazon has made a string of announcements today related to the Echo and its digital personal assistant Alexa. The company has already enabled Alexa to control smart home devices like thermostats and now it’s adding support for companies that make some of the most widely used smart thermostats. Amazon has confirmed today that later this month Alexia will get support for smart thermostats from Nest and Honeywell.
Smart thermostats provide the same fundamental functionality as a regular thermostat but since they’re hooked up to the internet they enable the user to control and regulate the temperature even if they’re not at home.
Controlling them is very easy as manufacturers offer their own mobile apps for these products, but having the ability to change the temperature without even having to pick up your phone just sounds better, which is why this functionality has been added to Alexa.
Amazon has confirmed that Alexa will support smart thermostats by Honeywell and Nest by the end of this month. It will also get support for some of Insteon’s smart thermostats as well.
It has always been possible to control thermostats using Alexa by linking the connected devices through the IFTTT app but it requires a certain amount of time to set everything up. Direct support is going to be much simpler with no tedious setup required.