Latest Posts
Happy 8th Birthday Siri! We count (on) you!
At an Apple Special Event, on the 4th of October 2011, Siri was born. Well, actually not 'born', more like, 'announced' becoming part of the iPhone. A year earlier, in April 2010, Steve Jobs finally managed to buy the Siri app, supposedly for...
Alexa, let me sleep in! How to NOT use your Echo, Dot, Spot and Show as an Alarm Clock
What do we hate, each and - hopefully - not every morning? No matter if it works and even more if not? Exactly, our alarm clocks. Now, with our Amazon Echos, Dots, Spots, and Shows, we search the web for tips and tricks to use them as...
Alexa, Play Some Music: All The Music Commands (and more …)
In this post we will look into all the Alexa music commands, to enjoy all the music services supported by your Amazon Echo. We will cover basic volume and playback commands, as well as tips and tricks on how to play and manage your favorite music. You'll...
Every Human Lies – Eavesdropping on Siri, Alexa and Google
They are soon eight and five, while our youngest became three in May. Still, our voice assistants Siri, Alexa and Google delight us continuously with new features. One of the recent 'features' came to some of us as a surprise: humans are listening into (some of) our...
Philips Hue – A Smarter Setup for Your Smart Lights
In this post, we will shed some light on the basic principles of smart lighting and the Philips Hue product family and generations. We will look into efficiently setting up and grouping (just a couple and also many) lights with the Philips Hue app and prepare a...
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Top Alexa Posts
Alexa, Play Some Music: All The Music Commands (and more …)
In this post we will look into all the Alexa music commands, to enjoy all the music services supported by your Amazon Echo. We will cover basic volume and playback commands, as well as tips and tricks on how to play and manage your favorite music. You'll...
Alexa and Philips Hue: Setup and Voice Commands
In this post, we will set up Alexa to talk to your Philips Hue lights. We will cover a quick basic setup, as well as additional Alexa features to get the most out of your Philips Hue setup. You will also find all the voice commands and...
Logitech Harmony and Alexa: Setup, Voice Commands and a Candlelight Dinner
This Valentine's post is a story of appreciation, harmony and ultimately ... love. In this post we are going to connect Alexa with our Logitech Harmony Hub, only to find one of the loveliest integrations of voice control. Promise. On top we will create a "candlelight dinner" routine for Alexa, to...
Philips Hue: Who will win, Siri, Alexa or Google?
Let’s examine the strengths and weaknesses of Siri, Alexa, and Google by comparing their configuration options, voice commands, and smart home features for our Philips Hue lights. The world leader in lighting and the smart assistants of the biggest tech companies, can it get...
Logitech Harmony: Who will win, Alexa or Google?
Let's find out, whether Alexa or Google supports our Logitech Harmony better. We will compare configuration, voice commands, smart displays, and assistant specific smart home features. Now, that we have thoroughly examined the setup of Logitech Harmony: a Hub and it's Elite, Ultimate, Companion, and...
Top Google Posts
Ok Google, Play Some Music! All The Music Commands (and more …)
In this post we will look into all the Google music commands, to enjoy all the music services supported by your Google Home. We will cover basic volume and playback commands, as well as tips and tricks how to play and manage your favorite music. You’ll find...
Google Home and Philips Hue: Setup and Voice Commands
In this post, we will look into the Philips Hue for Google Home setup. We've updated this post to reflect the improvements in scene and room support. We've included all the voice commands, added the new gentle sleep and wake feature, and also examples how you can...
Logitech Harmony and Google: New Setup and Voice Commands
Ok, we were a bit disappointed. There were quite some bugs in the initial integration of Logitech Harmony and Google Home. Guess what? It took some time and now the bugs are fixed. Time to update this post to reflect the recent improvements in setup and voice...
Logitech Harmony and Google Assistant: (Retired) Setup and Voice Commands
In this post, we will connect Google Assistant with our Logitech Harmony Hub. In case you have not already set up your Harmony devices, activities and favorites, it is a good time to do so. Refer to the post Logitech Harmony: a Hub and its Elite, Ultimate, Companion for the Logitech...
Google Home and Nanoleaf Aurora: Setup and Voice Commands
Let's introduce our Google Home to Nanoleaf Aurora. In this post we will set up our little Google Home assistant to talk to Captain Muks. We will look into the basic setup and additional tricks to get the most out of our setup. If...
Top Siri Posts
Hey Siri, Play Some Music: All the Music Commands (and more …)
In this post, we will look into all the Siri music commands, which are not only limited to your HomePod but will also work with your iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Apple Watch and Mac. We will cover basic volume and playback commands, as well as tips and...
Siri and Philips Hue: HomeKit Setup, Voice Commands and Siri Shortcuts
Let’s introduce our Philips Hue lights to Siri and HomeKit. We will look into the basic steps and additional tricks to get the most out of our setup. Furthermore, we will look into Siri Shortcuts and how they can help us to create our own voice commands,...
Philips Hue: Who will win, Siri, Alexa or Google?
Let’s examine the strengths and weaknesses of Siri, Alexa, and Google by comparing their configuration options, voice commands, and smart home features for our Philips Hue lights. The world leader in lighting and the smart assistants of the biggest tech companies, can it get...
Siri and Nanoleaf Aurora: Setup and Voice Commands
Let's introduce our Nanoleaf Aurora to Siri and HomeKit. We will look into the basic steps and additional tricks to get the most out of our setup. Good news: if you've followed our post Nanoleaf Aurora How To - Setup and Configuration to the Muks!, you might...
Musical Assistant Showdown: Who will win, Siri, Google or Alexa?
We are at the crossroads. We use our smart assistants mostly for listening to music, but how musical are our assistants actually? How to decide, whether Alexa, Siri or Google fits better to our musical preferences? And if we have decided already, how can we get the most out...
Introductions
Smart Ideas
Logitech Harmony and Alexa: Setup, Voice Commands and a Candlelight Dinner
This Valentine's post is a story of appreciation, harmony and ultimately ... love. In this post we are going to connect Alexa with our Logitech Harmony Hub, only to find one of the loveliest integrations of voice control. Promise. On top we will create a "candlelight dinner" routine for Alexa, to...
Control Smart Lighting with Presence, Geo-fencing and Motion Sensors
We can control smart lighting in different ways, through our presence, or even during our recreational absence. Motion sensor activated lighting is definitely not a novelty. Samuel Bagno invented the first motion sensor already back in the early 1950s, but today's options go way beyond switching our...
How to teach your Logitech Harmony: Alexa, Hey Google turn on Roomba!
It must have been a strange moment for Mr. Colin M. Angle, CEO of iRobot, when he presumably announced summer 2017 his plans to sell the mapping data share maps for free with customer consent of his newest robotic vacuum cleaner (Roomba) models to one of the big three (Amazon, Apple, Google)....
Sleeping Better with Smart Lighting: Smarter “Go to Bed” and “Wake Up”
We spend 36% of our lives asleep, and while the average sleep period has decreased over the last 60 years, neuroscience is discovering more and more how important sleep is for our well-being. Can smart lighting help us to sleep better and wake up more energized?
Natural Smart Lighting: Feeling Better With Smart Light
We have already looked into the impact of light on our sleep in the "Sleeping Better with Smart Lighting" post. But what about the rest of the day? Can smart lighting help us to "feel better", maybe by resembling natural light? For a general...
