Deploying smart home technology is one of the more appealing promises of voice control systems like Alexa. It’s tempting (and maybe inevitable) to fall down a rabbit hole of complexity when you’re setting up a smart home because there are so many options and possibilities. If you’re just starting out, it might be a good idea to keep it simple for your first step into creating a smart home. For example, let’s begin by installing a single light bulb that you can ask Alexa to turn on and off.

There are many brands of smart light bulbs, and as a result, setup procedures may differ from brand to brand. I picked a Philips Hue bulb because they’re easily available, quick to set up, and well supported.

Initial setup

The first step is to screw in your light bulb (insert joke here), and the first thing to check is whether the lamp is on a dimmer. Many bulbs will work on dimmers, but older dimmers can’t handle the current requirements of LED lamps. You can worry about this as you get deeper into smart home setups; for now, avoid dimmers. Ready?

• Open the Alexa app on your phone, turn on the light, and wait a few seconds.
• Tap the “Devices” tab at the lower right corner of your screen.
• At the top of the Devices screen, there are some buttons. The first one says “Echo & Alexa,” and the last one says “All Devices.” If you’re lucky, you’ll also see a button for “Lights” between them. Tap it, because it means that Alexa’s installed your light all by itself. You can now skip down to the section of this article titled “Final setup.” 

Adding a device manually

If you’re not that lucky, you have a little setup to do. 

• Tap the plus sign at the upper right of the Devices screen, then tap “Add Device” on the menu that pops up. There are buttons for some popular device brands and protocols along the top. 
• If yours isn’t among them, tap “Light,” and then tap on the brand of light you’re trying to install. It is possible that you’ll have to download another app and go through an installation process at this point; follow those instructions closely. 

• If, on the other hand, your bulb is among the popular brands along the top of the “Add Device” setup screen (for example, my Philips Hue bulb was there), then that simplifies matters a bit.
• Tap the appropriate icon to get to the setup screen. At this point, I was asked if the bulb is Bluetooth enabled. Newer Hue bulbs, from the second half of 2019 onward, are Bluetooth enabled and have the Bluetooth logo on the bulb and the box. If you have an older Hue bulb, you might need to install the hardware bridge that probably came with the bulb. Follow the instructions in the Alexa app, which will involve downloading a Hue app on your phone and installing a Hue skill on the Alexa. That is, unless if you’ve got an Echo Plus, Echo Show, or Echo Studio — in that case, you shouldn’t have any issues. These models come with built-in Zigbee hubs that can connect to Hue and other bulbs directly.

• If you have a newer Bluetooth bulb, make sure your Echo’s software is current by asking, “Alexa, is your software up to date?” If not, ask it to update itself. 
• Once you’re sure your software is up to date, turn your Hue light off and then on again. Then press the “Discover Devices” button at the bottom of the setup screen.
• The bulb may flash. The app should show a screen that indicates it’s connecting with the bulb via Bluetooth. If the process fails, just try it again. 
• When it finally works, you’ll see a screen that tells you that a light’s been discovered. Tap the “Set Up Device” button, and you’ll be told that the light is set up and ready to use. Tap “Done.”

Final result

Now, when you tap on that “Lights” button, you’ll see a list of all smart bulbs you’ve set up to work with Alexa. Tap on the name of the light, and you’ll get a screen that lets you adjust the brightness using a slider. At the upper right corner, there’s a gear icon that opens a screen offering information about the bulb and lets you rename the device. 

To turn the bulb on and off, you can simply say, “Alexa, turn <device name> on,” or “Alexa, turn <device name> off.” You can also dim it: “Alexa, dim <device name> to 50 percent.”

Welcome to the world of smart homes.

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I usually remember that I was supposed to buy something at the supermarket the instant I get home from my weekly grocery run. For whatever reason, I’m bad at keeping written lists, and making a note on my phone is just too complicated.

But telling Alexa? Yeah, I can do that.

You don’t have to do anything to set it up, either; Alexa comes ready with a shopping list feature already installed. When you want to remember something to buy at the brick-and-mortar store, just say, “Alexa, add russet potatoes / Mallomars / gallon Ziploc freezer bags to my shopping list.” Alexa will confirm the addition. 

When you want to look at your list, you can find it on your smartphone’s Alexa app. Just tap the menu icon in the app’s upper-left corner, then tap “Lists & Notes” and “Shopping” to see it. It comes as a checklist, so you can check things off as you buy them.

You can also have more than one list. Just say, “Alexa, create a list.” You’ll be asked for a name — “gifts,” for instance — and Alexa will start a new list by that name. When you want to add something to your holiday list, say, “Alexa, add a lump of coal to my gifts list.”

To remove something from your list, just say, “Alexa, remove” and name whatever you want to take off.

All that being said, you may come across some odd linguistic quirks. For example, when I said “russet potatoes five pounds,” Alexa put it on the list just as I said it. But when I asked it to put in “five pounds of russet potatoes,” it would only add “russet potatoes.” At the same time, it handled the phrases “three boxes of Mallomars” and “two boxes of gallon-sized Ziploc freezer bags” without any problem.

As with any Alexa skill, slight changes to your wording can be effective. See what works for you.

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Alexa-powered devices can do a vast number of things, driven by app-like abilities called “skills.” They can enable you to play games, listen to soothing sounds, enjoy an audio book, follow exercise routines, and get daily reminders to follow those routines. If you have the right tech, they can also turn on the lights in your house, start your car, close your garage door, and arm your security system.

In the same way that you’d download apps for your phone, you can download skills for your Alexa device. And they’re very easy to install.

Let’s say, for example, that you’re having trouble sleeping, and want to try to relax with some soothing ocean sounds. 

• On your smartphone, open the Alexa app and tap the menu icon in the screen’s upper left corner, and then tap “Skills & Games.” 
• On the Skills & Games screen, you can tap on “Discover” or “Categories” to browse around. In this case, since you know what you want, tap on the magnifying glass on top to bring up the search field, and type in the phrase “ocean sounds.”

• Now you get to choose any one of 150 results. When you tap on one of the skills listed, the resulting page will contain a description of that skill, what phrase(s) you can say to start it, basic info such as links to the developer’s privacy policy and terms of use, and customer ratings.
• If you’ve decided that this is the skill for you, tap the “Enable to Use” button, and you’re done. Say “Alexa, open Ocean Sounds,” sit back and relax.

On your desktop, the process is pretty similar.

• Point a browser to the Alexa skills page. Categories are on the left nav bar, selected skills are in the main browser window, and you can search using the familiar Amazon search bar at the top of the browser window.
• Click on the skill you want to install, and then click Enable. That’s it.

You can also install a skill by voice. Say, “Alexa, enable” and add the name of the skill you want to add. If you don’t know what to install, you can ask Alexa to recommend some skills. But be warned: it’s much faster and more convenient to search through the thousands of available skills on your phone or desktop.

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Step counting is all well and good, but the Apple Watch offers a number of important emergency- and health-related features that could keep you alive and are worth utilizing.

The Emergency SOS function is designed to notify people that you’re in trouble and what your location is, so that someone can come to the rescue. “Show When Locked” will allow important medical conditions to be seen on your home screen even if your phone is locked. You can also set up emergency contacts, and instruct the phone to detect falls.

Setting up Show When Locked

“Show When Locked” can be important if you have a chronic condition such as diabetes or an allergy that could trigger a health crisis; it means that if you need help, the information will be available to someone without having to unlock your phone. On your Apple Watch, the info will be available on a slider that appears when you press and hold the side button.

• On your iPhone, find and open the Health app. 
• Tap the person icon on the upper right corner of the Summary screen.
• In the “Medical Details” part of the profile screen, tap “Medical ID.” If this is the first time you’ve used the app, you’ll find that most of the page is taken up with a form that contains places for information about allergies, medications, blood type, etc. If you’ve already used the app, you’ll just see the info you’ve already entered; in that case, tap “Edit” in the screen’s upper right corner to see the full page.
• At the top of this screen (which is labeled “Medical ID”), activate “Show When Locked.”

Setting up an emergency contact

Setting up your watch to call a specific person when there’s an emergency is a little convoluted, but it’s worth the effort. 

• On the same Medical ID page, scroll to the bottom of the screen to find the “Emergency Contacts” section and tap on “add emergency contact.” You’ll get a list of your contacts. 
• Select the contacts who’ll get a message with your location informing them that you’ve called emergency services. Tap “Done,” then “Back,” then “Done” to return to the Health app’s Summary page.

Summoning help

If you want to take advantage of the Emergency SOS feature on your Apple Watch, you first have to toggle this feature in your phone’s Watch app:

• Select the Emergency SOS screen.
• Toggle “Hold Side Button” on.

To start an Emergency SOS call on your watch, hold down the side button until the Emergency SOS slider appears (you’ll also see “Power Off” and “Medical ID” sliders). Either drag the slider or keep holding the side button down; emergency services will be called, followed by a notification to people in your emergency contact list. If you’ve activated the feature by mistake, you can tap a few times to cancel the call and the notifications.

This is not bulletproof. If your watch doesn’t have cellular service, your phone will need to be nearby, or your watch will have to be connected to a known Wi-Fi network with Apple’s Wi-Fi Calling feature. (You can set up Wi-Fi Calling by using your iPhone’s Settings app and going to “Phone” > “Wi-Fi Calling,” and then turning on “Wi-Fi Calling on This iPhone” and “Add Wi-Fi Calling For Other Devices.” )

Keep in mind that if you travel (or live) outside the United States, the service could work differently. You may have to select which service you need; for example, police, fire, or ambulance. If you have the Watch’s fifth edition along with a cellular service, you can summon local help in most countries (there are exceptions), but the watch won’t notify your emergency contacts.

Fall detection

Your watch can also detect serious falls. If it thinks you’ve taken a tumble and can’t move, the watch will send an alert to ask if you’re okay. If you don’t respond, the watch will tap your wrist, then send an alarm, and then call emergency services. You can toggle this feature in your phone’s Watch app:

• Select the Emergency SOS screen (see above).
• Toggle “Fall Detection” on. You’ll get a warning that if you’re physically active, you’re more likely to accidentally trigger fall detection. Tap “Confirm.”

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Decorative and functional watchfaces are a signature feature of the Apple Watch. It’s pretty easy to select one and tweak their appearance. In fact, you can do it either from the Watch itself or on your iPhone. And if you’re tired of your current choices, you can always add a new one.

On your iPhone

To switch to a previously installed watchface:

• Open the Watch app. You’ll see a scrolling line of the watchfaces you’ve previously installed. Swipe left and right to find the one you want to use or customize, and tap it.
• Scroll down and tap on “Set as current Watch Face.” You’re good to go.

Customizing a watchface — in other words, changing the color, style, or some other aspect — will work a little differently depending on the features of each particular face. However, the general idea is the same for all of them. 

After you’ve tapped the face you want, swipe down to see which aspects you can tweak, and swipe across to see what your choices are. For example, if you see an aspect for color, swipe across to see the face’s available color schemes and tap the one you want to use. 

If you want to change an icon on the watchface that launches an app on your Watch — what Apple calls “Complications” — tap the appropriate menu item, scroll, and select. Work through the list of available positions, tapping the ones you want to change and picking the Complication you want to use from the scrolling list. When you’ve got it right, go to the bottom of the screen and tap on “Set as current Watch Face.” 

To install a new watchface:

• Open the Watch app. You can see the faces that are already installed near the top of the screen. 
• Tap the Face Gallery icon at the bottom center of your display. Scroll up and down and left and right to behold Apple’s creative bounty. 
• Tap on the one you want to add, tweak the settings a little if you want, and tap “Add.” The new face will appear on your Watch in short order. 

On your Watch

To switch to a previously installed watchface:

To change from among your installed faces, just swipe left or right on the Watch’s screen. That’s it.

Customizing your watchface is a little more complicated. 

• Force touch the screen. You’ll feel a vibration, and the watchface will go into Customize mode. 
• Swipe left and right to pick the face you want to work on, and tap “Customize.” 

What happens next depends on which face you want to work with and how complex it is. 

Generally, faces have two or three categories of design that you can change. Each category gets its own screen. The number of screens is indicated by the dots along the top of the display. You can move between the categories by swiping left and right. The area that you can change will be indicated by a green outline and will usually be labeled.

To make a change (color, style, etc.), scroll through the available options by tapping the area you want to change (if there is more than one area on the display outlined) and rotating the Digital Crown.

The last screen usually lets you manage the Complications. Things you can change are indicated by circles. Tap what you want to customize and scroll through the available Complications by turning the crown. 

When you’re done, press the crown once (a longer press will activate Siri, so don’t linger), and you’ll be brought back to the Customize screen. 

Lower your wrist, and you’ll be using that customized watchface. If you’re not wearing the Watch, press the crown or tap the screen once to return to the “Customize” screen and again to get back to normal mode.

To install a new watchface:

• Force touch the screen to enter “Customize” mode
• Swipe left through until you see the “New” button. Tap it.
• Either swipe up and down or turn the crown to run through the available faces. Tap the one you want to add, and you’re set. (You can customize it by following the directions earlier in this article.)

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