Five reasons to create an Alexa smart home

I have been working on my smart home for over 2 years now and while my home works with both Apple’s HomeKit and Amazon Alexa, I know this is not an option for most people. From running both home assistants, I do have the unique situation where I can make some recommendations having using both Siri and Alexa every day.

For this, I am a focusing on what the assistant can do rather than the smart home devices as both Alexa and Siri can control your lights, switches, TVs and other gadgets.

The post is dedicated to Amazon’s Alexa system, if you want to know more about Apple’s HomeKit and Siri you can read that here.

Wide range of accessories

The biggest reason to go with Alexa over Siri for your smart home is the range of accessories Alexa can work with. Alexa has a huge skill library and an open API allowing anyone to build skills and services that work with Amazon’s home assistant.

Knowledge

Alexa comes in 2nd to only Google when it comes to knowledge. Ask Alexa anything, and you will get an answer 90% of the time. With data pulled from the Alexa Answers community and from trusted resources online including Wikipedia, Alexa carries a lot of knowledge.

Low entry costs

Often overlooked is in cost of getting a smart assistant to listen to you, regardless of where in your house you happen to be at the time you need them. This typically means adding a smart speaker to every room. Amazon has a range of speakers for every situation, from the low audio quality plugin in Echo Flex to the high-end Echo Studio and everything in between.

To get a good quality speaking in your main rooms and a Flex for voice only commands and no music in the hall and other passthrough areas of the home, your cost of entry into the Alexa echo-system is much lower than any of the competition.

Cross-platform compatibility

With Apple’s HomePod, Siri will only work with Apple’s services when it comes to your calendar and contacts. Alexa, on the other hand, lets you connect your iCloud, Google, and Hotmail calendars as well as other Microsoft Exchange calendars for business people.

Not only that but Alexa will play music from Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, and Amazon Music. When it comes to podcasts, you also have choices beyonds Amazon. If you don’t like to be locked into a single service provider, Alexa is for you.

Strong community support

The final reason for choosing Alexa as your home assistant is the community. There is an extremely helpful and growing community of very knowledgeable users online waiting to help you. With a large online community and fast-moving Subreddit, you never have to wait long for an answer.

While you don’t get a lot of official support from Amazon, the community has more than you could ever want.