Good morning!

If you just rolled your eyes at that — because your morning wasn’t as good as you would have liked it to be — then I suspect that you’re in the right place.

What made your morning not as good as it could have been?

• Was something (or someone) frustrating you as you tried to get out the door?
• Did you have trouble waking up?
• Did you get distracted by your TV, phone, or tablet?
• Did you have a plan for breakfast and/or lunch? Were you able to follow through with that plan?
• Did you get caught in unexpected traffic?

While a smart home can’t solve all of these problems — it can help. Can it make breakfast for you? Not yet. But there are a lot of ways that a well-programmed voice assistant can take some work off your plate in the mornings.

1. Have Alexa be your more ‘creative’ alarm clock.
   What is one of the typical mental images that most people have of a two year-old? Picture an excited, energetic toddler at the side of your bed (usually at the crack of dawn) wondering why you aren’t awake yet. So they start yelling “Mommy!” or “Daddy!” loudly — repeatedly — until you wake up.
   
   Now, I’m not suggesting that you do this to your teenager if they are unable to get themselves out of bed in the mornings.
   What I am suggesting is that you have Alexa do it for you. 🙂
   
   Alarm tones: There are over two dozen custom alarm tones available in the Alexa app. Take some time to play through them — some of them are very funny! Find the one that you (or the person you’re setting this alarm for) will find the most particularly annoying. Make that their alarm tone. Why have just a ‘pretty little chime’ waking you up in the mornings when you can wake up to a horror movie scream? (look for the Skittles Alarm)
   
   Wake-up lights: If you have smart lighting set up, you can add wake-up lights to any alarm to “mimic a sunrise” by gradually changing the light level in the room from nighttime dark to full brightness. (Adding calming music from your favorite streaming service is a great way to make this into a gentle, calmer way to wake up in the morning.)
   
   Then again, there’s no reason you couldn’t set a routine to turn on the lights (at full intensity) at the same time that the alarm goes off!

Multiple alarms: If you need more than one alarm, set them. But don’t make them all the same! One of the reasons that white noise is so effective is that the brain tunes out input when it’s the same sound (or set of sounds) repeated over and over again with consistency. (That’s also why you might start sleeping through your alarm if it’s the same sound every day.)

If you know that it takes a lot to wake up up in the morning, then start with a “gentle” wake-up of nature sounds and lighting that mimics a sunrise.
But then make your second alarm something a little tougher to ignore — like a more traditional alarm sound, or a recorded voice encouraging you to get out of bed and get your day going.

And then, if that doesn’t work — bring in the scream queens and/or chainsaws…

2. Let Alexa fill you in on the information you “need to know”.
   What’s the biggest reason that you reach for a ‘screen’ device first thing in the morning? I’m betting that your answer probably involves checking the weather, your calendar, the news, or some social media platform.
   
   (Note: Unfortunately, at this time Alexa cannot read your email, text messages or social media notifications. You can probably do this through Home Assistant but that would involve some very, very complicated programming. If I ever get to the point of being able to do it without tearing my hair out I will let you know!)
   
   While you can’t have Alexa update you on the goings-on within your favorite social media platforms, you can set up a routine that will brief you on the “need to know” things in your day right after you turn off your alarm.
   
   Here are some ideas that you could use to build a daily “morning briefing” routine:

• Weather forcast
• Traffic report for your route getting to work
• The first event (or 2-3 events) on your calendar for the day
• Short podcasts to brief you on the news (if that’s important to you): Yes, I am well aware that podcasts can be a rabbit hole where you can spend hours listening to the latest conspiracy theories about a whole bunch of things. News outlets like Reuters, the Associated Press, Fox News, ABC, CNN and MSNBC (for starters) all have short podcasts that do nothing more than rattle off the headlines and a couple of talking points related to each story. Most of these podcasts are under ten minutes in length and are updated daily (if not hourly). Pick the sources you trust the most and have Alexa play them as part of this routine. I would recommend not going to crazy with this, though — try not to plan for more than 30 minutes of podcasts as part of your daily briefing. Best to stick to one or two podcasts — think your most trusted news source for the headlines and a specialty podcast or two on things your passionate about (like your favorite sports team) and leave it at that.
  
  SHORTCUT: Want to just let an “algorithm” program this for you? Spotify to the rescue! Sign in to Spotify and look for a playlist called the “Daily Drive”. It’s a 3 hour mix of news from some of the major news outlets and the music that the Spotify algorithm believes that you would like to hear.
• A short devotional or meditation podcast
• Words you need to hear. That’s right — if you want some sort of custom “daily affirmation” to get you pumped up for the day, you can have Alexa say it! As part of your routine, to the “Alexa says” section of the app and click “Customized”. Then put in what you want her to say. She will then say it every morning, without fail or getting ‘bored’ of saying it — until you go into the routine and change it.
• Medication reminders: if you have medication you need to take in the morning, you could add a reminder to this routine — or if you need to take the medication with food/water, you could add a reminder that would launch when you entered the kitchen or bathroom first thing in the morning.

Hopefully by this point you get the idea. Think of Alexa as an “automated” version of the secretary who fills you in on what you “need to know” to start your day off right.

3. Having an “extra pair of hands” to walk with you through your morning.
   After having spent entirely too much money buying mediocre Jimmy Dean Breakfast Sandwiches from Sam’s Club — or worse, mediocre to just plain bad breakfast sandwiches from Dunkin — I recently bought a Hamilton Beach Dual Sandwich Maker. So far, I am really enjoying it. Sausage, egg and cheese sandwiches are at another level when you take the manufacturer’s chemicals out of the equation and replace them with salt, pepper, and ghee…
   
   Anyway, the sandwich maker is on the same appliance level as your average cheap waffle maker: you plug it in to turn it on and unplug it to turn it off. As you have probably guessed by now, I do not have the time, energy or general inclination for any of that. So — I bypass the machine’s simple timer system and use a smart plug. When I want to start pulling breakfast together, I tell Alexa to “turn on the sandwich maker”. The plug turns on — which powers up the sandwich maker. Usually by the time I have assembled the ingredients for my sandwich the maker is ready. After I have assembled my sandwich, I then tell Alexa to “turn off the sandwich maker in 5 minutes and 30 seconds”. I am then free to take care of other things while my sandwich maker finishes making my breakfast. When my sandwich is ready, Alexa will then turn off my sandwich maker. I don’t have to worry about my food burning if I get distracted. My hot, fresh breakfast sandwich will sit there waiting for me to grab it and enjoy it.
   
   Anything that you need to manually turn on or turn off can be plugged into a smart plug. In the mornings, that frees you up to use your voice to turn those devices on instead of needing to be in front of the device to turn it on manually.

Some ideas of other appliances you might want to put on smart plugs:

• Kettle
• “Dumb” coffee maker (if you prep it the night/day before)
• Heated towel rack
• Makeup mirror
• Electric griddle/frying pan
• Waffle maker

Other devices you can program to help with your morning routine:

• Smart Blinds
• Robot vacuum (see below)

4. Have Alexa do that “one last final check” of the house — so you don’t have to. Are you the type of person who always worries that you left the stove on? Or the iron on? Or you hair appliances? You could program a routine that automatically does all of these things for you with a simple voice command (like “Alexa, I’m leaving”).
   
   Once programmed, Alexa could:

• Turn off the lights.
• Turn off all the smart plugs — so you’ll never “leave the iron on” again.
• Lower the thermostat.
• Lock smart locks.
• Arm a security system (if connected).
• Start your robot vacuum to vacuum and/or mop the floors while you’re gone.

At some point, I am sure that we all have wished for that “personal assistant” who could make your coffee, remind you of the important events on your calendar and smooth out the details of your morning routine so that you didn’t have to think about it. Well…after a little bit of time invested in training (aka programming) your Alexa devices, from that point on — all you have to do is ask.

How do you use your voice assistant to make your mornings easier? Share your ideas in the comments!