In this article, we’ll do just that. We’ll use the Hue Motion Sensor as the sensor trigger, the Lyra light bar as the device that takes action, and Alexa as both a voice trigger and control mechanism. Also: This Alexa-controlled fan was the luxury I didn’t know I needed
How to set up motion-triggered smart lights as an Alexa routine
So what about you? What routines have you set up? Let us know in the comments below. Motion sensor: As a motion sensor, I chose the Hue Motion Sensor. I picked it because it was one of the few motion sensors that uses AAA batteries, which means the sensor should be able to run for about two years without changing batteries. I don’t like having to change batteries regularly on my smart devices. I prefer to set them up and just let them run. One downside is that the Hue Motion Sensor requires the Hue Bridge, but since I already had one of those for my Hue bulbs, there wasn’t any real barrier of entry. Smart lights: My goal was to have lights go on and off in a particularly dark hallway. The Govee Lyra was perfect for fitting into a corner and lighting up the space with a pretty blue hue. So that’s what I chose to use. Alexa: We have Alexa devices all through the house and have built our smart home infrastructure on top of them. So it made sense that we’d use the Alexa routines feature to drive this application as well. The key thing to note is you need to make sure you get an account (because there’s an internet component to this), install the app, and configure your device to be controlled by that app. In the Hue app, I named my motion sensor “Hall Motion Sensor”. Once you’ve verified that the device can be controlled by its vendor’s app, you can move on to the next step. To find a skill, open your Alexa app, press the More icon on the bottom of the page, then choose Skills & Games from the menu. After that, hit the magnifying glass icon to search for a skill. In my case, I searched for Hue. Repeat this step and the next for Govee (and any other lights that need to be controlled). My Govee skill is already enabled in the Alexa app, as you can see in the screenshot below. We’re going to start by opening the Alexa app, pressing the More icon at the bottom of the screen, and then tapping Routines. To add a new routine, tap the plus sign at the upper right of the screen. Let’s click Hall Motion Sensor. In our case, we’ll once again select Smart Home. As you can see, you can apply the action to all devices, just a light, to a group of lights, or to a scene. We just want to turn on a single light, so we’ll choose Lights. Once you get comfortable with routines, you can do all sorts of tweaks. We have a few other lights in the house that come on around sunset and turn off around sunrise. When I first started playing with routines, I set up Alexa to play “Here comes the sun” early in the morning to wake up by, but I found myself sleeping right through it. It was fun, but a regular old loud alarm sound works better for me. You can follow my day-to-day project updates on social media. Be sure to follow me on Twitter at @DavidGewirtz, on Facebook at Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz, on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz, and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV.
