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Virtual assistants will soon be as commonplace as smartphones -- in many parts of the world, they already are. Most smartphones have a built-in assistant powered by artificial intelligence (AI), whether it's Siri in iPhones or Google Assistant (now Gemini) in Android phones.
Inside our homes, though, Amazon Alexa has become the most popular virtual assistant in the US and even around the world. Users from various countries outside the US keep Echo devices in their homes with Alexa set to different languages, becoming a widely adopted virtual assistant.
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I've been using Alexa for a few years, and here are some ways it's changed the way I manage my smart home and use my Echo devices.
1. Become a lighting assistant
Each time I enter my bedroom's en suite bathroom, an Echo Dot greets me by turning on the lights and saying, "Hello, gorgeous." The Echo Dot's occupancy sensor detects when someone is around and runs the routine of switching on the lights and saying the phrase.
I have a smart wall light switch with a built-in motion sensor that constantly goes off at night each time a car's headlights are spotted on the window opposite it. Aside from getting creeped out when my bathroom lights randomly turned on at four in the morning, it was getting annoying, so I delegated the task to Alexa.
2. Streamline your nightly routines
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