Alexa, Turn Up the Heat!

SmartThings and Amazon Echo make it possible to control your connected thermostat with just your voice.


Get ready to love the sound of your voice.

Picture it: You’re binge-watching Netflix, happily warm underneath your favorite blanket when you suddenly think Oh no! the sun went down 7 hours ago and now the room is too cold for me to grab my phone from the coffee table, let alone get up. Now imagine the same situation, but this time, you have Amazon Echo, SmartThings, and a connected thermostat, and get ready for magic. All you have to do is say, “Alexa, raise the thermostat by 10 degrees,” and guess what? It happens.

Or maybe as you’re dashing off to work, you remember your electricity bill from last month and say, “Alexa, set the thermostat to 60!” and as you drive off, your SmartThings Goodbye Routine runs and maintains the temp for the next 7 hours. Basically, if you have a SmartThings Hub, an Amazon Echo, and your compatible thermostat (like the Honeywell Lyric), you get full temperature control without even having to lift a finger.

Looking for how-to tips? Follow these steps to get started in your own smart home.

Currently available only in the US, but other countries are anticipated to receive this functionality in the future.

Previously: SmartThings + Amazon Echo

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Join the conversation! 32 Comments

  1. I’m sorry, but i don’t understand most of these use cases, why would the room get too cold for you when the sun goes down? Wouldn’t the room be at whatever you set the temperature too? Also, why would you need to turn your thermostat down as you leave, it should do that automatically as part of your goodbye routine. The one case where the echo-thermostat control could be very useful would be for a quick “i’m cold” or I’m warm”, which would turn it up or down one degree. I hope that will be possible. Keep up the good work!

    Reply
    • I’m assuming you don’t live in a very cold climate? Yes, the thermostat maintains a constant temperature based on its own readings but that doesn’t mean a room feels the same throughout the day. Often floors get colder as the outside temperature drops, you may get drafts in certain places, etc.

      But all in all you’re just over thinking it :) They were just giving a friendly example, scrutiny is not required.

      Reply
      • True, and edited.

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      • Nah. I completely agree with him. I don’t ever want to set the temp to 72. I always want to engage the heater or A/C relative to where it is set now. If I feel cold, I want to say “I’m cold” and have my stat turn the heater on to one degree above my current temp. That would be awesome.

        Reply
        • if you use the ifttt or tasker workaroundsk, you can say just that or anything else you want to get it to work. I use it that way with my nest. :)

          Reply
        • I have the lyric and echo and i can now just say “Alexa, make my living room warmer/cooler” and it adjust up or down by 2 degrees. I added the thermostat to my “living room” group for it to work. You need to add it to a group for Echo to be able to recognize the command. Otherwise you can say “Alexa, set thermostat to xx degrees” and it works without being added to a specific group. If you want something more custom than the IFTT trigger is the way to go.

          Reply
    • Amazon Echo does it like a breeze for my ecobee3. All I say is “Alexa, increase thermostat” or decrease thermostat. You can say more to cause it to work but a simple command like above works great.

      Reply
  2. That’s great news. But any chance this will be coming to OK Google and Siri? I know you can achieve this through a multiple app setup (I’ve done it), but this would be great if it was supported properly.

    Reply
  3. I just saw the same notification regarding echo and nest compatibility. Looking forward to seeing Nest integration as I am not planning to switch to yet another thermostat. When will other thermostats be supported with Smartthings ?

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    • I have the CT100 Z-Wave thermostat which can be purchased for around $75 and it works very well with SmartThings and now with the Echo.. I just tried it via Alexa! It has provided every “Smart” aspect of the Nest when paired with SmartThings at a much lower price and an easier install. I just dont get to look at the weather on my thermostats color touchscreen (luckily that is not a use case for me :P ).

      Reply
      • I already own Nest. It does what I need it to do and I would like to continue using it. As smartthings is a new acquisition for me – I would also like to see increased support. I have pretty much given up on Wemo platform (too limited and closed) and I think Wink is likewise inferior (have them both in addition to Philips Hue hub and an assortment of bulbs).

        Reply
      • I have that thermostat and it works fine in smatthings but the device isn’t found from echo only the TCP lights I have installed. Any tips to making it work?

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        • Once it is set up on the smartthings hub, you need to re-do device discovery on the Echo…

          Reply
        • I opened up the “Amazon Echo” SmartApp within SmartThings and enabled my CT100 as a shared thermostat and saved that. After that it should just be a matter of asking Alexa to rediscover devices and you should have temperture control!

          Reply
      • I’ve been able to get Alexa to change the set temp, but I can’t seem to get her to tell me the current temp. Has that worked for anyone?

        Reply
  4. I’m curious if the echo only works with the thermostat, or if it integrates with SmartThings. For example can you ask it to turn on the hall light, or change to sleep mode.

    Reply
    • It integrates with the SmartThings. I came here to find the Thermostat, since I have been using my lights with Echo for several months…

      Reply
  5. So you can use alexa to adjust temp on ANY smartthings connected thermostat, or just selected thermostats?

    Reply
  6. Im using Alexa with my Emerson Sensi thermostat and it works flawlessly! I just tell Alexa to turn up the thermostat or set thermostat to 68 whatever and it works! No Smartthings hub needed!

    Reply
  7. My Lyric was on AC, I asked Alexa to raise temp to 75 and it switched to 75 Heat. Anyone else have this issue?

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  8. I tried this and said set the heat to 60 and Alexa said setting heat to 260 and maxed my thermostat. That’s so not a good thing. Alexa should logically know I’d never set my house temp to 260 or any 200 number.

    Reply
  9. I would imagine it would work with *any* SmartThings-connected thermostat. It worked flawlessly with my Honeywell YTH8320ZW1007U, after I granted permission in the SmartThings app and then told Alexa to discover devices. After that, saying, “Alexa, set the thermostat to 72 degrees” did exactly that.

    One little nitpick: Saying “Alexa, turn up the heat” did not adjust the thermostat. It turned up the volume on the Echo. Not a big deal, but if you’re going to make that the title of the announcement, it had better work.

    Reply
  10. Great! Only one small oversight. Still no support for Nest, which is #1 by a landslide in terms of adoption.

    Reply
    • Nest is support by more than one “Community Developed” (freely shared, and easily installed) Device Handler (http://community.smartthings.com). The quality, features, and online support for these unofficial device handlers tend to *exceed* that of those written by SmartThings for officially supported devices; so much so that many customers use Community apps and drivers even when there is an official one available. There are very few drawbacks to this approach; it is, in fact, a *feature* of the Platform that 3rd party developer code can be installed and run. Disclosure: I’m co-founder of SmartTiles.click; the very popular 3rd party browser compatible UI for viewing and controlling your SmartThings… Just another success story for the platform.

      Reply
  11. Currently, Lyric and ST are broken (at least for new folks) as I’ve spoken with ST and they confirmed it’s not working on their end. :(

    Reply
  12. I have three Honeywell 9580 thermostats separately named, linked to ST hub and discovered by Alexa. I instruct Alexa to turn up thermostat 2 degrees and she responds no device with that name exists. I then name the specific “downstairs thermostat” and same response. I can to go ST app and turn up temp so all works there but no joy with Alexa. Any suggestions?

    Reply
    • Simplify the names. I only have one, and I tried to name it “ClimateControl”. Alexa struggled with that, so I changed it back to “Thermostat”. And on my 9580, I can’t give a name more than 14 characters, so I’m not sure how you did so….

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      • Thanks for the reply. My designations are pretty simple. Upstairs, Downstairs and Basement. Today I tried many variations to Alexa to turn up temperature and heard back, sorry I cannot find a device called downstairs thermostat, on another try sorry I cannot find a device called downstairs temperature (tried Alexa, turn up downstairs temperature…”. I’ve got the honeywell app so will use that.

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        • Sorry, I shouldn’t have presumed I had “the answer.” Maybe it has something to do with multiple units. Alexa at my house has a lesser challenge, with only one. But it’s kind of fun once it’s working. And I really did enjoy controlling the temperature remotely from work today …. Good luck with it Mac. Best – Joe

          Reply
        • Did you find a solution?
          I have the same problem, 2 thermostats also named “Downstairs” and “Upstairs ”
          Alexa acknowledges multiple thermostats when asked “Alexa what is the thermostat set to?”

          Reply
    • Did you use the Alexa app to discover the devices? After i set my Lyric t5, i then had to enable the honeywell skill, then had to go to the smart home section of the Alexa app and discover the device.

      Then it worked. Prior to doing that i had the same result as you.

      Reply

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