Alexa will get you to bed at night with these Alexa routines

Alexa is great for all sorts of things, including smart home control, but if you’re tired of having to turn everything off at night before you go to bed (or at least make sure it’s off), you can have Alexa do it. all this for you with one command.

RELATED: How to set up Alexa features to control multiple Smarthome devices at the same time

We’ve talked about the Alexa routine before. It’s a feature that can make chores a lot easier and faster, but routines are also great for when you finally decide to turn off for the night and rest your tired eyes. Here are some common nighttime tasks you can add to your Alexa program.

Turn off any lights or devices that are still on

Turning off all the lights in my house is probably one of the things I most often forget to do before I finally get to sleep for the night. The development of LEDs has eased my forgetfulness on my wallet, but it’s still a waste of electricity.

If you have smart lights scattered around your home and they are Alexa compatible, you can add an action to your Alexa night program that will turn off all smart lights for you. You’ll never have to worry about leaving your kitchen light on again.

And don’t worry; if the light is already off and you tell Alexa to turn it off, he won’t just turn it on and back on. SmartHome devices are smart enough to know that if you want to turn off the light and it’s already off, it will simply ignore your command and turn the light off.

Locking all doors

Maybe you lock your outer doors right after you close them, when you go in and out; probably no. Most people lock them up before bed, but sometimes they can be forgetful. The good news is that Alexa can automatically check when you go to bed and lock any smart locks you forgot to lock.

Of course, this requires a smart lock that works with Alexa. If you don’t already have one, they can be a worthwhile investment if you forgot to lock your door or just hated physical keys. Also, most homes usually only have a couple of exterior doors, so you won’t be spending a ton of money equipping your whole house with smart locks.

Turn on any fans or other night devices

While we turn off most devices before bed, there are some things you can turn on when you go to bed, like a fan or a white noise machine. Alexa can turn them on if you use smart plugs with them.

Smart plugs are pretty cheap, but they are a super easy way to turn dumb devices into smart home devices. You can use them to turn on or off something like a simple fan from your phone or by voice, wherever you are.

In addition, you can add smart plugs to your Alexa Routines and turn them on and off whenever you run a routine. I love having the fan run on white noise, so Alexa turns it on automatically when it’s time for bed.

Get Alex to say «Goodnight» Back to you

Last but not least, if you want to give Alexa a little more personality when she reacts to your bedtime habits, you can ask her to say something to you after you give her a voice command instead of just say «OK» or quickly confirm the call.

To do this, you’ll add it as another action, just like with lamps, locks, smart plugs, etc. Only this time, you’ll select «Alexa speaks» from the options.

You can select «Custom» and ask her to say whatever you want, or you can click on «Phrases» and then «Good Night» to choose from a list of phrases related to night time.

Of course, this is all just the tip of the iceberg, since you can include it in your own Alexa nightly program, but this at least gives you some ideas to start with.

Heck, if you have a garage door that can connect with Alexa, you can even close it if you may have forgotten not to leave it open all night, which happens more often than I’d like to admit!