Don’t Rely on Your Smart Speaker As Your Only Alarm Clock
It’s tempting to turn your Amazon Echo or Google Home into an alarm clock . You may already have a smart speaker on your bedside table, and the ability to turn off the alarm or get an extra ten minutes of snooze time without lifting your finger (or even opening your eyes) is a huge plus.
Despite all these perks, it just isn’t worth relying on one of these artificial intelligence devices for something as important as making you wake up on time every morning. It’s all too easy for something to go wrong and that is exactly what happened last Friday. Not to me, but to a friend.
Personally, I still use my smartphone as an alarm clock because I like waking up to music, and with Google Home it’s not that easy . But when I woke up last Friday, the first words from my mouth were “Ok Google,” followed usually by “good morning” to trigger daily weather and news updates. Instead, Google Assistant quickly turned me off to explain that it was no longer connected to Wi-Fi.
It is clear that something was wrong. All of my smart lights and smart plugs were off too, as was the Chromecast plugged into my TV and the Echo Dot in my kitchen. After having no success with the Wi-Fi settings on my phone, I posted a message on the private Facebook group of my apartment building to see if anyone else was having the same problem. A few seconds later, the neighbor answered, confirming that it was not only me.
“My Amazon Echoes were off this morning and I overslept my alarm,” he wrote.
So learn from my neighbor’s trouble (I definitely will). Don’t rely on Amazon Echo or Google Home for anything you really need. Your Wi-Fi suddenly crashes overnight is enough to ruin your morning entirely. And if you insist on setting an alarm with a smart speaker, at least use your phone as a backup.