Why did I unplug – Amazon Alexa?

With bit of a geek left in me I planned to carry out some degree of home-automation. To achieve this,  like everyone I spent some $$$. I upgraded some of my old gadget and bought couple of new ones. The latest addition to the stable were Amazon Echo Dot and a smart plug. The next one I suppose will we smart lighting. The trigger for getting these was set-up of my 8 months old son’s new room. Echo-dot is positioned near my other devices like Router, Cloud Drive on TV unit, connected with Smart Plug and JBL Flip speaker in my son’s room.

The use-cases thought of were enormous:-

1. Alexa to play music and lullaby in my son’s room
2. Alexa to Start and Stop Heating in the room.
3. Alexa to switch light on/off
4. Alexa to play music in my wife’s home office setup in lounge.
5. Alexa to manage to-do list and shopping list.
6. Alexa to setup reminders and alarms

One of the use-case which I didn’t think of when I bought was a play toy for my son. Every time I called “Alexa”, my son would crawl to TV Unit, stand up and start watching her blue spinning ring and response. It started as entertainment for us and this became an addition for 8 month old. This addiction to word “Alexa” became so bad that my son would wake up at 6:30 AM from his deep sleep to every Alexa Command. He wouldn’t otherwise respond to “Mama”, “Papa”, “Daddy” or his own name.

With all the above happening and I can vouch that potential for these assistive devices is enormous in coming years and I will use it. For now with 8 month old while he is learning to walk, talk and listen – he needs to unlearn the word “Alexa”.

Result – Amazon Echo Dot is un-plugged for a month and word Alexa is forbidden to be used.