How to start an Amazon Alexa Smart Home for 30 Dollars

Wanting to turn your home into a smart home but does not have the budget to do so? You came in the right place!  In this article, we are going to give you step by step guide on how to start an Amazon Alexa Smart Home with only $ 30 as your budget. If you really wanted to, you could even start an Amazon Alexa Smart Home for $22 bucks. The only thing you need is a smart plug!

How to start an Amazon Alexa Smart Home

The end goal of this guide  is to be able to issue voice commands through the Amazon shopping app. It’s not the most convenient method of accessing your home but at least you can see what it’s like before spending money on an Echo or Echo Show.

At Smart Home Reviews Eh, we have been using Alexa in our own home for several months now, alongside with Apple Home and Google Home and here’s our current conclusion. Amazon Alexa is designed more for living in your home, Apple Home is more for enjoying your home. Google Home in it’s current state needs a bit more work.

Step 1 – Buy a smart plug

First of all, you’ll need to get a smart plug. A quick search on Amazon will bring you a plethora of different Alexa enabled plugs with prices ranging from $20 to $60. We personally have used over a dozen smart plugs and the cheapest one we have is the KooGeek Smart Plug P2 for about $35 dollars. The Belkin WeMo Mini, on the other hand, is one of our favourites. Mostly because it’s small.

Once the smart plug shows up on your doorstep, find something in your home you want to automate. You can use the smart plug to control a lamp, turn on a kettle, printer, power bar, fan, control your hair curling/heating appliances or if you really wanted to, you could plug your Google Home into the smart plug. We’re not sure why you would but you could.

Step 2 – Install the smart plug in Alexa

Once you’ve plugged the device in, you’re going to need to go through Alexa’s 7 step installation process:

1. Download the manufacturers app
2. Link the gadgets own wifi
3. Install the unit in the app
4. Sign-up for the manufacturers web service
5. Goto your Alexa app
6. Find the corresponding manufacturers Alexa skill
7. Link your account.

After all that, you have to discover your devices. There are times that your device will got discovered but don’t worry you can still proceed to the next step even if that’s the case.

Step 3 – Setup Alexa in the Amazon shopping app

Here’s the slightly odd part of this entire setup. Now you’re going to download and open up Amazon’s shopping app. Yes. The shopping app.

If you’re in the US, you’ll be defaulted to the US store but if you’re anywhere else, you’ll need to change to the US store in order to Access Alexa.

Tap the microphone in the top right corner of the app and start issuing your voice commands!

If you’re having trouble discovering devices, you can say “Alexa, discover my devices”. That usually solves the Amazon Alexa app discover problems.

But that’s all you have to in order to remotely control whatever appliance you’ve connected your smart plug to. Now you can start issuing voice commands to Alexa involving your smart home gadgets.

Next Steps

If you’re sold on starting an Amazon Alexa Smart Home, consider getting an Amazon Echo, Echo Dot or Echo Show. Accessing Alexa through those devices is much more convenient than opening up the shopping app.

You should also experiment with automating your smart home. From our perspective, smart home automations are the most useful feature of these smart home platforms. Check out IFTTT or Stringify to see what you can automate!

So that’s how you start an Amazon Alexa Smart Home for 30 Dollars. Hopefully our post has helped you out! If you liked this post and are considering getting one for yourself, check out our links to purchase your products. Let us know if you have any comments or questions in the comments below!