all right good morning everyone and Welcome to our uh webinar series for March still march um we're going to be talking about smart home devices and I'm going to put up in the chat the slides one more time for those of you that just joined us um so it is a bitly link and it's going to be bit. lmom devices appat so going to be a capital S for smart a capital D for devices and then a p t a t all capitalized and it is in the chat as well all right make sure everything's there um so just a heads up
please feel free to uh type your questions in the chat as we go along with the session um we will make sure to have time at the end for participants to jump onto the microphone um if you prefer to ask your questions verbally that's not a problem at all and of course the session will be recorded and available through our YouTube channel um and that is youtube.com sign and then apat okay um and then next we want to talk about our captions and language translation services today uh we do have live
captions available so um to access those if you do not see a little DC button at the bottom of your toolbar just click on the more button it'll be over to the right of your Zoom toolbar and you'll click that and then you should see the option for captions um and then we also have Spanish language translation available um and thank you to the Alabama Council on developmental disabilities for providing this uh service for this webinar and very similar to captions you will see a similar button for
interpretation Services believe it looks like a little Globe uh and you can click on that and then select from English to Spanish um if you do not see that Globe again click on the more button um and then you'll find that interpretation service gracias hello everyone we'll be interpreting today to English uh and Spanish in case there's in Spanish participation everyone who speaks English please be sure to turn on the interpretation feature and to select the English Channel so that if we do have
to interpret from Spanish to English any questions or any anything at all you'll be able to hear us thank you okay all right thank you everyone apologies for that delay um welcome again to our webinar and uh this is appd or accessing potential through assist of Technology we are the Alabama at act program our mission is to increase knowledge access uh and acquisition of assist of Technology throughout the state of Alabama uh we are F federally funded program um and we do this through several dif
ferent activities um those include our short-term device Loan program our reutilization programs so um durable medical equipment can be donated um in one of our five locations and then people can pick up that equipment for free uh we also provide a variety of trainings including this one that you're seated at today um technical assistance and then additional resources for financial assistance um so just a slew of things to help you know more about assist of technology and and get access to it uh
one of the biggest questions we always get is who are we for um is this only for people with disabilities um is this only for their care caregivers uh we are here for everyone and anyone in Alabama so that could be a person with disabilities that could be a parent or caregiver uh service providers of of all varieties um companies or organizations that are interested in assist of Technology ology to not only benefit their employees but also their consumers um and then also the last question is u
m yes we are housed as a program of uh Alabama Department of Rehab Services but um you do not have to be enrolled as a consumer of adrs to utilize our services so even though um we are a program under adrs because of our funding you do not have to be receiving adrs services to um to work with us okay so today we are going to be talking about smart home devices um and really uh the easiest way to talk about smart home devices I felt anyway in doing my research is to take some time to clarify some
terminology some definitions and lingo uh now some tech sites can be very specific in defining defining what makes a smart home while they will lab or smart home hub um while they will just kind ofb everything as a smart home hub or as everything as a device or an assistant and so it gets kind of messy so um I just really kind of wanted to to walk through some some terminology and put us all in the same language at least for today okay so I felt because we are talking about a slew of different
types of devices the easiest way was to approach the scum one which is the one that I purchased um and this is this is more of a personal Journey um for me so this is my smart home device that I purchased this is the Echo Show 10 um and it is a smart display for Alexa um now uh this is a smart home speaker but it also has a touchscreen display um so what you're looking at here is actually two of them side by side so the way the Echo Show looks is it is a cylindrical speaker that has a touchscree
n that's attached to the top of it um and also what's kind of nifty about this particular device is that the monitor will swivel um almost completely around um so it will always face you as you move around the room so if it detects that you've moved across the kitchen or across your living room wherever you've placed it um it will turn that screen towards you if you turn that feature on um so this particular smart display is um what I'm also going to refer to as a smart assistant and it works wi
th um the Alexa system um so everybody now just make sure you're you're if you have one of these in your home you may want to silence her or mute her so she doesn't hear me or put your headphones in um otherwise I might be making commands of of your device all day long um so similar displays or smart displays could include the um Google Nest Hub so if you have one of those it's a very similar features and how it works that it's working with a smart home assistant software which would be hey Goog
le or Google Assistant um and that it's taking those commands but it's providing you um that visual display with it okay so I've thrown displays and assistant so now let's back up a little bit and actually talk about what a smart home assistant is um and this is different than a smart home hub uh and the reason why I wanted to clarify these is because again when I was trying to do my research um some websites especially as technology has changed for these types of devices um they're trying to ca
ll everything a smart home hub where technically they really still fall under that assistant category um so what is an assistant or a smart home assistant or virtual assistant um these are um programs that use internet and Wi-Fi to control other smart home devices that you have connected to them um there are very limited functions without access to Wi-Fi uh you'll have Smart devices that you will want U the smart devices you want to use need to be compatible with your system so um you know when
you're purchasing your lamp or you're purchasing a smart plug um you'll usually see little uh icons on the box that says works with Alexa works with Google so you want to make sure they're compatible um and some examples of those are going to be of course the Alexa Google Assistant um or apple home now smart home hubs what are those uh so the biggest difference between an assistant versus a smart home hub is going to be instead of using your internet or your Wi-Fi um you're using something else
called zwave or zigg or matter or some other similar protocol um and this essentially makes a network in your home to connect and communicate with your smart home devices um so if you want um so instead of where I just have my Wi-Fi connecting my devices to assistant um I would then use this other protocol um called zigby or matter um to to do those connections for me so while your smart assistants need to be compatible with your devices the the thing with the smart home hub is you don't need to
make sure it's compatible that was kind of part of their using those um other protocols the idea was that they could just do the communication for you um so some examples of smart home hubs would include the Samsung smart things uh Phillips Hue um and then also one that I ran across which is open source software program called home assistant um and we'll talk about some more considerations of those a little deeper into those differences and it'll make a little bit more sense but I just wanted t
o let you know there are some differences even though a lot of times when you try to do um like when you're shopping around and searching uh they kind of use the term smart home hub and interchangeably regardless if it's Alexa versus something like the home assistant Okay so we've got the assistant part down now let's actually talk about some devices these are easy um so when we talk about smart devices these are all the of the things we want to control right the light bulbs the fans speakers ap
pliances all of these different types of devices that can be controlled by commands sent by that user to interact with either me as the user or my other devices right so we control these items through their apps or through their smart assistance so like a lamp right I want the lamp to turn on so I can send that command either using my voice using the app and the and the lamp will turn on um the same thing with my smart plug right I can set that to um interact with me via different types of comma
nds either via voice command or a command on app or a command through my smart assistant um and then the other ones I have pictured here is um the IR robot so again a smart vacuum and then I have a picture of a smart fridge here uh and then other um examples include like locks doorbells um and various other types of appliances like my dishwasher that I just bought I bought a very smart dishwasher um except I did a setting wrong so the only way I can actually turn it on is through my phone um so
if the the Wi-Fi is down you I kind of got to fix that part all right and if you have any questions um please please feel free to um start dropping those in the chat and we'll we'll try to cover them as we go all right so now we've got the devices we we have something to control those devices um so now let's talk about how we're going to do that and again I'm going to approach this from speaking specifically through my personal journey of using the Alexa with the EXO Echo Show um but it's going
to look very similar with these other types of assistance so if you're using something like the Apple home or Google um the Google Nest Hub or uh you know the Google Assistant um these are going to be very similar ways that they're going to work they may use slightly different terminology so instead of using skills they may I can't remember exactly if they use the exact wording on Google um but the way we are going to control our smart devices in our media through Alexa is with skills so I I tol
d you about my new Echo it sits on my kitchen counter um and it's perfect for me because now I can um catch up on all my streaming shows while I'm doing my dishes with my new handy dandy uh smart dishwasher but the first time I tried to do that I told her I said Alexa open Netflix and then she told me hey I don't oh sorry I forgot to turn one the one that's on in our office off don't think you turned off the there I had to I had to mute uh my assistant over here um so I told her Alexa open Netfl
ix and she told me she doesn't have that skill so then Alexa actually walked me through the process on my screen to add that skill um Alex sorry she's there we go there that's okay very sorry about that all kinds of Technology issues okay so I asked her to open something up she didn't have the skill but then she walked me through that process now the same thing would happen for all my other smart devices so if I have a lamp I can't tell Alexa turn on the lamp until Alexa has that skill programme
d or knows that that lab exists okay all right so I did a couple of screenshots that actually show you how to locate the skills on Alexa on Alexa's app on the phone and then that way you can get your stuff programmed so here you see when you open up the um screen on my phone you see the Alexa app um and then what I'm looking for is down at the bottom right you'll see the more button at the bottom right of the screen now you will see several other um once you open that then you see our second scr
een and you'll see several buttons like music and calendars and lists and things like that but we want the skills and games button okay because we're looking for skills so once I press that then I am taken to the next page which says discover Alexa at the top and then here is where I can actually search um either using that search bar at the top or I can explore some of um her recommended um skills that are already in the system so that's how you set up those skills and then you can see on that
screen um you know Alexa can play an interview from a podcast tell me the weather tell me a joke those are are skills Alexa is ready to go with all right so there's skills but then there's also routines now routines are a series of actions triggered by a voice command schedule or other condition so think about it this way if um I If part of a routine would include something like turning on a lamp I would need to have that skill before I could use that routine okay so kind of skill now we're goin
g to build a routine um so Alexa does have several pre-made routines that you can enable or you can customize and make your own um so one that I have is is called good morning so when I say Alexa good morning she turns up the thermostat she turns on a lamp that's plugged in into that room um and she announces the local weather for me okay so these are all all routines that I can have or a series of actions in that one routine um so next I have some screenshots that will actually show you how to
add a routine so again I've opened up the Alexa app and I'm looking um at the routines button and it's up at the top top and once I hit that routines button it takes me to the next screen um which shows me a variety of um additional buttons or categories that I could go to so um I could look through the featured categories of routines but I'm going to go to the top button that says Gallery all right and when I get to Gallery I'm going to see this one called home automation uh it's not highlighte
d on the screenshot but it's the bottom uh the bottom right one these these six buttons here at the screen so I'm going to click that home automation one now when I click on that home automation one I will see a very long list of pre-made routines that are already available through the app um and I really liked using these because I could kind of see how Alexa's language worked um and then I could customize and adjust so the one I selected was Alexa can calm your dog by playing soothing music wh
en you're dog is barking or dog barking is detected for one minute so I selected that particular routine and then the next screen shows me what that routine looks like um and you can see there are several spots where I can make some edits or some changes um so here it says call my dog and it's showing me the when right so it says when dog barking is detected from and then it says select device so this is where I would select what microphone is picking it up probably going to be my echo show um a
nd then it says after however many minutes of that sound that's detected um and then I can select the days and times that I want um that to to be detected so whenever he's barking between the hours of eight and five on weekdays um that's when I want this to be triggered so that's my when then down at the bottom you can see Alexa will and then it says set the volume to whatever I want it to be set to and then um it'll say something so I I said hey doggo because that's going to be the name of my d
og um and then you can't quite see it but there's some additional things that it will do so there might be a specific song I want played um maybe I have a specific playlist so that's those other things that I would adjust on the screen and then I would click save and then the final screenshot is showing you um the routines that I already have programmed um and that are ready to go and then you can see the little Play sign next to it letting me know that it's active and ready to go so now wheneve
r my dog would bark between 8 and five on weekdays it will say hey doggo and we'll play music okay so I want to back up just a a tick or two um because we've kind of really looked at this from the perspective of using a smart assistant or a smart home assistant to run all these devices um I just want to remind you that almost all of the smart devices that you're purchasing you know like the lamp the the my dishwasher um you know the vacuums all these different things um you don't have to use a S
mart Home assistant to run them um typically they usually will have their own app um or they may have it where um they have an interface within that um device itself that you can interact with to program and set routines so it don't feel like if you want to have a smart lamp that you have to have you know a Google Nest or you have to have um an echo show or an echo dot or something else in your house to run it um most of those will run independent of those smart home assistants the benefit to th
e smart home assistant is if I have multiple and I want them to interact with each other um this is a way I can have them um you know do a lot of different scheduling and um especially if I want to do much more complex routines it's going to be much easier for me to do it probably through that assistant then trying to set up every single command through those um apps all right so that was a big chunk of it we got through all the lingos we got through the the hard part I feel like because it's al
l the text St see if there's any questions okay so now that we have some terms and basic understanding of what our a smart assistant can do and what our smart devices are going to do um let's talk about some things to think about for our clients or if if we are the individuals ourselves thinking about using um these types of devices so the biggest consideration when using any type of smart device is going to be connectivity um so for things like an Echo Show uh which is a smart home assistant or
even like Google Nest Hub or apple home um they are really going to shine when they have good internet and Wi-Fi connection um now there are a few things that my echo can do when the when the Wi-Fi goes out um if but it's also if it knows to do that before the Wi-Fi has gone out and it knows to do it when the Wi-Fi has gone out um it could do things like just be a Bluetooth speaker or have a timer um you know be set on the device um but I found that if my Wi-Fi is down unless I have kind of pre
-programmed my echo to know what a f Minute Timer is um or pre-programmed it to recognize a device that I want it to act as a speaker for um it won't do that without Wi-Fi unless I've I've kind of trained it to do beforehand and again if I want Alexa to pull up a recipe or um run a a very complex routine um it's not going to be able to do that without the Wi-Fi connection now if you don't want to connect to internet or use cloud-based services that is where we might need to talk about doing some
thing like those smart home hubs that I mentioned before where they're not using your Wi-Fi and your internet they're creating their own network using those other protocols like matter um now most of those however do not work using voice commands um because most of those programs to use voice commands are using internet and AI to to figure out what you're asking for um however uh in my research there is that open- Source program called home assistant um that did state that it did have voice comm
ands available without using Internet or cloud-based Services um I didn't have a chance to fully research it I do have I believe a link for it in the resources so if you want to dig into that one you can um something else to think about when it comes to Wi-Fi and especially voice commands um um if that is the only way your client is planning to interact with their smart devices or their their smart assistant is through voice commands um what happens if the internet is down what happens if the Wi
-Fi is down um will they have another way to command a door lock to be unopened or um to unlock uh will it be able to turn this do they have a way to turn the space heater off right so these are things you're going to need to kind of work through and talk about um make sure that those are set in ways that if the Wi-Fi goes down what are the other options for controlling those devices all right so we just talked about control so let's talk about how to control all these devices um now this specif
ically this slide is talking about again the assistant so something like my Google Nest or my echo um how am I going to control that assistant now most people when they're looking at these types of um devices they like the idea of using their voice and not having to tap on an app or a screen um which is great that's why they want them they don't want to have to you know go through open this up open that app they just want to tell it to do something and it'll do it for them um now if you are some
body who uses an AAC device um this really shouldn't be a problem um we are actually seeing more and more language systems actually having um either smart device support kind of built-in or even Pages or suggested phrases um being pre-programmed into those language systems um you know out of the box so uh it's really nice to see that that development also um one of our fun things to do here in our demonstration Center is we do have our Alexa we do have um quite a few different smart home devices
that are hooked up to it um and then people can come in and try their AAC device out um and see um you know is my volume loud enough is you know the the type of voice that I have said is it able to detect it very well and understand it um and then that way they can kind of do the trial and error over here before making those huge investments in their their home setup um now if a user is unable to use their voice um they can of course still interact with Alexa to make routines and control device
s using the Alexa app um and I always forget um and it it was really funny because I was talking with somebody about it that you know they have somebody who in their household is um deaf and they just use sign language um but so of course they can't talk to Alexa directly using their voice um and it's so funny because when you open up the Alexa app it looks like a little um uh communication icon and to me that always means like help or text support but that's actually a place where I could type
in commands and control my Echo Show through my app um so that way they were you know we just kind of problem solved it together um where they could just then use that as the way to um type in a command to Alexa because they were actually using that as an intercom system uh for the whole house too so that that way the person who was deaf could type something into Alexa and then make an announcement that would go throughout the household it was really kind of neat to to walk through that with the
m so that's one way you can do it but also if you're somebody who needs keyboard navigation um so using an app maybe really isn't going to be useful for you um there is keyboard navigation available through the Alexa app desktop version so you can actually download a desktop version of the Alexa app um and then that gives you easier access to keyboard navigation all right next let's talk about power outages yay um living in Alabama I don't think I've ever experienced so many power outages um in
a in a week in my life um it just feels like every other day uh my power is blinking in and out so um which can be really really annoying when it comes to Smart devices do you have a question no okay no I just said I feel your pain so yes so when devices are plugged in they of course will not work if the power goes out um now some devices will have a small battery um that is charged when the device is plugged in so they may have like a little backup battery source um allowing them to run for may
be a limited amount of time until that power is returned um that's one of those things you're going to have to Res uh research on those devices to see does this have some kind of power backup does it have you know an emergency power supply a battery um just something to to consider and think about if that feature is available of course anything that uses Wi-Fi for remote control is not going to work either because unless your Wi-Fi has a power supply backup your Wi-Fi router is going to need pow
er too um now for smart lamps and plugs here's something to look for um again it's not every single one of them but look to see if there's a power loss recovery setting in their apps so what does that mean well when you first turn on your smart lamp or your smart plug when you turn it on it's always going to be in the on position that is its default position because then the app controls it if it goes on or off well if my lamp is turned on but my app turns it off because I have it on a routine w
hen the power goes out and that that lamp right had it scheduled to be turned off but my power goes off or my my power outage occurs at 2 am um unless I have that power recovery setting available when the power comes back on my power thinks the lamp is turned on and then we'll you know be blazing glory in my you know bedroom at 2 am because it didn't recognize the schedule so see if it has some kind of power loss recovery setting so that way if the power outage does happen and power is restored
it knows to not go to default on but to follow whatever the schedule was or its last um setting so like if it knew it was off when the power before the power went out it knows to stay off even though power comes back on okay so this one is kind of messy and I'm not gonna have a chance to really go through and find to fine tooth comb everything uh when we talk about privacy and permissions um but I just want to highlight a few things um that I felt were of note uh again this is I'm coming at it f
rom the Alexa interface side of things but these are similar things that you're going to see in other smart home assistant setups so terminology may not quite look exactly the same but but things to think about um so the first thing is the external controls for your microphone and the camera on the smart assistant itself so um my Echo Show at home has a little slide on the camera um but I can slide on or off and so so then that way nobody can see me unless I want them to uh and then there's also
a big fat mute button so that way I can just hit the mute and then it will it won't be listening to me um now I will say if you turn that mute button on just remember you turned it on um I had my my echo and I spent almost 15 minutes reboting my Wi-Fi rebooting my phone updating all the apps and check and everything else I could think of for actually checking to see if I had turned the mute button on my my Echo Show which is what had happened so just if you use those external controls make sure
you check those first before you think there's a a power outage or or Wi-Fi issue um now Alexa does keep recordings of your voice commands and activities um but you can delete these through the app again it's one of those where you kind of have to read and follow um follow the trail uh there's some uh settings that you can kind of do like an auto delete of the history um where you could say just automatically delete everything that's this old um or you just may decide every so often to routinel
y go in into those settings um and delete everything uh interest based ads um now as much as I am loving having my home assistant uh I really hate that it tries to sell me things all of the time uh but that's its job well that's part of its job according to whoever made it but uh so recently I bought some gym equipment through Amazon and it knew I did that because of course it it knows that uh and so I purchased a couple of dumbbells and so because I hadn't bought anything the following month ri
ght it decided hey I bet you're running low on supplies I bet you need some more dumbbells I don't know that that's ever true it's not like they expire um but you know it was one of things where it was really annoying that it was specifically pulling my info to be like hey you should buy more of these now for some people that could be a great reminder for other people that could feel really annoying um now you can turn off what's called interest based ads um and all that's doing is it's just not
pulling that information to give me those types of suggestions I'm still going to get ads but they're not going to be as targeted um and I will say it feels a little less frequent than when I had it turned on still um the next one that you'll see for Alexa says help improve Alexa um of course you know it's recording your voice and activity this isn't turning it off what this is saying is do you want Amazon's R&D team their research and development team to have access to those recordings as part
of their data for their you know development and research of new products so I turned that one off because I was like they've got enough money they can figure something else out they don't need me um but again that's a personal choice uh for you to read through and and decide um this last one I wanted to talk to because this is something that popped up right when I turned on my device for the first time and this is called sidewalk um and it's a little confusing potentially so the easiest way fo
r me to just kind of walk you through what happened when I turned on my echo so when I first booted it up it asked me would you like to enable sidewalk um and it mentioned using my Wi-Fi and my neighbor Wi-Fi to improve my services um but it's not improving my Wi-Fi services what it's actually doing is it will help essentially what it's trying to do is create a a bigger or wider Network or net for my smart devices so if I have like a a smart tag for my dog right the dog that that likes to bark a
t at 8 a.m. right so if I have a smart tag on dog um and normally I can follow it on my Alexa device within the range of that specific Alexa but the idea is if I have sidewalk turned on and my neighbors have sidewalk sidewalk turned on now if my dog decides to wander Beyond um its previous range it's going to extend that range to detect that smart tag a little bit farther or if you had a smart speaker and you wanted to have a big block party you know instead of having to be tied as close to your
house as it was before it can now stretch out a little farther um so it's not necessarily beefing up your Wi-Fi it's just extending the range of those smart devices um but if the internet is unavailable or there's an outage there's an outage nothing is helping that um I did have a an article in the resources that goes into a little bit more explanation like of the technical side of that too so if you um want to nerd out on those or get some more specifics it's it's in there all right so we've g
ot some considerations we we we've got some decisions and we want to try out some different types of devices so here are some things to think about how to make exess successful implementation so first things first right if you're going to use an Alexa you need Amazon if you're going to use Google Assistant um or Google Nest you need a Google account right so you need accounts for each of these different types of devices so you want to make sure that they have the accounts on hand um when you whe
n you first set it all up that way you're not running around trying to um you know dig pieces of paper and and things out of the closets or or out of um I remember my parents old phone book would have like all the passwords stashed in the back all right so make sure you have your account uh username and password um you want to make sure that you know how to install the apps on the mobile device right because we have to install the assistant app as well as all the smart devices app on there and t
hen also you want to make sure you know what the Wi-Fi router and the password is for for your internet so gather all those things up and then that way when you set set everything up you'll have all that information ready to go so next talking about the devices so when you purchase your device again try to make sure it's compatible with whichever um platform you choose so if it's with Alexa make sure it's compatible with Alexa um Google same thing now what's nice is when you go into those um sma
rt assistant apps like on my phone uh for Alexa app I can actually search by device and it will show me all the different brands um so like Casa is one that I use for my light bulb so I can go under Casa and I can see which light bulbs are currently um compatible with my Alexa so that's one way you can do it or you can again just check the boxes or the labels when you purchase also don't forget when you adding those devices to to your home you still have to have that smart device app in addition
to your smart assistant app um because that's how they will communicate initially with each other to find um the smart device is that it wants to use that app to make those connections you'll also want to keep that smart device app because any kind of firmware updates that happen to the devices are going to happen through that app and not necessarily through Alexa or Google um what I like to do is just make a smart home folder and all of my apps go into that smart home folder and that that way
I know where they all are um so this one the start simple and add-on is talking about our simple commands and routines um so start small don't feel like you've got to make you know the biggest most complicated actions and routines possible um start with something easy you know one to two things turn on a light you know set at 6: amm turn on this lamp um you know when I say uh Google vacuum the floor the Roomba turns on right keep them nice and simple once you've figured out that system and how t
he language works in those programs um then you can create the most intricate rub Goldberg you know routine you can imagine um now there are a lot of commands and uh Alexa is not a mind reader um but I find that works best when you say things to her in a particular way right there is there is the the language of of it all um of course we have to say her name first and then we have to tell her um particular things um sometimes we forget that we have to say things in a particular order uh or we fo
rget um the exact wording I know for me I would always try to say um turn on Spotify or turn on Netflix and she goes you could just say open like she prefers me to say open Netflix or open Spotify not turn on um so I have to remember to say open not turn on um so here what I'm talking about is creating you know some kind of list of those useful commands for us um especially if you're somebody who gets forgetful or distracted to have that print out of those frequently used commands can be very ea
sy for us um to not have to try and command her and she gets it wrong and we try it again and it's still wrong um so I just have a couple here where it says Alexa set timer for 10 minutes Alexa play Silver Springs on Spotify Alexa add milk to shopping list that adds it to Alexa's shopping list Alexa add milk to our groceries shopping list adds it to a specific our groceries app so see the difference there too so if I just said shopping list that's going to go to Alexa's app or Alexa's list as op
posed to the other grocery app list that I wanted um and then this last one um I cannot recommend this enough uh please please please try it before you buy it and this is also my shameful uh pitch to use the uh apt at short-term device program so here um I wanted to walk you through my specific story here and show you kind of the cost difference that occurred so I tried the Google Nest Hub before I tried the Echo Show um and then I tried out a smart lamp um and then we realized what that really
didn't do what we wanted and we decided to go with um smart bulbs instead and then I tried a couple of smart plugs for for some other um appliances in the household so if I had tried all of those on my own and just purchased them um I would have been spending $431 right the Google Nest cost a 100 bucks the echo show was $250 and a $65 lamp and then a couple plugs for $17 um it sounds cheap when you maybe you know do each thing individually but once you total that up that's almost $500 I would ha
ve spent um what I ended up purchasing was I decided I needed the Echo Show I decided to go to um smart plugs and I went to the smart bulbs instead of the lamp so instead of spending $431 I spent $311 so that was a pretty big savings for me um just by trying things out through our lending program instead of purchasing it finding it being the wrong things um and then having to purchase something else in addition so um while I'm on this page let me just take you to or give you our um short-term Lo
an program Library oh except I typed it in wrong that doesn't help anybody uh but this is where you can see our inventory of things that are available for up to 30 days for free um that you can try through our system um for free you can try it out see if it works for you you bring it back and then you can make your decisions if you want to purchase um on your own so that is al.for all.com all right um oh I'm quickly running out of time so I just want to talk about a quick few features that I tho
ught were interesting um in Alexa specifically and again these are things that may be available in those other ones but they were just fun things that um I found when I was playing around with my device uh there is a feature called drop in so this allows you to connect your Alexa with other Alexa devices or through your app for a video chat so um if I had my Alexa app open I could actually um video chat with my echo in my kitchen from here at work um or I could connect with somebody else's Echo
while I'm at my echo in my kitchen and we could have a video chat together now there is a paid remote caregiving service that Amazon does offer called Alexa together so it's that video chat but with some other capabilities to it so that link is there if you want to look at it show and tell uh is the ability for you to hold up uh an item in front of your uh smart assistant with that uh display and say you know tell me what this is um and it will tell you what's in your hand um I will say it works
best if they are labeled products so it's like a box of crack cers it'll usually read that text and go oh you have gram crackers whereas if I just hold up like a very generic looking water bottle it might think it's a bottle um it might think it's a canister of something else just kind of depends on on the picture uh voice view so this allows uh visually impaired or blind users to use gestures to navigate the echo Display Devices uh but also has that screen reader support um live translate was
a feature but has been discontinued but you can still ask Alexa to translate phrases in multiple language so you could say Alexa say hello how are you in German and then she would tell you how to do that um I don't have time for this one unfortunately oh no no well this one too but um just remember when you are programming your spart devices they're not always as smart as you think they are um so you have to be realis it can't do everything all at once you do have to do that programming you do h
ave to do a lot of setup but once it's done you know a lot of times it's very very easy um to utilize fairly quickly um but just be ready to rephrase your commands be more specific or just directly correct her um so here is our fun um example here that we have on our screen uh so we have an Alexa in our office and so when we are thinking about things to purchase for the library we just tell her to add it to our shopping list um and so in the middle here where it's a shopping list um we were talk
ing about uh baby monitors that we saw that were designed for de parents and so you know being the types that it would either detect cry and how it would notify the parents and so I just said you know Alexa ADD baby monitor for death to the shopping list and instead she thought I said baby monitor for death um so she's not always this artist but she tries really hard so we appreciate that but we'd have to go in and and fix that um I don't have time for unfortunately to show you um the the video
um of her uh doing the show and tell um but if you have access to the slides I think it should be able to play for you but it's basically it was kind of fun to watch her um anything that was really generic she would come up with some very interesting things to to talk about or mention and then lastly these are the resources that I talked about so please feel free to click through those um it does talk uh stuff about like what a smart home assistant is the pros and cons of sidewalk um the voice c
ommands for Alexa um if you wanted some more information about those protocols that I talked about like matter uh there's a lot of changes that are happening with those right now so definitely check out that FAQ um and yeah I think that's it so if there's any questions I'll take a sip of water if anybody wants to jump on the mic feel free gram looks like you got a question for us sure um this is great stuff I mean I was looking at the Alex app and I have Lex at home you know I've got a I've got
a tower and I've got an echo dot um and I and I had some smart plugs but what happened for me and you may have already covered this and I apologize a few minute late I had some other training that they said would take 30 minutes but actually it took over an hour or so uh but my question is this um the power goes out a lot when you said that I really felt that okay so every time the power goes out you have all these smart devices set up you have to reset them up you have to reestablish connectivi
ty or anything is that just something that we you just got to lump it you know um grin and Barrett the old saying goes um yeah if if you're using those ones that are that are using your internet Wi-Fi I haven't found um a quick workaround for that like I still haven't reprogrammed my vacuum at my house to be honest because um with our power going out we haven't lost our Internet's been pretty good but like if I change my internet um router or if I change that that internet name you know how to f
ind your your specific Wi-Fi um once that changes you've got to go in and fix all your devices to to reconnect to that internet so yeah it can be a pain if you're using um the smart assistance and and using those um I haven't found a good solution yet uh definitely something that I would like to to find too because especially if you've got that many devices relying on your internet connection when when those problems happen it can be really really extremely frustrating you're like why they even
why they even set these up so yeah yeah another question I had uh this is quick um is it possible that I could take 15 minutes of your time in your office there since we're both uh bottom dwellers in the in the in the Homewood office I had some things that showed up on my app on malexa App that I wanted to ask you about would that be possible absolutely yeah come on down and and we invite everybody if you want to come and and try some of these out before you put them in your homes because I know
for some people you're like I just don't want to put this in my house I don't know how it works um that's exactly what the demo Center is for too so if there's things you want to try and see how it works first you're not exactly sure what you're doing with them um definitely schedule some time with us um and and we'll see what we can come up with uh oh we got a question sorry say thank you this is great information I always underutilize technology I have it I don't use it to its full potential
so this is very helpful thank you excellent well thank you for your questions um we've got another one in the chat here it says we're using a motion sensor along with Alexa skill to redirect a person from the line laundry room oh this is interesting uh he tries to open the washer when it's running the sensor was placed outside the laundry room and we programmed Alexa to say stop the washer is currently running and can't be opened you need to go back to your room uh there are a couple Alexa devic
es in the home so this also notifies when he is in the laundry room oh this is a great use I love this um just a nice um you know kind of what's the word I'm looking for not indirect but uh non-invasive there we go that's what we're looking for where it just provides that verbal reminder for somebody um that they can't do what you know go into a particular area at this time but also giving that heads up to to a caregiver to let them know hey somebody's trying to um get somewhere that maybe they
they don't need to be right now Marilyn youve got your hand up uh yeah I had uh read that if you're using a VPN for your internet that it can not play well with smart devices can you talk about that yeah and I didn't I didn't dig too too much into that specifically um for this one this was kind of more of just a generic kind of getting people on their feet and and learning more about it um I need to do a little bit more research on that one as well to see kind of work arounds for that one too bu
t thank you for for that heads up so the um the VPN I always forget what it stands for um but essentially it's it's the um you know what's kind of preventing other things from knowing what you're looking at or or ways to kind of not hide your your internet activity but um you kind of trying to put some barriers between you and and the rest of the world when you're you're out and about in in the internet so thank you for that um mention and and again that's something I need to do a little bit mor
e research myself on thanks thank you all right oh okay it sounds um Chase is one of our rehab Engineers um and it's and he was talking about that it's not really disrupting his um local services are you having problems with your uh smart devices interacting though Chase I'm curious while we wait for that response I did put our Survey Monkey in the chat um we do appreciate any uh feedback that we get um and um I'll take this moment to say thank you again to Alabama Council on developmental disab
ilities for helping us out with the um Spanish language translation services um so I know that they also appreciate the feedback to make sure that this is reaching um their communities and and people that they're trying to reach as well so we do appreciate that feedback all right and last slide um with devices with the VPN okay excellent so Chase it sounds like you might have the the secret to to success for vpns and and smart devices so I may need to talk with you later and see if there's somet
hing we can um create in terms of like a resource or something like that so thank you for that okay so last link that I want to share with you of course is for our next upcoming webinar and it will be April uh 30th so that'll be the last Tuesday of the month um and we are still trying to figure out good times to do these webinars so I know we were doing kind of 4 o'clock in the afternoon and that was getting to be a little late for people so we tried morning today so uh this next one we're actua
lly going to be moving to two o'clock um I think we'll we'll kind of bounce around on times for the next uh couple of webinars and then see um how people feel with times and if there's one time that works for I mean not one time is going to work for everybody but um you know what what's a time for most so um I did put that bitly link in the chat and that will take you directly to that uh Zoom registration and we will be talking about accessible video gaming so um looking at some of the assisted
technology that's out there um talking about where to find um accessibility features and settings um within the games but also within the systems um and then also just talking about some considerations questions to ask when you're um if you're a service provider working with somebody with a disability how you know kind of determine what their needs are um and also just some things to think about if you are a gamer and shopping around for a game and and what to look for in term in terms of that e
quipment or um game setting so hopefully we'll all see you there um and thank you thank you everyone for joining us um you can always contact us at aptat or aat at rehab. alabama.gov
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