How To Design A Smart-Home Control System With Amazon Echo

Designing a whole-home audio and smart home control system on the cheap is a difficult proposition. To get the quality and detailed level of control you want, you’ll most likely have to spend a fair amount of money on advanced smart home technology.

However, there is a new solution from Origin Acoustics that offers the convenience of voice-controlled automation and the power of smart home control: The Valet amplifier. The Valet amp combines Origin’s proven speaker design capabilities with an easy-to-use control system powered a group of Amazon Echo Dots. How does this work, and why would Sunset, SC, homeowners want it for their home control system? You’ll have to keep reading to find out.

SEE ALSO: How to Add Wireless Capability to Your High-End Audio System

HOW IT WORKS

In terms of the fundamentals, the Valet amp works like any other amplifier. It takes input from audio sources and sends the signal to your speakers using regular speaker wire. What makes the Valet amp special, however, is the audio sources and how they’re connected to the amp, as well as to each other.

The audio sources for the Valet amp are a series of Amazon Echo Dot smart speakers (up to four devices per amplifier). The Dots are flush-mounted in your walls or ceiling, giving you a clean, sleek design. A single Cat 5 cable connects the smart speaker to the amplifier, providing power to the Dot and an audio signal to the amp.

Now you have four smart speakers connected to the amplifier and to each other through the amplifier. It’s a clean, simple installation with a minimal amount of hardware involved.

WHY DO YOU WANT IT?

Four smart speakers connected to a single amplifier gives you four audio zones within your home. This gives you a practical, low-cost, whole-home audio solution.

More importantly, you can interact with each zone independently without having to be in the room to control a specific device. Amazon’s multiroom synchronization software lets you send music to and from any of the Dots connected to the amplifier.

What does this mean for you? A setup like this gives you whole-home audio along with voice-controlled automation in one package, which effectively creates a home-control system from an amplifier and a couple of smart speakers.

With a Valet amplifier installed in your home, you can command the Dot in your kitchen to play music in the living room or wherever else you have a Dot installed. Within any given room, you can ask Alexa to control any of the other automation systems compatible with Amazon’s systems, including your lights, smart thermostat, smart door locks and more. You’ll never have to worry about shouting over the music, either; Origin’s proprietary software for the Valet amp automatically silences the audio in a room whenever someone says “Alexa.”

The Valet amplifier is an extremely cost-effective way to design a smart home control system. To get started on a system for your home, call us today at (864) 271-4276. You can also visit our contact page or leave a message in the chat box in your browser.