What the world needs now….is a distraction. The holidays are still far enough away that we haven’t really started planning, cooking, or shopping yet, baseball season is over, football season hasn’t really gotten great yet, The Walking Dead premiere has come and gone, and Game of Thrones is a long way off. Plus social media is a hotbed of for hatred right now, so it’s best to stay off of this medium that used to be a source of fun, entertainment, and distract. So, what is a frustrated American to do post-election to keep their sanity? I suggest that you work on one or more of the things on the following list to used home automation to help distract you from the recent election:
Research Home Automation Possibilities
That is vague on purpose. The possibilities of what you can do will depend on what kind of home you live in, how much money you have to spend, and what areas of your life you want to invest in. Take a weekend to just explore all the ways you could be using home automation, and maybe even get out of the house and head to a store for a live demonstration.
Get to Know ALL of the Amazon Echo Skills
This could honestly take you months. The Amazon Echo’s brain, Alexa, can connect with and active thousands of skills. You can find all of the skills in the Alexa app on either your smart phone or y our tablet, or you can review the skills on the Amazon website. You can sort through them by categories, by new additions, or even by customer favorites. Once you’ve activated the ones you like, then you can spend time trying to memorize all of the activation phrases. See you in 2018!
Start Building Home Automation Recipes
And I’m not talking about your grandma’s recipes. I’m talking about the crown jewel of home automation – the ability to connect your devices so that they perform together. Create a “arrival” recipe that pumps up the air conditioning or heat, turns on the right lights, unlocks your door, and opens your garage door. Reverse all of that for a “departure” recipe. Those are just the basic, simple recipes that you can create. Get creative and build a recipe that works for you.
Plan and Execute Your Holiday Light Show
I’m a big fan of holiday light shows, and I’d like to have more to watch so put one together and upload a video to YouTube. You’ll cheer yourself up, you’ll cheer me up, you’ll cheer the world up. Everyone’s a winner here.
Or, use your Echo to find out what the weather is going to be and how traffic looks and just start driving somewhere to escape with a staycation. Remember, this sadly won’t even be the most stressful time of the year for you, since the holiday season is still slowly approaching. Find and take the time to rest and relax now while you can. Good luck.
