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Amazon Echo is getting way more powerful at controlling your home

Amazon Echo is getting way more powerful at controlling your home

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Alexa, trigger find my phone

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Amazon Echo has supported IFTTT, the automation service since June, but this week it made it a bit easier to use some of the more complicated recipes. Users can now choose their own phrase triggers to activate IFTTT recipes. Previously, to use recipes like "find my phone", which called your phone number, users had to say specific Echo phrases like "what's on my to-do list" to trigger the action. Now after setting up a recipe, you can simply say "Alexa, trigger find my phone" and a call will be placed to your device.

You can also trigger recipes to do things like change the temperature on your Nest thermostat or to sync your to-do list with iOS Reminders or OneNote. It's a small but useful change, and that's how Amazon has been updating Echo since it was announced last year. With weekly updates and new features consistently being added, the Echo is a much more powerful device than it was six months ago, and it doesn't look like that trend is going to stop any time soon.