30 Genius Alexa Routine Ideas You Need to Try

I have explored the best Alexa routine ideas to boost productivity, enhance family time, and increase security around the house.

Whether we want to wake up to a gradual increase in lighting, have the garage door open as we pull into the driveway, or secure our home at night, Alexa routines are the cornerstone of a well-managed smart home ecosystem. You can easily set up and manage these routines to fit your needs using an Alexa device and the Amazon Alexa app.

Here are the Alexa routines you can set for your own home.

Alexa Routine Ideas For Mornings

Setting up a few Alexa routines can make mornings smoother. A daily routine can streamline morning activities. Let’s look at how we can better start our days with smart adjustments.

Gradually Brighten Lights: Imagine lying in bed, and the lights slowly increase from a gentle 1% to a more vibrant 50% to help you wake up. To set this up, all you need are dimmable Alexa-compatible lights.
Automatically Open Blinds: Smart blinds can be programmed into your morning schedule. Open them in the morning to let in light and start your routine—control light levels, privacy, and energy efficiency without manually operating the blinds.
Start a Day With Music: Whether it’s the calm melodies of nature or a lively playlist to get us moving, music can set the right tone for the day. Spotify, Amazon Music, or any streaming service connected to Alexa can do this. You can also use Alexa to play music daily, enhancing your morning experience.
Use The Echo Button to Snooze: Switch off your morning alarm with the “wait” feature, giving us those extra minutes of rest before we start our day. To set one up, we need to add a routine and integrate it with one of the buttons.
Make a Coffee: If you have an Alexa-compatible coffee machine, you can start your day with a cup of coffee made for you when you wake up.
Play The Morning News: You can also use routines to get weather updates, traffic information, calendar reminders, and news. All of these can be played during your flash briefing. You can set the flash briefing to happen automatically at the same time every day, or you can make it play when you give a command to Alexa.
Set the house to away mode: When it’s time to leave for work, we might want a routine that helps us shut down the house. This can turn off all the lights, maybe even lock the doors, and adjust the thermostat. Using our phone’s location can all happen automatically when we step out.

Home Security Routines with Smart Home Devices

Door and Window Monitoring: Alexa can help monitor the status of your doors and windows when integrated with smart sensors. By creating routines, you can get notified and automatically trigger actions when doors/windows are opened or closed.
Remote Surveillance with Alexa Guard: Alexa Guard acts as our ears when we’re not home. We can activate this feature through the Alexa app to listen for alarms or the sound of breaking glass, and it will notify us if anything seems wrong. Additionally, it can control our lights, turning them on and off randomly, mimicking our presence, and deterring unauthorized visitors.
Responding to Unwanted Guests: In case of an intruder, declaring “intruder alert” can enable our system to broadcast a warning message. This could serve as an immediate response to potential threats and can be set up to make it seem like we are taking immediate action, such as notifying the authorities. A voice command can trigger the ‘intruder alert’ routine, making it a versatile option along with other triggers like scheduled times or smart device interactions.
Smart Lighting Triggered by Motion: My ring camera can be linked to my home lights. If movement is detected outdoors, the lights can activate, potentially startling an intruder and signaling that someone is home. I only use this in an away mode when nobody is home.
Doorbell Integration: A smart doorbell, like the Ring, can be integrated with our Alexa setup. Whenever someone presses the doorbell, Alexa can make an announcement. This is particularly useful if we can’t reach our phones. It also allows viewing who’s at the door on any compatible Echo device with a screen.

Routines Throughout The Day

Adjust the house temperature: When getting ready for bed, lower the temperature in the house for better sleep quality. In the morning, we can change that automatically as needed. You can create daily routines for various tasks to ensure your home environment is always comfortable.
Schedule robot vacuum: Create a routine that says, “Alexa, start vacuuming,” and have it trigger your robot vacuum to begin its cleaning cycle automatically. This is one of the best Alexa routines for maintaining a clean home. You can set this routine to run at certain days and times that work best for your household’s schedule.
Watch Prime: Alexa can turn on your TV and open Prime Video automatically, so you can keep watching your favorite shows and movies.
Workout: Play an upbeat workout playlist, provide a motivational quote, and set a timer for your workout duration and a reminder 15 minutes before getting ready.
Control outdoor lights: Automate and control your outdoor lights using routines. This allows you to set your exterior lights to turn on/off automatically based on a schedule or triggered by other actions. For example, you could create a routine that turns on your porch lights, landscaping path lights, or driveway lights at sunset every day or have them turn off at a set time, like 11 p.m. each night.
Help Your Dog Relax: Alexa can play calming music to help your dog feel more at ease when it starts barking. If Alexa hears your dog barking, it will automatically start playing soothing music for one minute.
Motivational: Alexa can help motivate and energize you while working in the office. You can set up routines to play motivational audio or music playlists or give you verbal prompts at specific times or intervals throughout the day.
Turn On/Off Lights Based On Motion: Automate your lights to turn on when motion is detected and turn off again once motion stops—perfect for hallways, basements, or garages. This hands-free lighting control enhances convenience and can also save energy.
Vacation Mode: Turn off all unnecessary lights, lower thermostat, lock all doors, arm the security system, and set smart lights to turn on and off at random intervals to simulate someone being home.

Alexa Routine Ideas For Family

Chores Reminder: Keep your family on track with household chores by providing automated reminders through customized routines. Reminders can be voice announcements, notifications to Alexa devices, or messages/alerts sent to phones.
Homework Time: create a distraction-free environment for kids to focus on homework. By integrating smart plugs or switches, Alexa can automatically turn off TVs, gaming consoles, and other electronics at a scheduled homework time.
Pet Care: Turn on smart pet feeders at a specific time, remind yourself to refill water bowls, and play calming music for pets.
Get Ready For School: Use the announce function to allow Alexa to broadcast your pre-recorded morning message simultaneously on all compatible Echo devices in the house.
Kid’s Bedtime: Alexa can be a great helper for establishing a consistent bedtime routine for children. By setting up a “Kid’s Bedtime” routine, you can automate a sequence of actions at the desired bedtime each night. Those can include dimming the lights, playing lullabies, and using the Music action to play relaxing music or sleep sounds to help children fall asleep faster.
Manage Alexa Sound Level: Adjust the Alexa volume depending on the time of day. It’s louder in the daytime and softer in the evening.
Movie Night: Dim living room lights, lower smart blinds, turn on the TV and set it to your preferred streaming service, and adjust the thermostat.

Nighttime Routines to Play Sleep Sounds

White Noises: You can set up custom voice commands or scheduled actions to have Alexa play white noise, nature sounds, or other ambient audio to help you relax, sleep better, or provide calming background noise when getting ready for sleep. Additionally, you can use the ‘Sleep Sounds‘ skill to play relaxing and calming sounds before bed, creating a soothing environment for relaxation and sleep.
Do Not Disturb: Create a custom routine that puts your Echo devices in a quiet, non-disruptive state while you sleep. This routine can help ensure you’re not awakened by calls, notifications, or other audio from Alexa during your designated sleep hours.

How To Create Alexa Routines?

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create an Alexa routine using the Amazon Alexa app:

Open the Alexa app on your smartphone or tablet and tap More, followed by Routines. Tap the plus (+) sign in the top right corner to create a new routine.

When a condition needs to happen, choose the trigger for your routine, which is the action that will occur.

When conditions are met, they can be voice commands, schedules, smart home device states, locations, alarms, echo buttons, or sound detection. The trigger can be from actions like Alexa says (custom phrases), smart home controls, waiting for actions, sending notifications, playing music, news or podcasts, traffic/weather info, volume controls, or stop audio. You can create routines such as turning on lights, reading the news, or starting the coffee pot in the morning.

Once you’ve added all desired actions, tap Choose Device to select which Alexa devices this routine will work on. When finished, tap Save in the top right corner. Your new custom routine will appear in the Routines list and run when triggered.

The Routines section of the Amazon Alexa app allows you to edit or delete routines at any time. Remember that some actions may require additional setup, such as linking external music services, enabling location permissions, or configuring compatible smart home devices.

10 Important Alexa Routine Tips

When we experiment with Alexa routines to boost our home’s productivity, there are some valuable strategies to remember:

Consider frequency settings: If a routine involves frequent announcements, you can Tweak Frequency Settings to limit the number of times it executes within a specific window, up to 12-hour intervals.
Propagate announcements: Announcements are broadcast to all the devices in the house where Alexa messages to a specific device.
Use multiple actions in a routine: You can add multiple actions to a single routine, so think about how you can combine tasks. For example, a “Good Morning” routine could turn on lights, start the coffee maker, read your calendar, and give the weather forecast.
Customize your trigger phrases: Using voice commands to trigger routines, use natural phrases. Instead of “Alexa, start my morning routine,” you might prefer “Alexa, I’m up.”
Use wait actions: You can add wait actions between other actions in a routine. For example, you can turn off lights 10 minutes after you say, “Alexa, goodnight.”
Combine smart home devices: Routines can control multiple devices simultaneously. For example, an “Alexa, I’m home” routine could turn on lights, adjust the thermostat, and unlock the front door.
Set up location-based routines: You can have routines triggered when you arrive at or leave a location. For instance, have Alexa turn off all lights and lower the thermostat when you leave home.
Use routines for privacy: If you have an Echo device in a room where you sometimes want more privacy (like a bedroom or office), set up a routine that stops audio recordings and mutes the microphone when triggered.
Personalize routines for each family member: If multiple people in your household use Alexa, create personalized routines for each person based on their preferences and schedules.
Continually adjust and optimize: As your needs and schedules change, remember to go back and adjust your routines. You can always edit, delete, or add new routines to fit your lifestyle. This ongoing process will help you discover the best Alexa routines for your needs.