Wi-Fi ceiling fans and LED lighting fixtures from Haiku Homes, a division of Big Ass Solutions, will join the growing number of home-automation products that can be controlled by voice through Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant.
Alexa voice control of the Haiku products will be available in homes outfitted with Amazon’s $170 Echo or $129 Tap wireless Wi-Fi speakers or with Amazon’s $89 Dot. The latter adds the speakers’ cloud-based virtual-assistant and music-streaming capabilities to any connected sound system. Alexa voice control is also available through Amazon’s Fire TV settop box and Fire TV Stick.
Haiku’s compatible fans consist of the H and I Series fans, the L Series fans when paired with a Haiku Wall Control, and previous model Haiku fans with SenseME technology. They will get native integration with Alexa beginning in April. Haiku Home’s new Designer Series of LED fixtures will also feature Alexa voice control when they ship in May.
Voice override: Consumers will be able to use Alexa voice control to turn connected ceiling fans on and off, change speeds, and adjust light intensity.
Haiku fans already feature built-in temperature, humidity and occupancy sensors for automatic speed adjustment as environmental conditions change. But Alexa will enable easier manual overrides when consumers want to manually change a setting. Users might want to increase fan speed after jogging or dim the lights to watch TV, the company explained.
Alexa is already available to control home automation products from Insteon, Wink, Belkin Wemo, Philips Hue, Samsung Smart Things, and TP-Link.
Sonos has cited the Echo’s success for its plans to bring voice control to its wireless multiroom speaker system.
