Rule your home with custom voice commands for Alexa and Google Assistant

These days, it seems like everyone has a Google Home or Amazon Echo installed in their home. We rely on these devices to do just about everything for us, and, more often than not, they deliver. Alexa can teach you how to be a champagne connoisseur, among other things, and Google Assistant has its own bag of digital tricks, including the ability to preheat your oven. It’s even possible to create custom commands with the app IFTTT (If This, Than That).

Our how-to guide will have you barking at Alexa or Google Assistant in no time.

We’ve already created a crash course to IFTTT, but for our smart home device owners who are unaware of service, let’s just say that this app lets you create custom voice commands for your Home and Echo. Getting started is simple, too, and our how-to guide will have you barking at Alexa or Google Assistant in no time.

First, download the IFTTT app for either iOS or Android. You will then need to set up an account, though, you can do so using your Google or Facebook accounts, in addition to your email address.

After you’ve downloaded the app, connect either your Google Home or Echo. To do this, click the search icon in the upper-right corner of the screen and type in either “Google Assistant” or “Amazon Alexa.” Then, tap either assistant to sync your smart home device with IFTTT.

Once you’ve connected your device, you will see a host of “Applets,” which essentially function as triggers or packaged actions that are ready for you to use and install. To create your own, tap “My Applets” in the bottom-right corner.

Next, tap the addition sign in the upper-right corner and choose either Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa to create a “trigger,” a custom phrase that will prompt an action. It will then direct you to a screen where you can enter your voice command using lowercase letters. Tap the check mark in the upper-right corner when finished.

Now the “this” part is complete, you have to choose the “that,” meaning you need to pick which service you want to use this command for. For example, say you want to set up a trigger that will prompt your Philips Hue bulbs to pulse blue when you say the phrase, “party mode.” To do so, click That once you’ve completed the “this” component and search for “Philips Hue” using the entry field at the top. Then, set up your desired action and tap the check mark in the upper-right corner once again.

Note: You’ll have to log into each individual account for any services you have yet to set up.

The app will then show your active Applet, which you toggle on and off using the enlarged slider in the middle of your screen. You can also edit or delete your Applet from within the My Applet section located in the bottom-right corner of your screen. To set up another custom command, simply repeat the process!

David Cogen — a regular contributor here at Digital Trends — runs TheUnlockr, a popular tech blog that focuses on tech news, tips and tricks, and the latest tech. You can also find him on Twitter discussing the latest tech trends.

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Carbon fiber bikes may become a whole lot cheaper with 3D-printed frames

A company backed by the CIA that calls itself Arevo is hoping to lead a revolution in manufacturing that uses 3D printing to build products in a more efficient and cost-effective manner. The Silicon Valley, California startup recently picked up $12.5 million in funding to help pursue this goal and has revealed an impressive proof-of-concept product to help demonstrate its capabilities. That product is a carbon fiber bike frame that could give us a glimpse of the future for the cycling industry.

According to Arevo, its bike frame is the first to be 3D printed using carbon fiber. The company uses 3D printer technology, paired with a custom-built robotic arm and web-based software, to create products made from proprietary raw materials. The robot arm is able to print out shapes in a single pass using a thermoplastic material that is melted into strands of carbon fiber that helps bind everything together. The end result is a bike frame that costs about $300 to make, which is considerably less than what most bike manufacturers pay.

When most cycling companies set out to create a new carbon fiber frame for their latest bicycles, they must first create a mold of what the frame will look like. That mold typically costs between $60,000 and $100,000 depending on a number of variables. Once that mold is built, workers fill the mold with individual layers of carbon fiber, which are combined with resin, into it. The mold is then placed in an industrial oven to bake the resin into the carbon to bind everything together. The entire process takes a great deal of time and is fairly labor intensive, making a carbon fiber bike frame very lightweight, but expensive.

Arevo, which was initially funded by In-Q-Tel, a nonprofit venture capital firm backed by the CIA, says that it can scale up its manufacturing process for use in a number of different projects. While the carbon fiber bike frame is an indication of what the company’s hardware and software are capable of, it can also reportedly build products as large as the fuselage of an aircraft. It can also 3D print parts for space vehicles and other complex machines, too.

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Best Speakers To Use With Your Amazon Echo Dot in 2018

• Best overall
• Best for simplicity
• Best for portability
• Best for sound quality

Best Overall

Sonos Play:1

See at Amazon

The Sonos Play:1 isn’t a Bluetooth speaker — it’s much more than that. As part of a whole-home sound system, the Sonos Play:1 is a small and powerful musical conduit that can fill rooms with lush sound. But that’s an investment.

On its own, connected via 3.5mm jack or over Bluetooth, the Sonos Play:1 connects to Alexa, allowing an Echo Dot, either in the same room or another, to send it music commands. The setup is easy thanks to work from both Amazon and Sonos — it just involves hooking the systems together using an Alexa Skill — and it works flawlessly. Plus, at $149, it’s cheaper than some Bluetooth speakers and sounds much, much better.

Bottom line: If you’re looking for the absolute best sound in a small form factor, connect the Sonos Play:1 to your Echo Dot.

One more thing: If you’d rather go Echo-free, the Sonos One has Alexa built right in.

Why the Sonos Play:1 is the best

Sonos makes great-sounding speakers. Always has, likely always will. The beauty of Sonos’s collaboration with Amazon is that a speaker like the Play:1, which may already be part of a dedicated Sonos system, can work independently with any Echo, including the tiny Echo Dot.

That means you can hide the Dot somewhere in a room and have it always listening for commands. “Alexa, play The Beatles,” takes just a second to say, but with a Sonos Play:1 in the room, the two gadgets become more than the sum of their parts. The beauty is that you aren’t connecting the Sonos to the Echo via Bluetooth, so sound coming out of the Play:1 sounds just as good as if you were using the dedicated Sonos app (which you can still do if you want).

Best for simplicity

Bose SoundLink Color II

See at Amazon

While it’s designed to be a Bluetooth speaker to connect your phone, the design and audio quality from the Bose SoundLink Color II speaker makes it perfect for filling most rooms with sound.

You can connect your Amazon Echo Dot to this speaker and leave it forever as a better Amazon Echo, or you can take the $130 Bose Soundlink Color II with you when leaving the house thanks to its internal battery. It’s a great flexible option for just about every occasion and looks nice enough that it can sit in a room without standing out or taking up too much space.

Bottom line: This speaker will turn your Amazon Echo Dot into something better than an Amazon Echo, and does a whole lot more.

One more thing: You can pick up the Bose SoundLink II in either black or white to match your Echo Dot.

Best for portability

VAUX speaker for Echo Dot

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Why bother with buying multiple Amazon Echo Dots when you can buy a speaker that powers your single Echo Dot so it can come with you wherever you are in the house? VAUX is one of several speaker designers clever enough to make the body of the speaker something that can actually hold the Echo Dot while in use, so it not only powers the brains of the operation but makes the whole system a single portable unit.

This $40 speaker promises six hours of portable runtime, and the dual 52mm drivers will certainly make this little Echo Dot fill a room with sound. Best of all, you don’t need a different power cord to charge this combined unit. The charger you used to power the Echo Dot is also capable of charging this speaker.

Bottom line: If portability is your goal, this is a great place to start.

Best Audio Quality

B&O Play Beoplay A6

See on Amazon

The speaker on a taller Amazon Echo is fine, but in larger rooms, it frequently feels a little flat. If your goal is high audio quality so you can stream across an entire house and really rattle the windows, you either want a complete standalone stereo system or you want a Beoplay A6.

Bang & Olufsen is the champion of high-quality audio in portable form, but you pay for the privilege. These speakers are not cheap, but the audio difference couldn’t be more clear when compared to other standalone speakers. While the Beoplay series does come in other, smaller formats that do a good job filling a room with sound, the $799 Beoplay A6 speakers are built for style and room-filling audio. It’s a strange looking speaker for sure, but one of those experiences where you don’t know you can listen to anything else after listening to this.

One more thing: These speakers are available in a bunch of different color fabric options, but tracking something down outside of the standard off-white or textured grey (sorry, Light Gray and Oxidized Brass) isn’t easy.

Conclusion

There are a lot of great options for speakers to add to an Amazon Echo Dot. The Sonos Play:1 is the best of all worlds, since it can exist as a dedicated Echo Dot speaker or as part of a larger Sonos system. The Bose SoundLink Color II is simple — it’s a fantastic Bluetooth speaker that has a 3.5mm input. If your goal is portability over all else, the VAUX is your speaker. And if audio quality is the most important thing to you, grab a B&O Play Beoplay A6 and have a blast.

Best Overall

Sonos Play:1

See at Amazon

The Sonos Play:1 isn’t a Bluetooth speaker — it’s much more than that. As part of a whole-home sound system, the Sonos Play:1 is a small and powerful musical conduit that can fill rooms with lush sound. But that’s an investment.

On its own, connected via 3.5mm jack or over Bluetooth, the Sonos Play:1 connects to Alexa, allowing an Echo Dot, either in the same room or another, to send it music commands. The setup is easy thanks to work from both Amazon and Sonos — it just involves hooking the systems together using an Alexa Skill — and it works flawlessly. Plus, at $149, it’s cheaper than some Bluetooth speakers and sounds much, much better.

Bottom line: If you’re looking for the absolute best sound in a small form factor, connect the Sonos Play:1 to your Echo Dot.

One more thing: If you’d rather go Echo-free, the Sonos One has Alexa built right in.

Update, May 2018: The Sonos Play:1 is our new pick for the best speaker for your Echo Dot, and we’ve replaced the Bose SoundLink II with the cheaper, more portable Bose SoundLink Color II. Happy listening!