Play Music with your Loxone Switches and Amazon Alexa
Want Alexa to be your DJ? Here’s a guide on how to link Amazon’s music services with your Loxone wall switch (e.g. Loxone Touch Switch) to take your home automation to another level.
Note: You require a local connection provided by the 1Home Box or 1Home Bridge device.
The easiest way to listen to music on an Amazon smart speaker is through a Music Streaming Service. By default, your Amazon speaker will link to Amazon Music natively, but you can also access other popular services and stream music wirelessly to your Echo speaker from your mobile phone, tablet, or computer.
If you connect Amazon Alexa to your Loxone Miniserver, you can also set up a Loxone Switch to trigger Amazon Music.
Since this feature has been requested several times by our users, we’ve decided to write an in-depth guide for Loxone users.
Connect Amazon Alexa to Loxone Miniserver
You can connect Amazon Alexa by integrating 1Home into your smart home.
The integration is simple and doesn’t take more than 5 minutes, that’s a promise.
You can connect Amazon Alexa to:
And then you can use Loxone switches as well as Gira or KNX switches to trigger Amazon Music. However in this article, we will focus only on the Loxone Miniserver-Alexa combination.
After you set up your Amazon Echo, you can link several different music services with it:
You’ll need an account with each of these services before you can access them through your smart speaker. Please keep in mind that with some, the free account will be enough, however with others, you’ll need a paid subscription.
Note: Vevo offers music videos, so it naturally requires an Echo Show (the other services work with any Echo device).
To add a new service, tap the menu in the top-left corner of your Amazon Alexa mobile app and go to Settings > Music & Podcasts. Then select “Link New Service +” and pick from a variety of music services mentioned above.
You can also stream music from your smartphone via Bluetooth. With your phone or tablet nearby, say “Alexa, pair” and your Echo Dot will go into pairing mode. Then open the Bluetooth settings of your device and wait for the Echo to show up in the list, and then pair it. Once both devices are connected, Alexa will announce the connection and you can play music directly.
“Alexa, play some music!”
If you’d rather control it by tapping a wall switch instead of using voice control, here’s a guide on how to have the device appear in the Alexa app and include it in a routine that triggers music:
Connect Amazon Music with Loxone switch
STEP 1
Connect a wall switch to a virtual contact sensor in Loxconfig (or ETS file if you’re doing for KNX installation). After saving the Loxconfig and refreshing your gateway, this device will be shown in the 1Home Dashboard as well as Amazon Alexa app and you can include it in automations.
STEP 2
Create a routine in the Amazon Alexa mobile app and pick that virtual contact sensor as a trigger (Under “When this happens”) and under “Add action” select “Music” and pick Amazon Music (or another connected service).
You can also specify which song, artist, playlist or station you want to trigger by switching the Loxone Touch wall switch.
HERE’s a guide on how to create routines and automations with Amazon Alexa.
BONUS: 4 Amazon Music Hacks
- Song ID
When you’re listening to a new song, it can be annoying to interrupt the song by asking Alexa who’s the artist or what’s the title. However, with the Song ID feature, Alexa will announce the artist and song title before playing the song. To enable this feature, just say “Alexa, turn on Song ID.”
2. Music Alarms
Elevate your mornings by setting your alarms by mood, lyrics, song, playlist or genre. If you're an Amazon Music subscriber, you can ask Alexa to set a specific song as your alarm by saying a few lyrics from the song or genre. For example, you can command “Alexa, wake me up with relaxing music at 7 a.m.” or “Alexa ,set an alarm at 6 a.m. to We Are the Champions”.
3. Recommended Playlists
If you’re not sure what you’d like to listen to, you can always ask Alexa for help by saying “Alexa, help me find a playlist.” Then Alexa will ask a couple of questions about the mood, genre and tempo and offer a preview of selected playlists. Did you know that you can let your voice assistant know what you like and dislike by saying “Alexa, I like this song” or “Alexa, I don’t like this.” This way Alexa will have a better understanding of your music preferences.
4. Music for Activities
If you’re eating, meditating, workouting or performing a similar activity, you can request to hear a specific playlist that Amazon has curated for you already. Try saying “Alexa, play peaceful music for sleeping.” or “Alexa, play classical music for cooking.”
Note: Some of these features are currently only available on US, and a handful of other accounts. Soon they will be published to all Amazon accounts, but we can’t guarantee that at the time of reading.
We hope you’ve enjoyed our guide on connecting Loxone switches to Amazon Alexa’s supported music services.
Now we want to hear from you:
What is your favorite Alexa-supported music service? Do you use it in Loxone Alexa combination?
Let us know by leaving a quick comment below.