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Amazon Alexa location-based Routines turns on your lights when you get home

Set your personalized entrance music to blast as soon as you walk through the door.

Joan E. Solsman Former Senior Reporter
Joan E. Solsman was CNET's senior media reporter, covering the intersection of entertainment and technology. She's reported from locations spanning from Disneyland to Serbian refugee camps, and she previously wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. She bikes to get almost everywhere and has been doored only once.
Expertise Streaming video, film, television and music; virtual, augmented and mixed reality; deep fakes and synthetic media; content moderation and misinformation online Credentials
  • Three Folio Eddie award wins: 2018 science & technology writing (Cartoon bunnies are hacking your brain), 2021 analysis (Deepfakes' election threat isn't what you'd think) and 2022 culture article (Apple's CODA Takes You Into an Inner World of Sign)
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Ben Fox Rubin Former senior reporter
Ben Fox Rubin was a senior reporter for CNET News in Manhattan, reporting on Amazon, e-commerce and mobile payments. He previously worked as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and got his start at newspapers in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
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Joan E. Solsman
Ben Fox Rubin
2 min read
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Amazon introduced location-based Routines alongside its first Alexa-powered device for automobiles. 

 Ben Fox Rubin/CNET

Amazon on Thursday introduced location-based Routines, what it calls the commands you set up with its digital assistant Alexa to trigger connected devices.

The announcement came alongside the unveiling of Echo Auto, a cassette-tape-sized device you put in your car so Amazon's voice-controlled digital helper can follow along with you wherever you drive. They were two of a landslide of announcements from an Amazon event in Seattle, which the company said would include the largest number of devices and features the company has ever launched at one time. 

With location-based Routines, you can set up connected lights to turn on as soon as you arrive home, for example. 

Watch this: Amazon is holding a surprise Echo Alexa event. We break it down (The 3:59, Ep. 461)

After Amazon first launched the original Echo in 2014, the device became a hit for the company and helped usher in a new era of voice computing. Now Apple , Google , Samsung and Microsoft are racing to build up their own voice assistants and integrate them into more devices to catch Amazon . To stay one step ahead, Amazon aggressively expanded its line of Echo devices, pushed Alexa into hospitality and office spaces, and integrated Alexa with over 20,000 kinds of devices.

Along with the Echo, Amazon has seen success in its equally unflashy but low-priced Fire tablets and Fire TV video streamers. Its rare miss was with the Fire Phone, which quickly failed after coming out in 2014.

As of Thursday morning before the event, Amazon had 11 Alexa-powered gadgets in all: the Echo, Echo Plus

, Echo Dot , Echo Show , Echo Spot , Echo Dot Kids Edition, Echo Look , Fire TV Cube , Amazon Tap , Echo Connect and Echo Buttons .

Amazon Echo event live blog: Catch all the latest news, pictures and updates from CNET.

Amazon's new device lineup: Here's everything we expect to see unveiled today.