Voice assistants have made our life at home much more comfortable and interesting, as a simple voice command is enough to listen to your favorite music, get the weather forecast, listen to the news, activate some smart devices remotely, and plan daily activities. , leaving more time for ourselves or to get out of the house. But one of the things that we could hardly deviate from technology is cleaning the house: we still have to pick up a broom or dustpan or start the vacuum cleaner from time to time to keep the rooms where we live clean.Fortunately, technology has gone ahead enough to be able to replace us even in household chores: in this guide, we will show you how to clean house automatically starting housekeeping with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant voice assistants, that is the most popular home automation control systems currently on the market and very easy to integrate into any home.
How to clean the house with automatic robots
In the following chapters, we will first show you which house cleaning robots we need to buy since not all models can be controlled via Alexa or Google Assistant. After having seen and evaluated the robot vacuum cleaner models we will also show you how to start the cleaning of the house when we are away and how to schedule the cleaning of the house at set times.
A robot vacuum cleaner with Alexa and Google support
To be able to clean the house automatically we will have to equip ourselves with a modern robot vacuum cleaner, able to connect to home Wi-Fi, and to be able to “talk” with Alexa and Google voice assistants. Below we have collected the best robots we can bet on a reliable site like Amazon, which always offers free returns in case of problems or second thoughts.
The first robot we can consider is LEFANT Robot Vacuum Cleaner, available on Amazon for less than € 200.
On this robot, we find a suction power of 2200Pa, Wi-Fi connectivity, 2600 mAh lithium battery (up to 120 minutes with a single charge, an automatic return system to the base (at the end of cleaning or with low battery) an app that is easy to configure and download on any type of smartphone (Smart life, available for Android and iPhone).
Alternatively, we can focus on a mid-range robot like the Proscenic M6 PRO, available on Amazon for less than 400 €.
On this robot, we find a suction power of 2600Pa, Wi-Fi connectivity, 3200mAh lithium battery (up to 120 minutes on a single charge), automatic return system to the base (at the end of cleaning or with low battery), and can be programmed via the smartphone app ProscenicHome (available free for Android and iPhone).
Still, on the average price range, we can take into consideration the Neato Robotics D450, available on Amazon for less than 400 €.
This robot offers Wi-Fi connectivity, a lithium battery with 75 minutes of cleaning on a single charge, automatic return to base (after cleaning or low battery), laser navigation, mapping of multiple rooms and floors, and the convenient app for smartphone Neato Robotics, available free for Android and iPhone.
If instead, we want to focus on a top of range we advise you to take a look at the iRobot Roomba i7156, available on Amazon for less than € 600.
On this robot, we find a 3-phase cleaning system based on double multi-surface rubber brushes, vSLAM navigation with the advanced mapping of each room in the house, active dirt monitoring system, automatic return to the base, and management app iRobot Home with advanced features, available free for Android and iPhone devices.
Obviously, we can also use other robot vacuum cleaners, let’s just make sure that it is possible to connect them to Wi-Fi, have a control app, and that have support for voice commands with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.
Configure cleaning with voice commands
To clean the house automatically we must first register our robot vacuum cleaner on the dedicated app, also creating the service management account (just open the app and follow the instructions). After adding the vacuum cleaner to the downloaded app on your phone let’s configure Alexa’s voice commands opening the Amazon Alexa app on our phone (if we want to use Alexa’s voice commands), opening the menu at the bottom right Other by pressing on the menu Skills and games and looking for the skill associated with the manufacturer of the robot or with a name identical to that of the app used for the configuration.
After finding the right skill (if we don’t find it, we advise you to read the instructions in the app or in the instruction manual), press on Enable to use, we enter the login credentials for the account created just now (in the robot app) and, when necessary, we confirm the recovery of the information and connected devices. After a few minutes, Alexa will identify our robot vacuum cleaners and we can start cleaning using simple voice commands such as “Start robot”, “Clean the house” The “Start device-name”, which can also be used by Alexa app when we are away from home. If we do not know the supported voice commands, check the user manual or the robot app to find out how to start the cleaning cycles.
If we use the Google Assistant we can add robots to clean the house automatically by registering an account on the robot’s dedicated app (as seen above), opening the Google Home app on our phone (Android or iPhone), pressing the + icon at the top left, pressing up Configure device, choosing Have you already configured something? and scrolling through the list until you find the account associated with the robot we use.
After finding the right account, press on it and enter the login credentials (as also seen in the section for Alexa), so as to be able to access the configured robot and add it to the Google Homerooms. After adding, all we have to do is say “Hey Google” on a Google Nest Mini, Google Nest Hub, or any Android smartphone and use the voice commands associated with the robot (in fact identical to those seen in the paragraph dedicated to Alexa).
Conclusions
Thanks to Alexa and Google we can start cleaning the house at any time using the Amazon Echo, the Google Nest, or the voice commands supported by our smartphone, as well as being able to schedule the cleaning in a specific time slot using the advanced features of Alexa, such as also seen in our guide Amazon Alexa: How to create routines and new voice commands.
If we want to make our home even more technological and connected, we invite you to read our insights Domotica (Smart Home): the best devices to install and use e Buy wireless lights and bulbs compatible with Alexa and Google Home.