14 DAY TRIAL // Last year, Wink was announced as a main home controller for all your house's smart gadgets, having them connected over Bluetooth managing to come on the market with the backing of a large number of major hardware manufacturers like GE, Honeywell and Philips.
Being an offshoot of Quirky, a company that already partners big household names like the ones mentioned above adding names like Mattel or Rachio, Winky basically has the largest portfolio of companies that can support home smart connectivity among devices over Bluetooth, Z-Wave or Zigbee wireless protocols instead of regular WiFi.
Wink connects all these devices through a router that's called Wink Hub, and all the companies that sell their home devices that are Wink connectable will have the Wink logo visible so users will know which devices are compatible with the Wink Hub.
Seeing the opportunity, Amazon started a partnership with Wink by linking its Echo speaker or "Alexa" with the Wink system, having the home voice assistant dictate the Wink Hub which home devices to turn on or off or follow other commands.
Just say it, and she'll do it
Before Alexa, Wink was controllable through a mobile application on your smartphone that costs about $80 (€72) and could have your phone pair with Wink Hub and access all your smart home devices.
As of now, you can tell Amazon's Echo speaker to control Wink devices, as long as they're paired with the Hub, by only asking Alexa to "turn on the light" or "turn off the fan." Products from GE, Leviton and Lutron will be compatible with Wink and Alexa.
The way to do it is to connect your products with your Wink app and set familiar names for them. Afterwards, users can connect the Wink account to the Echo through the Echo mobile app. In the end, you can say "Alexa discover new devices" while the search goes for 20 seconds.
After all that, all you have to say “Alexa, turn on the living room lamp ” by mentioning the familiar name you have given to the device and it will work.
As we mentioned before when Amazon launched the Echo voice assistant, this device has the great potential of becoming a general home-locked voice assistant, maybe heralding a new age of home managing with much less hassle than before, when you come home tired from work.