Hive brings voice-control to your heating, lights and plugs

Hive integrates with Amazon Alexa to let you manage your home – simply by speaking to it

Hive, a leader in smart home technology, has today announced a partnership with Amazon’s Alexa Voice Service, allowing people to control their heating, lighting and plugged-in devices – simply by speaking to them.

Working in tandem in the home with Amazon’s voice-activated speaker, Amazon Echo, Hive technology will now respond to spoken commands through Alexa, allowing people to effortlessly manage their home just by saying “Alexa, tell Hive to set the temperature to 22 degrees” or “Alexa, tell Hive to turn the living room light on”.   

The Hive team has so far discovered more than 80 different ways that we phrase requests in the UK, meaning Hive with Alexa will understand you if you ask it to ‘bosh my lights on’ and ‘crank the heating up’ – it will even respond accordingly if the power goes to your head and you choose to proclaim, “Alexa, tell Hive ‘Let there be light’”!

Voice control functionality will be available for Hive Active HeatingTM, Hive Active LightsTM and Hive Active PlugsTM, enabling people to turn on or off a fan, the radio, a TV, or indeed anything that you have plugged into your Hive-powered smart home. 

Nina Bhatia, Managing Director of Centrica Connected Home, said:

“We are passionate about giving customers easy ways to manage their homes, so we are very excited to introduce voice control to Hive.

People can now manage their home simply by talking to it, whether that’s asking for the hot water to be turned on when the kids come home from school, or turning the lights off as you leave for work.

This is not some kind of far-away future technology. Speaking to your home, and having it respond, has arrived.”

Hive, a British Gas innovation, will work with Amazon Alexa and Amazon’s voice-activated product range, including the newly launched hands-free speaker Echo, from 28 September.  More advanced functionality, such as the ability to control multi-zone heating setups, precisely dim lighting and use more conversational spoken commands, will roll out throughout October.  

Notes

For more information on Hive, visit: www.hivehome.com. 

About Hive

Hive, a British Gas innovation, provides new ways for people to control, manage and connect with their homes through innovative technology, creating a little magic in the everyday along the way. The journey started with the launch of Hive Active HeatingTM in 2013, giving people the ability to control their heating and hot water from their mobile, tablet and laptop. Since then, Hive Active HeatingTM has become the UK’s leading smart thermostat and the Hive family has grown to include a multitude of products and services, including smart plugs, sensors and lights. Over 360,000 people in the UK now have a Hive hub.  The Hive brand is a key part of Centrica Connected Home’s mission to bring the benefits of smart home technology to everyone.