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Just thought I would wish you all had a Happy New Year, hope you all had a good Christmas break last weekend before back to work and slowly taking Christmas decorations down, managed to automate Christmas lights throughout the house and that pleased Mrs Jones just with a few zigbee plugs and running through she who can't be named and Smart things.

Thought some of you may want to know about a project that combines wall mounting a tablet and replacing a dumb wall switch with the tablet. Sounds dumb I know but actually isn't. Ok I had entry wall switches i wanted to replace with smart switches but i also wanted a display so i could see the outside camera on the other side of the entry door and control my locks, blinds, lights, ect.. I know I could use my fire tablet to do this but i didn't want any wires coming from the wall plug to the tablet showing. So I had an idea what i wanted so started surfing the web looking for a way to do what i wanted. Found this site https://www.etsy.com/listing/676472925/amazon-fire-hd-8-tablet-wall-mount-7th?ref=pla_similar_listing_top-2&frs=1 I ordered the mount with the 120VAC to 5VDC integrated charging option. I removed both dumb switches and installed the mount over the hole that the switches came out of and installed the converter. Then replaced the old bulbs with Cree smart bulbs. The resulting install leaves no wires exposed and looks professionally done. With Fully Kiosk Browser and Action Tiles installed on the fire tablet i can control the lights that i removed and all of my other devices i need to control, plus see the camera. The fully browser allows the tablet to detect motion via the camera and show the action tiles when someone walks up to it. Check out the site if you want to see how this is done has several pictures of the product and shows how to install it. If you order it make sure to select the 120/240V AC charging option. Any questions about how i did this just leave them here.

The app has been updated with a new energy dashboard. You can now monitor your energy usage for lights. It could get interesting since I still use mostly incandescents and I'm curious to see the actual differences.

Why do I really need a hub… I am running a nest Wi-Fi mesh system with two points and almost 90 devices I have never needed a hub and do not understand why I need one..

I love it. If anyone is doing OTA (Over the Air) TV, you can now change the channels by voice with a Fire TV Cube

Fire tv's in a group can now be voice controlled by just saying tv instead of fire tv. Small change I know but a step in the right direction of natural speech. Now we need fans, heat, ac, etc.

Great idea if you like smart bulbs. I still prefer incandescents thus I have gone to smart dimmers everywhere. Now that amazon has installed the device dashboard, similar to action tiles I think, I am thinking of hanging a couple on the wall. I would still need to tap the power so the tablet would need to be mounted close to a switch. Considering how slow and clunky the smart home controls are on the shows and the alexa app is no road runner, I am very impressed on how fast the new dashboard is. Even on older fire tablets. Now if you could just pin entire groups to the dashboard instead of wasting a tile on lights and a tile for switches and a tile for plugs for each room.

Wow! Amazon opened the flood gates 1. Group Alexa Video calling in MANY countries (Echo Show only- no Alexa app devices) 2. Zoom call support on Echo Show 8 (US only) 3. Fire TV Alexa video calls (Fire TV cube only, with using USB camera) Here is the press release https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/devices/new-ways-alexa-can-help-you-stay-connected-with-loved-ones

Nice video. You should do one on how to set up/host a zoom meeting.

There is a lot of great info here on Amazon Fire TV https://amazonfiretv.blog/tagged/alexa

Thx Frank. Added to my very long list of things to figure out.

So I have 2 Insignia fire tv edition tvs, 1 Toshiba fire tv edition tv, and 1 firestick 4k. All are given different names, kitchen fire tv, master fire tv, david's fire tv and theater fire tv. All are assigned to their proper groups in the app and linked to an echo in the proper room/group. The only exception is the firestick but that is still in the box, never even plugged in. Amazon did link it to my account when I bought it so it is listed as a device in the app. So here is the problem, Each tv/echo combination acts properly if I use the words fire tv in the command such as turn on/off fire tv. Recently I found I could just ask for tv, not fire tv. Well come to find out that only works with theater fire tv. Any other room/group still requires the old phrasing fire tv. Not only that but I am finding that any echo in the house will turn on/off theater fire tv with "alexa, tv on/off " That should not happen. Only the echos in the same group as the tv are linked. Confusing, I know but I just dread having to explain this mess if I have to deal with amazon echo tech support. They seem to get confused too easily! Has anyone run into something like this yet?