Amazon Alexa gets support for wake-on-lan

Alexa, Amazon’s virtual assistant, now supports wake-on-lan to turn on devices that, for example, cannot be turned on with a smarthome base station. This should allow for more extensive compatibility.

So support for the Alexa Smart Home API is no longer required to allow users to turn on a device with Alexa, Amazon explains. Manufacturers still need to create an Alexa smart home skill to ensure that the smart assistant and the Amazon devices send the packages properly. Amazon has prepared documentation for developers.

Wake-on-lan has been around since 1997 and is still used today to, for example, turn on computers from an off or sleep mode. The technology works by keeping the device’s network adapter switched on and listening for the so-called magic packet, a packet of data sent over the network, in this case from an Alexa-equipped device. When the adapter receives the packet, it turns on the rest of the device.

Alexa has recently also been available for Windows 10, but cannot officially be downloaded from the Windows Store in the Benelux yet. It is unknown from when this will be possible. Availability is currently limited to the US, UK and Germany.