How to Set Up and Use Alexa Hunches

This article explains how to set up and use Alexa Hunches.

What Are Alexa Hunches?

Alexa Hunches track your daily habits and allow Alexa to perform practical tasks with your permission. For example, Hunches will enable Alexa to shut off your living room lights after you’ve gone to bed at night if you forget.

If Hunches ever suggests something you don’t want, you have the option to either confirm or deny the suggestion with a voice command. You can also set Alexa to automatically perform actions based on Hunches if you don’t want to confirm every suggestion manually or disable Hunches altogether if you aren’t interested in the feature.

How Do Alexa Hunches Work?

Alexa Hunches work by tracking your daily usage of smart home devices like smart lights, thermostats, and robot vacuums. Over time it learns when you activate and deactivate various devices, which allows it to make helpful suggestions if it has a hunch you’ve forgotten to do something it believes is part of your typical routine.

Here’s an example of Alexa Hunches in action:

1. Over time, you always turn off the lights in your house before going to bed.

2. You activate the turn off lights if you’re asleep hunch, either manually in the Alexa app, or by agreeing when Alexa suggests it.

3. One night, you forget to turn off the living room lights.

4. Alexa Hunches will automatically turn the lights off.

   If you haven't activated an automatic action, Alexa will ask you before performing a Hunch action like turning off your lights or adjusting your thermostat.

How Do You Set Hunches on Alexa?

The Hunches feature is on by default, but you can manually set the Hunches you want and disable ones you don’t want. The number of available Hunches will depend on how many smart devices you have in your house and the amount of time Alexa has had to learn your routines.

Here’s how to set Hunches on Alexa:

1. Open the Alexa app on your phone.

2. Tap More.

3. Tap Settings.

4. Tap Hunches.

5. Tap Set up Hunches.

   If you don’t see this option, Alexa may not have had time to develop any Hunches yet. Use Alexa and your smart devices for a few days to a few weeks, and check again later.

6. Tap a Hunch, i.e. Turn off the lights if you’re asleep.

7. Tap Next.

8. Select the smart devices you want Alexa Hunches to control with this hunch.

   This list will contain relevant devices, like lights for a hunch related to lights or your robot vacuums for a hunch related to vacuums.

9. Tap Done.

How to Prevent Notifications From Alexa Hunches

When you enable Alexa Hunches, the default setting is for Alexa to ask you or send a push notification before it acts on any new hunch. If you would rather not receive these requests or push notifications, you can disable them.

Here’s how to prevent Alexa Hunches from sending notifications:

1. Open the Alexa app on your phone.

2. Tap More.

3. Tap Settings.

4. Tap Hunches.

5. Tap Settings (gear icon).

6. Tap Hunches suggestions to disable notifications.

   If you tap Mobile notifications instead, Alexa will ask for permission before acting on a hunch, but it won’t send a push notification to your phone.

How Do You Stop Hunches on Alexa?

If you don’t want to use hunches anymore, you can disable the feature at any time by saying, “Alexa, disable hunches.” You can also disable individual automatic actions if you don’t want Alexa to perform some of them, but you want it to continue doing others.

For example, you might want Alexa Hunches to turn off your lights when you leave the house but not activate your robotic vacuum.

Here’s how to stop individual hunches on Alexa:

1. Open the Alexa app on your phone.

2. Tap More.

3. Tap Settings.

4. Tap Hunches.

5. Tap Settings (gear icon).

6. Tap a hunch in the automatic actions section, i.e. vacuums.

7. Tap the toggle to disable the automatic action.

   Repeat these steps for each additional automatic action you want to disable.