So this is the story of the automation setup at our Inovus.

When I had joined college, we had our Inovus renovated. After that, our seniors — Badhusha, Nikhil, and Arjun — together set up the automation system. Back then, I honestly didn’t know much about it. I only knew one thing:

It was connected to Alexa. And on voice commands… things triggered. That alone felt cool. After some months though, there were issues with triggering and reliability, and eventually the setup was paused.

Picking It Up Again

Around 8 months ago, I decided to take it up again. I went through the setup, understood how things worked, made some small changes, and got everything running again.

But there was still one annoying issue. To switch into “automation mode”, we had to manually turn ON two switches:

1. One switch powered the microcontroller (ESP8266)
2. Wait for it to connect to Wi-Fi
3. Then trigger another relay to switch into automation mode

And if current went off and came back again? We had to repeat the entire thing manually.

Turn OFF.
Turn ON.
Wait.
Trigger again.

Every single time.

Not exactly “smart automation”.

The Day I Finally Got Irritated Enough

On May 13, after doing some soldering works and testing, I powered the setup ON again. That day the current kept going off multiple times. And every single time, I had to manually restart the automation flow again. After a point I was genuinely irritated. So I decided:

“Why not make this fully automatic?”

The idea was simple:

Whenever the microcontroller gets power,
instead of waiting for a manual trigger,
it should automatically switch the room into automation mode after booting. At the same time, I also wanted to solve another issue:

Sometimes our Wi-Fi goes down.

And when Wi-Fi dies…
Alexa automation dies with it.

So I planned to later add support for multiple Wi-Fi connections too.

How Our Automation Actually Works

In simple words:

• We have a microcontroller (ESP32/ESP8266)
• It connects to relays
• Relays control power switching
• The microcontroller connects to Wi-Fi
• Arduino IoT Cloud acts as the online bridge
• Alexa connects to Arduino IoT Cloud using Skills
• Voice commands update cloud variables
• ESP receives updates and triggers relays

So when I say:

“Alexa, turn on the lights”

This happens behind the scenes:

Alexa → Arduino IoT Cloud → ESP32 → Relay → Lights ON

Simple.

But insanely satisfying when it works.

So… How Can You Build This Yourself?

Here’s the exact beginner-level setup flow we used.

Requirements

You need:

• ESP32 / ESP8266
• Relay module
• Wi-Fi connection
• Jumper wires
• Basic electrical setup

Step 1 — Create Arduino IoT Cloud Account

Go to:

Arduino IoT Cloud

Create/Login to your account.

Step 2 — Install Arduino Cloud Agent

This is needed for browser uploads.

Download:

Arduino Cloud Agent

Install and run it.

You should see a small Arduino icon in your taskbar.

Step 3 — Add Device

A “Device” basically means your actual hardware board. When you create a device in Arduino IoT Cloud, you are telling the cloud:

“This hardware board belongs to this project.”

The device stores:

• Board type
• Device ID
• Secret keys
• Wi-Fi credentials
• Cloud configurations

Open:

Arduino IoT Cloud Devices

Then:

• Add Device
• Choose Third Party Device
• Select ESP32 / ESP8266
• Choose your board

It’ll generate:

• Device ID
• Secret Key

SAVE THEM.

Step 4 — Create a Thing

A “Thing” is basically the project container.

It holds:

• Device
• Variables
• Dashboard
• Cloud logic

Open:

Create Thing

Create one. I named mine:

Inovus Room

You can use any name. Attach your ESP device.

Step 5 — Add Variables

Now create variables.

Variable 1

Variable 2

Step 6 — Open Sketch

Open:

Arduino Sketches

Arduino Cloud auto-generates files.

Mainly you’ll see:

.ino

Main execution code for ESP32

thingProperties.h

Auto-generated header file connecting your cloud variables

README.adoc

Basic project documentation

Then create a:

Secret file

This stores:

• Wi-Fi credentials
• Device keys
• Sensitive details

Do NOT make this public.

If someone uses your code,
they’ll need their own secrets file.

Updating the .ino File

Here’s the basic logic I used:

#define bulb_1 21
#define bulb_2 19
#define fan_1 18
#define fan_2 17
void setup() {  
  initProperties();
  ArduinoCloud.begin(ArduinoIoTPreferredConnection);  
  pinMode(bulb_1, OUTPUT);  
  pinMode(bulb_2, OUTPUT);  
  pinMode(fan_1, OUTPUT);  
  pinMode(fan_2, OUTPUT);  
  
  // DEFAULT ON  
  bulb = true;  
  fan = true;
  onBulbChange();
  onFanChange();
}
  
  void loop() {
  ArduinoCloud.update();
}

void onBulbChange() {
  digitalWrite(bulb_1, bulb ? LOW : HIGH);
  digitalWrite(bulb_2, bulb ? LOW : HIGH);
}

void onFanChange() {
  digitalWrite(fan_1, fan ? LOW : HIGH);
  digitalWrite(fan_2, fan ? LOW : HIGH);
}

The relay module mainly has:

• VCC
• GND
• Signal Pin

Signal pins connect to ESP GPIO pins. That’s how the ESP controls switching.

Step 7 — Add Secrets

Arduino Cloud will ask for:

• Wi-Fi SSID
• Password
• Device ID

Add them.

Step 8 — Upload

Click Upload.

Wait for:

Upload Successful

Best feeling ever.

Step 9 — Connect Hardware

Connect:

• Relay VCC → ESP 3.3V / 5V
• Relay GND → ESP GND
• Relay IN pins → GPIO pins from code

Step 10 — Test from Dashboard

Inside the dashboard:

Toggle:

• Light
• Fan

Your relays should trigger.

And there you go.

A basic IoT automation setup is done.

Pretty cool already.

But I Wanted More

At Inovus, we already had Alexa. So naturally… I wanted the full Tony Stark experience.

The dream was:

Open the door and say:

“Alexa, I am back.”

And the whole room wakes up from sleep mode.

Lights.
Fans.
Everything.

Like this:

Tony Stark Style Automation Reference

Absolutely awesome.

Integrating Alexa

For this:

• Install Alexa App
• Login
• Connect your Alexa device

Inside the app:

• Open “More”
• Go to “Skills & Games”

Search:

Arduino IoT Cloud

Enable the skill.

It’ll ask you to login to:

Arduino IoT Cloud

Use the SAME account you used for your project.

Then ask Alexa to:

“Discover Devices”

And Then…

Nothing.

No devices found.

At all.

But that wasnt how it should have worked!

The 3-Day Debugging Nightmare

I was genuinely confused.

Everything worked perfectly from the dashboard.

But Alexa discovered NOTHING.

I tried:

• Removing skill
• Re-adding skill
• Logging in again
• Same Wi-Fi
• Different Wi-Fi
• ESP8266 instead of ESP32
• Rebuilding setup
• ChatGPT debugging
• Comparing old setups

Still nothing.

For 3 days.

THREE.

I even thought:

“Maybe I should build a custom Alexa skill myself.”

That’s how desperate I got.

The Actual Problem

Finally, while debugging with ChatGPT again…

It noticed one tiny thing.

Inside Arduino IoT Cloud,
I had created variables as:

Boolean

But for Alexa integration,
they should actually be created as:

Smart Switch variables

The moment I changed that…

Suddenly I could see:

• Alexa Integration
• Google Home Integration

And I was like:

“BRUHHHHHHHHHH.”

3 days wasted.

Because of ONE dropdown selection.

And Then…

I asked Alexa to discover devices again.

And this time…

IT WORKED.

Everything appeared instantly.

Automation was BACK.

The Best Parts After Fixing Everything

1. Fully Automatic Boot

Earlier:

• Turn ON switch
• Wait for Wi-Fi
• Trigger relays manually

Now:

• Power comes
• ESP boots
• Automatically switches room into automation mode

Exactly how it should be.

2. No More Weird Flickers

The old setup had random flickering issues.

Now it’s stable.

Much cleaner behavior.

3. Better Understanding of Real Systems

This project taught me something important:

Building something once is easy.

Making it reliable is the real engineering.

Tiny issues matter.
Power recovery matters.
Boot timing matters.
Variable types matter.

Even dropdown selections matter apparently 💀

One More Funny Problem

There was also another issue.

One light switch became inverted.

When the switch was ON,
the light became OFF.

And vice versa.

Since it was a 2-way switch,
we manually inverted the wiring physically.

But after every automation setup…

It became inverted AGAIN.

So every time we finished setup,
we had to manually undo what we just did.

Peak engineering experience honestly.

Final Thoughts

What started as:

“Why is Alexa not discovering devices?”

became:

• a full rebuild,
• optimization journey,
• debugging marathon,
• and honestly one of the most satisfying fixes I’ve done recently.

And now…

Automation at INOVUS LABS IEDC is back again 🚀

This project reminded me that:

Sometimes the biggest problems come from the smallest settings.

And sometimes…

3 days of debugging ends with:

changing a single dropdown.

😭

But that’s engineering.

And honestly?

That’s the fun part.

And sometimes the best feeling in the world is finally hearing:

“Okay.”
click
Lights ON.

If you try building one yourself:

• start small
• stay safe with current
• don’t panic while debugging
• and remember…

If something isn’t working,

…it might just be one tiny setting hiding somewhere.

You can checkout the reel of automation here: instagram

Github: https://github.com/inovus-labs/inovus-automation