SayBoot — Press Kit

At a glance

One-sentence description

SayBoot is a free Alexa Smart Home Skill that lets you turn your Windows PC on and off by voice — built solo and independently, available in 11 Amazon markets.

One-paragraph description

SayBoot is a free Alexa Smart Home Skill paired with a small Windows agent that lets users power their PCs on and off using only voice commands. Saying "Alexa, turn on Office PC" sends a Wake-on-LAN magic packet that boots the machine in about two seconds; the same flow handles shutdown, restart, sleep, and hibernation with per-device configurable actions. Multiple PCs can be organized into groups for room-level control. The product was built by a solo developer over four months and is currently live on Alexa Skills Stores in 11 countries — including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Italy — with the basic on/off functionality permanently free.

Three-paragraph description (for longer articles)

SayBoot is an indie-built, free-forever Alexa Smart Home Skill that fills a gap nobody else has properly addressed since paid alternatives shut down: turning a Windows PC on and off by voice command. The product consists of an Alexa skill that registers user PCs as voice-controllable devices, plus a small Windows agent distributed through the Microsoft Store. A user says "Alexa, turn on Office PC", Amazon's cloud routes the intent to SayBoot's backend, which dispatches a Wake-on-LAN magic packet onto the local network — the PC powers up in roughly two seconds. The reverse flow handles shutdown, restart, sleep, and hibernation, with the specific action configurable per device.

The product was built by Alessandro Colalongo, a solo developer based in Italy, over approximately four months of evenings and weekends. The technical stack is deliberately lightweight: a Node.js + SQLite backend on a Hostinger VPS, a Next.js 15 static webapp for device management, a pure-Go Windows agent (no external runtime dependencies), and a tiny AWS Lambda function in three regions (Europe, US East, US West) that acts as a proxy between Amazon's Alexa cloud and the SayBoot server. The Windows agent is signed and distributed through the Microsoft Store, eliminating the SmartScreen warnings that plague unsigned smart-home utilities.

SayBoot launched in April 2026 with availability initially in Italy, then expanded to 10 additional Amazon Alexa Skills Stores: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, Spain, India, Brazil, and Mexico, with more locales currently in review with Amazon. The product is free for its core on/off use case and will remain so permanently; a Premium tier with advanced features (visual remote control, scheduled automations) is under consideration for future release. The project is privacy-focused: no telemetry beyond Amazon's standard skill metrics, no access to the PC's screen or files, and no third-party data sharing.

Key features

• Voice-controlled remote power for any Windows 10/11 PC with Wake-on-LAN enabled
• Configurable per-device actions: shutdown, restart, sleep, hibernate
• Device groups for waking multiple PCs at once (e.g. "Alexa, turn on Office Computers")
• One-click pairing via Sign in with Amazon (no copying codes between devices)
• Microsoft Store distribution — signed binary, no SmartScreen warnings
• 11 Alexa markets covered: US, UK, CA, AU, DE, FR, ES, IT, IN, BR, MX
• Free forever for the core use case
• Privacy-focused: no telemetry, no screen access, GDPR-compliant cookie consent

Why it exists (founder context)

SayBoot started as a personal need: Alessandro wanted to wake the PC in his office from across the house using his existing Echo, without leaving the machine powered on 24/7 and without setting up Home Assistant or a Raspberry Pi just for one task. Existing solutions fell into three buckets: phone-only Wake-on-LAN apps that required opening the phone (defeating the convenience angle), DIY hardware approaches with Sonoff relays and Zigbee dry contacts (expensive, fragile), or paid commercial Alexa skills that recently migrated to subscription pricing and frustrated their user base.

The four-month build process focused on three principles: zero setup friction (one click pairing, agent installable from the Microsoft Store), no recurring cost for the basic case (Wake-on-LAN is a 1998 protocol — there's no infrastructure justifying a subscription), and brand-consistent voice experience (the skill works the same on Echo Dot, Echo Show, or Echo Hub). The product launched the same day Alexa Skills Store and Microsoft Store both approved the submissions — both reviews completed in two days each, against Amazon's stated 2-4 week typical timeline.

Quotes ready to use (attributed to Alessandro Colalongo)

"Wake-on-LAN has existed since 1998. The protocol works exactly the same as it did then. The only thing missing was a voice front-end that didn't require running a home automation server or paying a subscription. SayBoot is that missing piece." — Alessandro Colalongo, founder of SayBoot

"I built SayBoot because I wanted to use it myself. I'm not in tech — my day job is automotive consulting. The whole product is what an indie developer can ship today using widely-available tools: Go for the agent, Next.js for the web app, a tiny Lambda for the Alexa proxy. Four months of evenings." — Alessandro Colalongo, founder of SayBoot

"The basic on/off use case will stay free permanently. Wake-on-LAN doesn't justify a subscription. If we add advanced features like visual remote control or scheduled automations down the road, those might go into a Premium tier — but the core 'turn my PC on by voice' is something I'd want to use myself, free, forever." — Alessandro Colalongo, founder of SayBoot

"When the WOLskill — the previous popular Alexa skill for this — shut down its free tier and moved to subscription, an entire community on Reddit was looking for alternatives. SayBoot wasn't built to replace WOLskill. It happens to be a drop-in answer to the exact gap they left." — Alessandro Colalongo, founder of SayBoot

Country availability

SayBoot's Alexa skill is currently live on 11 Amazon Alexa Skills Stores:

Country	Locale	Alexa Skills Store URL
Australia	en-AU	amazon.com.au/dp/B0GX2ZM61Z
Brazil	pt-BR	amazon.com.br/dp/B0GX2ZM61Z
Canada	en-CA	amazon.ca/dp/B0GX2ZM61Z
France	fr-FR	amazon.fr/dp/B0GX2ZM61Z
Germany	de-DE	amazon.de/dp/B0GX2ZM61Z
India	en-IN	amazon.in/dp/B0GX2ZM61Z
Italy	it-IT	amazon.it/dp/B0GX2ZM61Z
Mexico	es-MX	amazon.com.mx/dp/B0GX2ZM61Z
Spain	es-ES	amazon.es/dp/B0GX2ZM61Z
United Kingdom	en-GB	amazon.co.uk/dp/B0GX2ZM61Z
United States	en-US	amazon.com/dp/B0GX2ZM61Z

The Windows agent is available globally on the Microsoft Store. Additional Alexa markets are currently in review with Amazon.

Technical stack (for tech publications)

• Windows agent: pure Go, no runtime dependencies, signed and distributed via Microsoft Store (`9MVZDLP59914`)
• Backend: Node.js + Express + SQLite, multi-user, REST API v1, PM2 process manager
• Webapp: Next.js 15 static export, hosted on the same VPS
• Alexa skill: Smart Home Skill (managed intent model), AWS Lambda proxy in 3 regions (eu-west-1, us-east-1, us-west-2) to minimize voice command latency for non-EU users
• Authentication: Login with Amazon (LWA) for users, OAuth 2.0 loopback (RFC 8252) for the agent — no codes copied between devices
• Infrastructure: Hostinger VPS Ubuntu 24.04, nginx + Let's Encrypt, SSH-key access
• Analytics: Google Analytics 4, with strict opt-in cookie consent for GDPR compliance

Privacy posture

SayBoot collects only what it needs to function:

• Hostname and MAC addresses of the user's active non-virtual network interfaces (required for Wake-on-LAN)
• Operating system name (`windows` / `linux` / `darwin`) and agent version
• User's Amazon ID for account linking (via Login with Amazon — same identity as the Alexa account)
• Wake/sleep event log (for the user's own activity feed)

The agent has no access to the PC's screen, files, or running processes. Commands accepted from the backend are limited to power-state changes (shutdown / restart / sleep / hibernate / wake-on-LAN); any other command type is rejected at the agent level. There is no third-party data sharing, no advertising, no profile-building. Full privacy policy: sayboot.com/privacy.

Brand assets — download

Founder photo is 400×533 px (suitable for web inline use). For a print-quality high-resolution version, additional screenshots (webapp dashboard, tray icon, Alexa app integration), or the brand radar visual: email hello@sayboot.com. Brand colors are #06b6d4 (cyan, primary) and #070b14 (near-black, background). Display font: Fraunces; body font: Manrope.

Demo video

A 60-second demo showing the "Alexa, turn on Office PC" → PC on in 2 seconds flow. Published as a YouTube Short:

Direct URL: youtube.com/shorts/_x8PBU0N2Ok. The video is licensed for editorial use: for the original MP4 file or a custom embed snippet, please email hello@sayboot.com.

About the founder

Press contact

Email: hello@sayboot.com (replies within 24-48 hours, response language: English or Italian).

For interview requests, screen-recorded walkthroughs, or live demos via Zoom, please mention the publication and expected article timing in your initial email.

Trademark notice

Alexa, Amazon, Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Show, Echo Hub, and Echo Pop are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Microsoft, Microsoft Store, Windows, Windows 10, and Windows 11 are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. SayBoot is an independent application and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Amazon or Microsoft.