Our three-year-old daughter is a real hoot, but she has one not-so-good habit: as soon as she wakes up, sometimes as early as 6 a.m., she starts calling for me or my wife.

We would hear her yell, "Mommy, come here!" repeatedly, and we would go to her room and wake her up until we caught her. Needless to say, it was not the best way to start the day.

We were at a bit of a loss as to what to do, but we were going on vacation with some family friends who have two children the same age as our daughter. To get the kids to sleep they used a sleep training clock. Basically, it is a clock that changes the color of the lights at a set time, visually telling the children when they can wake up and when they can settle down.

Being a tech critic, I figured there must be a smart home solution to this problem. I found it in the $30 Amazon Echo Glow.

The Echo Glow is a sphere the size of a Magic 8 ball with a translucent white top.

I happened to have an Echo Glow that was collecting dust, so I placed it on a shelf in my daughter's room. Then I created two routines in the Alexa app: one to turn the light red in the evening, the other to turn the light green at 7 am.

Then my wife and I told our daughter that she could call us, but not until the light turned green. Amazingly, it worked: the next morning, and almost every morning after that, our daughter would wait for the light to change color before calling for us to come pick her up. The exception was when she called us in the middle of the night with a fever.

To keep the light undisturbed at night, you can keep the lights off as part of your routine and increase the brightness at a certain time. And if you want to sleep a little longer, you can adjust the time in your routine.

You can also set a routine time for naps, but since that is a moving target, it is easier to tell Alexa to change the color of the Echo Glow. However, it is best to place the smart speaker in a separate room. My son understands how to ask the Amazon assistant to turn on the living room lights and ask about the weather, so it would be a simple matter to change it to green when he feels like it.

Outside of naptime, we've found that Echo Glow is also a handy tool for teaching color.

And best of all, my wife and I sleep better.