Owning a new device can be an overwhelming experience sometimes. This is especially true in case it features the Amazon Alexa voice assistant. Alexa can do so much and the retail giant is constantly adding various device support and new features to it. The digital assistant is appearing in new products and services all the time so it’s easy to overlook a particular voice command or a feature here and there. Be sure to check out this guide for better understanding of Amazon Alexa’s abilities.
Here’s how you can make Alexa work and be as smart as possible.
Change the Alexa wake word
To avoid accidental activation, your best bet is to change the wake word from the default “Alexa” to “Echo” or “Amazon”. To do so, open the Alexa app, go to Settings, choose your device and tap the Wake Word option. The choice is not great here as surprisingly, there is no support for custom wake words. However, this handy option can nonetheless prevent the nuisance of Alexa responding to an Amazon commercial or a TV show. You’d be surprised how often that happens.
Ask it to repeat a response
It’s perfectly normal to miss a response. Maybe you need Alexa to repeat something, just to make sure you got that right. Either way, saying “Alexa, can you say that again?” or “Alexa, can you repeat that?” will prompt the virtual assistant to repeat its response. Alternatively, you can look up all the recent responses directly in the Home tab of the Alexa app.
Amazon Alexa can solve little things
While the general focus of Alexa is on the smart home management, the assistant is also quite handy for performing smaller, inconspicuous tasks. For instance, it can perform fast calculations (“Alexa, 12 times 12” or “Alexa, 5 percent of 56”), currency conversions (“Alexa, 7 euros to dollars”) and measurement conversions (“Alexa, 23 feet to meters”).
Change your default music service on Alexa
Naturally, Amazon is pushing for its own streaming services such as Amazon Music and Audible. Nevertheless, the retail giant is smart enough to know users hate being limited to services they don’t want or need. You can set the default music service to Spotify or TuneIn, as well as the default radio station service to iHeatRadio or Pandora.
In the Alexa app, navigate to Settings > Music & Media > Choose default music services and select the service of your liking. Bear in mind that this changes the way you access non-default services. You need to add “on Amazon Music” in your Play command if you want to play a song using that service. The same principle goes for every other service that is not your preferred one.
Enable additional Amazon Alexa skills
This is where Alexa truly shines. Skills are voice-driven capabilities that improve the overall functionality of your Alexa device. Currently, there are over 10,000 skills available for Alexa. You can search for and enable them either with your voice, in the Alexa app or from the Alexa Skills store on the Amazon’s website.
Luckily, the voice activation process is super simple. It’s enough to say “Alexa, enable Jeopardy.” and you are ready for a game of trivia questions. You’ll want to use the website store also as chances are, you don’t know half of the available skills, plus it’s easier to search them that way. However, quantity doesn’t mean quality so take your time and pick the skills that will actually enhance your Amazon Alexa experience.
Control smart home devices
The focal point of Alexa is smart home management. There is a great deal of compatible devices that allow you to control almost everything. Of course, you’ll need to enable the relevant skills.
In order to control your smart home devices, first you need to issue a command “Alexa, discover my devices.” (or use the Amazon Alexa app). You can pair up different smart products. Depending on the device, you can ask Alexa to turn on/off or dim the lights, check the thermostat, turn on a channel or activity and so on. You can also set up groups or scenes to command several devices at once. For certain smart home skills, you might need to say “Open [skill name]” before issuing a command.
Change the news source
Requesting news updates or flash briefings can be done with a different news source. If you want a variety of choices, open the Amazon Alexa app and in the Settings > Flash Briefing choose the “Get more Flash Briefing content” option. The great thing about this feature is that many publications and local news outlets have their own feeds which you can add to Alexa’s flash briefings. Just say “Alexa, what’s in the news?” or “Alexa, play my Flash Briefing.” and you’re set with the latest news.
In addition, you can add a weather forecast to the proceedings by enabling a skill for it. The voice command that activates the report is “Alexa, what’s the weather?”.
Order Amazon stuff
Since you already connected your Amazon account, why not do some shopping? It’s as easy as just uttering “Alexa, order Uber” and you have yourself a ride. However, there are certain limitations. All the items available for purchase need be eligible for Prime and some items are generally ineligible for purchase (apparel, shoes, watches and so on), but Amazon is slowly shortening that list.
Another handy feature regarding your Amazon orders is that Alexa can track the packages. Asking “Alexa, where is my stuff?” or remarking “Alexa, track my order.” will offer only basic information like the expected date of arrival.
Additionally, if you own Echo, Echo Dot or Tap, you are eligible for special Amazon Prime deals. This is Amazon’s way of saying thanks to its loyal customers.
Try random and fun things
Alexa is great to have fun with. Developers obviously put a lot of thought in the fun, quirky part of the AI assistant. You can put Alexa in charge for random decisions to make things more interesting. As an example, you can perform a virtual coin toss to settle an argument by saying “Alexa, flip a coin.”
There are also lots of Easter eggs. It’s impossible to know how many of them are there as Amazon regularly adds them, which in turn, makes it all the more fun to find out.
Saying “Alexa, play Bingo” enables a friendly game of Bingo. “Alexa, open the Wayne Investigation” starts an adventure game that puts you into the world of Gotham City. “Alexa, Simon says” means Alexa will repeat anything you say.
There are tons of pop culture references that elicit entertaining responses. “Alexa, set phasers to kill.”, “Alexa, my name is Inigo Montoya.”, “Alexa, surely you can’t be serious.”, “Alexa, what is love?” – there are so many of them. You can also ask Alexa about the Turing test, ask it to sing, input the Konami code, tell it to self-destruct – the options are practically endless and so is the fun.
Conclusion
Voice assistants are still at an early stage of their development. Amazon smartly decided to open its own assistant to third-party integration. Thanks to that decision, the volume of Amazon Alexa-enabled and compatible devices is growing and the number of Alexa skills is rising on a daily basis. The trend will surely continue in the foreseeable future due to Alexa’s proven and well-documented performance. Hence, it’s no surprise that most people only use Alexa for simple operations as they struggle to keep up. Still, if used properly, it’s a very powerful tool with lots of practical uses. Hopefully, this guide showed you some new tricks and tips to enrich your Alexa experience. The best thing about the virtual assistant is that it’s only getting better by the day.