So, you’ve caved in and bought an Amazon Echo — or perhaps an Echo Show or Dot. Now, what can it do?
Playing music is one of Alexa’s primary capabilities, but her potential doesn’t stop there. The Alexa app is your gateway to around 7,500 skills that can enhance the Echo in all sorts of useful, fun and surprising ways. Here’s our pick of the best.
Most practical Alexa skills
The Echo works brilliantly as a standalone device, but if you have other smart devices in your home it can also make it easier for you to control and interact with them. For example, the Hue skill lets you to turn your Philips Hue lights on or off and change the room’s “mood.” You can also set the mood for a more heightened ambience, with commands like Relax, Concentrate, Energise and Dimmed.
Similarly, you can use voice commands to change the temperature with the skills for Hive and Nest smart thermostats.
Alexa also lets you talk to the wider world. Several skills, such as Mastermind and Scryb, can be used to send text messages hands-free. Or, communicate with lots of people at once using a skill like Starfish dico. To use this skill, your entire family will need to download the corresponding app; once that’s done, you can tell Alexa to send a message like “Dinner is ready” or “Stop drinking all of the Pimm’s” and the people you’ve defined as family members will get an instant notification on their phones.
Other skills can make Alexa your best friend in the morning. Alexa allows you to get news briefings from publications such as The Guardian, updates on public transportation’s status and hear what’s on your calendar for the day. Select Hyundai cars can even be started, locked and unlocked via Alexa’s Blue Link skill— so when the colder months’ chill sets in, you can warm up the car before even leaving your house.
Fun and useful Alexa skills
Some of Alexa’s capabilities are cool but not exactly necessary. That’s the essence of technology, though, and it can make life easier even when it comes to basic everyday decisions.
For example, Alexa has skills that can answer your most pressing questions like “Should I go out tonight? or “What the heck should I make for dinner? - so in the future, you can save your mental capacity for loftier issues.
The voice assistant can also educate you about all sorts of fascinating topics, with skills such as Panda Facts, Scottish Mountain Facts, Zumba Facts and Sausage Facts— which is humorously listed as a skill with “dynamic content” on Amazon’s website.
Alongside the nonsense, there are some really useful things Alexa can do that you probably wouldn’t expect. One of its skills tries to talk you out of having a cigarette when you call on it; another motivates you to work out in moments of weakness. If you need more direction, it can talk you through a seven-minute workout.
In short, with Alexa, your daily tasks will grow simpler - and your days will probably get lazier. But we humans love our convenience, so why not give it a try?