The Most Useful Alexa Skills and Commands to Use

Alexa is more than just a speaker; it’s a full box of fantastic waiting to be discovered. Grab your Echo, Fire TV, or other Alexa device, because we’re embarking on a skills journey. The finest Alexa skills are essentially audio apps that significantly enhance the capabilities of Amazon’s personal voice assistant. Alexa is pre-installed on Amazon Echo smart speakers and the top Alexa speakers. You may also summon Alexa hands-free from your smartphone, as well as a variety of the top smart home devices.

Amazon’s smart assistant now has many more features. However, allowing the greatest Alexa skills allows you to tailor it to better meet your specific daily needs. There are presently over 100,000 Alexa skills available, which help you operate the best smart home gadgets, order pizza, play trivia games, listen to the news and weather, shop online, and even start your car.

How to Use Alexa’s Skills?

To use an Alexa skill, first enable it. Say “Alexa, enable [skill name],” and Alexa will provide voice-prompt instructions to complete the process.

You can simply go to the Alexa app, browse the skills until you discover one that interests you, and then tap Enable Skill to begin. Here’s how:

• Open the Alexa app on your device and tap More.
• Then, tap Skills & Games.
• Now, tap Categories or scroll down to see recommendations
• Select a skill and then touch Enable to Use or Launch.
• If prompted, log in or grant any permissions that the skill requires.
• Your new skill has now been enabled. On the skill’s information page, you can see what language to use to launch the skill, such as “Alexa, play Spotify!”

Top Alexa Skills for Fun, Productivity, and Learning

Here are some high-quality Alexa skills that keep you entertained, help you relax, teach you or your children, and more. To enable each of these skills, search for them in the Alexa app.

1. Find Your Phone

The Find My Phone feature is invaluable if you frequently misplace your smartphone or if your kids steal it so they may play their favorite apps. Say “Alexa, find my phone,” and your Echo will make a call to your mobile device so you can hear the vibration or ring of it. It’s a quick and efficient program that comes in handy when you’re pressed for time and need to go out the door.

2. Obtain a More Precise Weather Forecast

Although Alexa comes with built-in support for forecasts, it uses AccuWeather for the latest weather information. This skill uses the device location set in the Alexa App settings.

Simply ask Alexa, “What’s the weather?” or , “What’s the weather in [city, state or city, country]?” You can also inquire about  inclement weather conditions or the weather on a certain day. A card with a seven-day prediction for the specified location opens in the Alexa app when you inquire about the weather.

3. Wind Down for Bed

While you can always use meditation apps to help you fall asleep, you can also use your Alexa-enabled device as a sleep aid by positioning it next to your bed and using its skills to play calming music, guide you through a guided sleep meditation, play soothing sounds, or read you a bedtime story.

To help you unwind before going to bed, enable the Sleep Sounds skill on Alexa. It will play a selection of calming sounds. To hear a specific sound, say “Alexa, ask Sleep Sounds for [name of sound]”, such as “Alexa, ask Sleep Sounds for ocean waves” or “Alexa, ask Sleep Sounds for fireplace.” Alexa then plays the sound you’ve chosen.

You can ask Alexa to set a reminder to remind you to go to bed 15 minutes earlier than usual on the days leading up to Daylight Saving Time, or create an Alexa Routine that begins at a specific time. You can also enable a bedtime Featured Routine by saying, “Alexa, enable the Good Night Routine”, in which case Alexa will play sleep sounds, dim the lights, and adjust the temperature on your smart thermostat.

Relaxing noises, like Sleep Sounds, plays a range of noises, including ocean waves, a babbling brook, a rainforest, frogs, pink noise, windy trees, rain on a tent, trickling water, a blizzard, an owl, cicadas, and loons.

4. Get Exclusive Amazon Deals

If you ask “Alexa, what are your deals?” you’ll get a list of Amazon Prime member-exclusive bargains that require an Alexa-enabled device to take advantage of. Once you’ve made a purchase, you may ask Alexa for updates on your delivery status and place a reorder. Visit Amazon’s Voice Shopping page to see what sentences you’ll need to speak to activate one of the top Alexa skills available right now.

5. Get Nutrition Tips

Trying to make healthy changes to your diet? If you’re not sure where to start, you can ask Alexa for quick nutrition suggestions. Although you should consult a qualified nutritionist if you have ongoing dietary concerns, your voice assistant can provide some general recommendations based on Mayo Clinic-sourced healthy lifestyle topics. Simply say, “Alexa, give me a nutrition tip”.

6. Ask Alexa to Read a Recipe From the Internet

The kitchen is a great spot to set up your Amazon Alexa. To get Alexa to recite a recipe to you in the kitchen, simply ask her. “Alexa, read me a recipe for [name of recipe]” . Alexa will then identify a recommended recipe on the internet and provide you the option of starting it, sending it to your phone, or hearing another idea.

If you have a specific recipe that you want read aloud to you while you cook, you’ll need to convert it to an audio file, upload it to your Amazon account, then ask Alexa to play it.

Follow these instructions for each recipe you want Alexa to read to you, and you’ll have a personal library of audio recipes that you can add to a playlist on a compatible smart speaker.

• After you’ve decided whatever recipe you want to save to your recipes playlist, use TextToSpeech to convert the instructions to an mp3 file.
• The following step is to upload each recipe as an individual mp3 file to your Amazon account via the Amazon Music desktop app.
• The final step in this process is to go into the kitchen and play the recipe of your choice with the command, “Alexa play [Recipe Title].”

7. Play Music

Your Amazon Echo has a variety of capabilities, but one of the most significant is its capacity to play music. You can listen to music in a variety of ways, but the procedure varies based on whether you want to listen to your own media library or stream songs from a specific service.

The simplest approach to play music on your Echo device is to use a music streaming service. By default, your Echo will connect to Amazon Music (or Amazon Music Prime if you are a Prime member), but you can also connect to other popular music services and wirelessly stream from your phone, tablet, or computer.

After you’ve set up your Amazon Echo, you may connect to a variety of music services, including Amazon Music, Apple Music, Deezer, iHeartRadio, Pandora, SiriusXM, Spotify, Tidal, TuneIn, Vevo, and Global Player. You’ll need an account with each service before you can use it with your Echo.

Here are some music commands you can use to play music on Alexa:

8. Turn Your Lights on or off

Why reach for your phone or a light switch when you can simply ask Alexa to turn off your connected lights? This ability requires a smart plug or smart light to function, but it is quite useful.

Alexa can manage smart lights, plugs, and switches, allowing you to turn on and off your home’s lights using your voice.

To control a light with Alexa, you’ll need suitable hardware (Smart plug, light bulb, or wall switch), the newest Alexa app, and an Amazon Echo or other Alexa-enabled device. To turn on a light with Alexa, the simplest command is:

• “Alexa, turn on [name of light]”.

If your light or switch supports dimming or changing colors, you can also say:

• “Alexa, make the front light purple”.
• “Alexa, dim the living room”.

9. Watch TV

You can use Alexa to manage your television in a variety of ways. If your smart TV’s operating system includes an Alexa skill (such as Roku). Simply say “Alexa, turn on my TV” or “Alexa, pause,” and the instruction will be promptly transmitted.

Once your TV is connected to your Alexa devices, you can use voice commands to turn it on and off, adjust the volume, pause a movie, and more. For example, you can say: Here are some instances of Alexa commands:

“Alexa, change the channel to NBC”, “Alexa, turn up the volume”, or “Alexa, launch Netflix” etc.

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