Amazon Alexa has become one of the most popular, favourite personal assistant for those who love automation and AI-powered bots with voice commands. Even though thee are many competitors like Google Home and Apple Home Pod are available,e Amazon’s Alexa powred Echo devices still hold a significant part in the smart speaker market. One of the reasons for its omnipresence is the unique features and “unlimited” possibility of skills over commands.
There are a lot of things that Amazon Alexa can do on the Echo Speaker. In case you are unaware, the Amazon Alexa is available on almost every platform that is backed by the Jeff Bezos’s Amazon, including the Amazon Fire TV Stick, Fire Smartphone, Fire tablet, etc. Here we discuss the commands and feature which are helpful via Alexa on the Echo, Echo dot, and Echo Plus. Check out this list to know how smarter the speaker is.
Stream Music
One of the basic features that Amazon Alexa provide is the music streaming service that you can utilize from many platforms. Amazon Alexa comes with inbuilt support for Amazon Prime Music app which you might have to subscribe after the trial period. You still can use other inbuilt music streaming skills like Spotify, Pandora, and iHeartRadio on your Echo. If you need to use Spotify for music streaming, it is necessary to link your account from the Alexa Settings. To set up the Alexa,
- Open Alexa App or Website > Settings > Music & Media
- Connect your Spotify with Alexa
- Set Spotify as default streaming app if necessary
Also, you can install third-party music streaming services to your Alexa if necessary, like “Saavn” for Bollywood songs and all. You can call Alexa and ask for stream music from any preferred platform. Here are some quick commands for streaming from Spotify in Alexa.
- “Alexa, Play Spotify”
- “Alexa, Play Today’s Top Hits (from Spotify)”
- Ask to identify song: “Alexa, What song is this.”
- “Alexa, Play Hip Hop”
Daily News
Amazon Alexa comes with daily updated news, by connecting with several popular news portals across the globe. You can ask Alexa for the latest news. For receiving news reports from your favorite media company, you can go to Settings > Flash Briefing > Select the default news skill.
The flash briefing feature, as it names, not an intact news reader. It briefs out the important headlines of the day and delivers by category. Choose any of the below commands to get your flash brief of daily news.
- “Alexa, What’s my flash briefing?”
- “Alexa, WHat’s in the news?”
- “Alexa, Play all my news.”
- “Alexa, Play all my flash briefing.”
- Also, you can use “Next”, “Previous”, “Pause/Stop”, “Resume/Continue” for navigating the flash briefing contents.
Ask for Help
This feature is not a big deal, but a quite funny command version available in Alexa. You can ask Alexa “Alexa, Help me” to get some witty replies or get any online help on your Amazon Echo device.
Chat with Alexa
Just like any other Artifical Intelligence powered smart assistant platforms including Google Assistant and Siri, Amazon’s Alexa can also help you get out of boredom. All you need to do is to say “Alexa, let’s chat.” You can have some interesting conversation and come to an understanding of the machine learning and improvement capability of Amazon Alexa day by day.
Traffic Information
There is a traffic information option available on the Alexa settings. You can set a specific route in the Amazon Alexa settings which help you get your daily traffic information. If you are a person who travels along a particular route regularly, then it is beneficial to decide whether to avoid the travel or not. After setting the address from settings, you can ask Alexa about the traffic any time later. Some commands go as follows.
“Alexa, How’s traffic.”
“Alexa, How’s like the traffic on my route?”
“Alexa, What’s my commute.”
“Alexa, tell me about traffic right now.”
Calendar, To-Do List
As the Amazon Echo speakers are connected to the internet 24/7, you can have access to the calendar date or time from anywhere. Also, you can save your notes and to-do list comfortably on the platform. The calendar support extends to Google Calendar, Microsoft Calendar, and iCloud Calendar. No matter where you have saved all your calendar information and the reminders, Alexa can have access to all of them and can inform you regarding the forthcoming events. You can also set reminders directly. To make a to-do list, you can choose any of the To-Do List organizers apps Any.Do, AnyList or Todoist.
Alexa commands for Calendar and To-Do list
1. “Alexa, I need to get an appointment with Doctor.”
2. “Alexa, set a reminder for 4 PM tomorrow.”
3. “Alexa, Remind me to do homework by 9 tonight.”
4. “Alexa, add ‘Buy deodorant’ to my to-do list.”
5. “Alexa, What’s my to-do list?”
Online Shopping
Amazon gives the opportunity for the Alexa-powered Echo users to order items from Amazon Online Shopping platform easily, via voice command. Before you ask Alexa for the purchase, make sure you meet the following eligibility criteria.
1. Amazon Prime Membership.
2. Shipping Address and Payment method based in the USA.
You can directly ask Alexa to “Order [item-name] from Amazon”, then you need to confirm the order by saying “Yes” or “No.” You can even cancel the item or reorder a canceled item just through your voice.
Address Discovery
Like Google’s Business or Address discovery feature in the search engine, you can find any commercial institutions or address by asking Alexa with sufficient details. You can listen to the reply within moments, once it found the right address.
Smart Home and Automation
Connected appliances are very helpful among your household items if you own an Amazon Echo. Many lights and other smart items are available online which supports the Amazon Alexa. You can demand Alexa to turn on or off the light. Interestingly, the smart lights do even support dynamic color choice and temperature. If your Alexa is connected to Home temperature control system too, you can utilize Alexa to keep ay certain temperature indoor.
Some Basic Amazon Alexa Commands on Echo Speaker
“Alexa, turn the volume down to 5.”
“Alexa, play the next song.”
“Alexa, read my notifications.”
“Alexa, call [name]”
“Alexa, text [name]”
“Alexa, What’s the time now?”
Amazo Alexa possesses many features than mentioned above. It would take a whole lot time to get an understanding about all of the command and features available in the Amazon Echo/Echo Dot/Echo Plus speaker.