Everything around us has become smart, be it our phones, televisions or even our watches. To up this game entered the smart speakers that now have found a place on the tabletops of our homes.
Amazon’s virtual AI assistant, Alexa, was first used in their smart speaker called Echo and made it much more than just a tool to listen to music. It now offers plenty of services which are important in your day-to-day course and can do it without requiring your assistance. Just make sure it is connected to your other devices and you’re good to go.
Believe it or not, Amazon’s Alexa is playing a vital role in household assistance and entertainment as well. On a funny note, if you are getting bored and do not have anything to do, just ask, “Alexa, how are you?” or other funny, weird or absurd questions. Her replies will make you laugh.
Here we have elaborated some features of Alexa!
Make phone calls and send SMS
Alexa has this special quality of making calls and sending text messages to your contact who has signed up with the Alexa phone calling feature. After the release of Echo Spot in India, Amazon has added new features of video calling as well. Echo speakers can check the correct contact, write text and send it to the right person. Make sure that all these features should be linked to your Alexa app first.
Notifications
Alexa is not behind in terms of sending notifications, thanks to Alexa digital assistant which enabled this feature to deliver notifications to the users. If you activate any skill on your Alexa-powered speaker which already has a proactive notification enabled on their source code, you will get a notification by a multi-coloured LED lights or sound effects on the Echo Speaker. You can even ask Alexa what you miss and you will be able to get missing information as well, with the help of this feature.
Alexa can even place orders from third-party applications like Dominos if your payment and address options are saved in the Alexa application.
Listen to books, news, and podcast
Alexa is not only useful for music lovers but can be for books lovers, news breathers and podcast listeners.
If we talk about news, just command Alexa, “Alexa, what are the flash briefs for today?” or simply ask, “Alexa, tell me today's news.” The news that Alexa reads can be random or can be according to the flash briefing section of the Alexa skills in the app. For your comfort, you can even put the news in order of your convenience in the Alexa app and listen to it in the morning.
For books reading, you can connect to Echo devices of your Kindle and Audible account. Alexa will be able to play the audiobooks on speakers. The specialty of Alexa in this feature is that it can even connect with books that do not have audiobook options.
And you can just say which podcast you want to listen to, and it will help you listen to your favorite podcasts.
Shopping and games
Amazon Echo devices, if allowed, can place and cancel orders directly. Alexa remembers the orders if you have connected it to your Amazon account. If you do not have a balance in the Amazon pay account, Alexa saves the items in the cart. You can later open their account anywhere and complete the details regarding the purchase.
Alexa has plenty of games and trivia. So if you are getting bored, try to have fun with Alexa as well.
Connect the home applications
You can connect your device with smart home appliances like lights, security systems, smart plugs, smart vacuum cleaners, Dish TV, smart televisions, etc with Alexa. It also connects all the smart devices together, so that all of them can be controlled with one voice command.
So are you having your Alexa? If not, then think of having it.
