Whether you have an “Echo” in your kitchen or a “Dot” in your apartment, make sure you know about these 10 features to have the most personal experience with your new friend as possible.
1. The Ditty Skill
With this feature, Alexa can make any simple sentence into a song. Tell Alexa that you had a good breakfast and then give her the command, “Alexa, enable Ditty skill.” She’ll produce a tune at whatever speed you suggest with lyrics about your first meal of the day.
2. Easter Eggs
Not the kind of Easter eggs that you get from the Easter bunny. Alexa’s Easter eggs are intentional jokes that the coders secretly imbedded into the program. You can find hundreds of these Easter Eggs on Google, but here are some of the best to ask: “Do you wanna build a snowman?” “Party time!”“Who you gonna call?” “May the force be with you,” and “Surely you can’t be serious.”
3. Play Games
Rock Paper Scissors? Alexa can do it. One of the most useful features is her ability to roll the dice. If you’re playing a board game and you’ve lost the dice that came inside the box, just command Alexa to roll the dice and she’ll tell you the results – just let her know how many faces you want the die to have, she’s that advanced.
4. Workout and Meditate
Alexa also cares about your health. Try commanding her to do the 7-minute workout to stay on top of your new year’s resolution. Or if the stress of your day is getting to you, calm down using her meditation feature. Just make sure to tell Alexa to enable the 7-minute workout and the Thrive Global Skill to use these features.
5. Call an Uber
Rushing to get out the door? Command Alexa to call an Uber or request a Lyft and she’ll get it out of the way for you.
6. Math Homework Help
Convert inches to meters or ounces to cups with the help of your new friend. Alexa can do all these conversions for you, which is super helpful when it comes to baking…or homework.
7. She’s Always Listening
Just as Google keeps a history of what you search, Alexa records everything you say. You can go back and review all your commands, but be careful with what personal information is on the record. Your Alexa command history is accessible from your other devices and sometimes, your Echo has recorded other things you said because she mistakenly thought you said Alexa, when really, you said “extra.”
8. Find Your Phone in the Couch
With the help of Find My iPhone, you can let Alexa know when you’ve misplaced your phone and she’ll call it right away. The best part is, Alexa can turn on the ringer, even when you’re sure you’ve left your phone on vibrate. What would you do without her?
9. Live Lazily (If you have Smart Home Devices)
The more smart home devices you have, the more you can accomplish without ever leaving your chair. Order Alexa to have the Powerbot VR7000 vaccum your floor. Tell Alexa to lower the air conditioning by two degrees, or even to dim the lights. The list goes on…
10. Multitask While you Shop
Sure, you might have to make breakfast and pack up your bag for the day. But if you remember that you wanted to order bobby pins and shampoo, you can tell Alexa to put the products right in your Amazon shopping cart. They’ll arrive in days, and you’ll never have log on to your computer.