Best Skills of Alexa on Amazon Echo to Make Your Life Easier

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If you’re currently using Amazon Echo speakers, discovering the best Alexa skills will lead to greater productivity and personal well-being. Alexa also enhances your home entertainment, as well as playing a role in home automation. Simplify your routines by adopting the following Alexa Skills to make life easier.

Alexa Skills explained

An enhancement for Amazon’s Alexa program, Alexa Skills is basically a series of useful apps created by both Amazon and third parties to broaden the scope of Alexa and what it can do. First, you need to enable an app. Simply say, “Alexa, enable [skill name]”. If required, Alexa will then issue voice prompts to complete the process.

Alternatively, you can also browse the Alexa app. Whenever you find a skill that appeals to you, just tap “Enable Skill”.

Control smart devices with Alexa and Amazon Echo

Add your smart devices, such as home automation systems, smart plugs, smart LED strip lighting and so on to the Alexa app. Once added, you can then connect them to Alexa and use voice commands to control those devices. This surely makes life at home so much easier.

Find your phone

Many of us have a habit of misplacing our phones when at home. If you’ve simply forgotten where you put your phone or last used it, with Alexa’s Find My Phone app activated, all you have to do is say “Alexa, find my phone,” and Echo will call your phone, enabling you to locate it by homing in on the ring tone.

Ask Alexa to play music

What Alexa can play will depend on the services and digital assets you have associated with your Alexa account (such as Spotify and Amazon Music). When you command Alexa to play music by a certain artist on your Echo speaker, Alexa will choose tracks at random by that artist.

Have Alexa give you some therapy

Just arrived home from a tough day at work? What you need is some therapy and Alexa provides it with this skill activated. Listen to words of encouragement and be reminded of your self-worth. Enjoy positive reinforcement and build your self-confidence. Alexa knows just what to say and what you need to hear.

Set your alarms

With this skill activated, instruct Alexa to set an alarm by saying, “Alexa, set an alarm for [time].” Alexa sets that alarm on your Amazon Echo device rather than on your smartphone, making things super simple. You’ll never wake up late again.

Accurate weather reports

Big Sky is an Alexa skill that provides extremely accurate weather reports for your location. The skill achieves this accuracy by providing hyper-local weather data based on your street address. Just ask Alexa what the weather is about to do and you’ll get an instant and precise response.

What happened on this day in history?

Powered by the History Channel, the This Day in History Alexa skill is really cool. Ask Alexa to launch the skill and you’ll receive a summary of the most notable historical events that took place on that date. It’s an interesting app that’s both educational and fun to listen to. It doesn’t have to be the current date either. You can specify any date you like.

Alexa has culinary skills

While Alexa can’t actually do the food preparation and cooking for you, the program does offer helpful advice in the kitchen that saves you time and energy. With skills activated like Joule: Sous Vide by ChefSteps, you’re able to recall previous cooking settings by simply voicing a command. Alexa will also give you advice on how to cook your steak, including the optimum temperature settings.

Set reminders

We all need reminders from time to time so we don’t forget what we need to do and when. So, rather than scribbling out a to do list, have Alexa take care of reminders for you. Just add the Reminders skill to your account and then ask Alexa to remind you of what you have to do at a certain time on a particular date.

Relax before bed with Alexa

There is a skill called Sleep Sounds. Ask Alexa to activate this app and your Amazon Echo speaker will permeate the air with gentle sounds designed to calm you. Some of the audio clips include thunderstorms, ocean waves, fireplace sounds and many more. Soothe your soul with Alexa’s help and you’ll be sound asleep in no time.

Discover new recipes for the evening meal

Best Recipes is another popular Alexa skill that many people are using to invent new meals. With this app activated, all you need to do is specify three key ingredients and Alexa provides you with a variety of recipe options.

Stick to your diet

Track by Nutritionix is a skill that helps you plan and stick to your diet. You can use the skill as a way to orally journal your daily food intake, and Alexa can even provide a fairly accurate daily calorie count based on your input.

Multilingual mode

This skill allows people to speak to Alexa in different languages and is very useful if people in your household speak more than one language. English and Spanish are the most common languages, but there are also English and Hindi, as well as English and French.

Become a mixologist

Have you ever wanted to mix your favourite cocktails but don’t know how? Well, with the Mixologist skill, Alexa will tell you all the ingredients of your favourite drinks, along with the process for preparing them. Armed with your new bartending skills, it’ll be time to invite everyone over for a house party.

Your new travel buddy

There are a number of travel-related skills you can add to your Alexa account. One skill is Kayak and this skill compares airfares across a range of different airlines. Another handy travel skill is Airport Security Line Wait Times, which estimates the wait times of security lines at the specified airport.

Listen to audiobooks

Many of us enjoy reading, but sometimes we simply don’t have the time to kick back with a good book. However, with Audible installed, Alexa will read your current book while you clean the house, cook dinner, wash the car or whatever you happen to be doing. You can even have Alexa read you a bedtime story to help you fall asleep.

Meditation timer

The Meditation Timer skill allows you to ask Alexa to play meditation music and relaxing sounds for a specified period of time. A bell sounds when your time is up.

Who needs a personal trainer when you have Alexa?

Alexa becomes your very own personal trainer when you have the 7 Minute Workout skill installed. Simply ask Alexa to start a 7 minute workout session and your virtual assistant will run you through exercises to increase your metabolism, boost your energy levels, burn calories, burn fat and so much more.