The 10 best things you can do with Amazon Echo

What's a New Alexa Speaker? Or consider getting one - like Amazon EchoPlus ($ 150 at Amazon), or Echo Input ($ 25 on Best Buy)?

These smart speakers can do a lot - so much so that they know where they need to start to feel a lot. Instead of digging the Alexa app to get the features, check out the 10 best tips and tricks to get you started.

1. Make phone calls (mainly, landline calls)

Just when you thought home phones were dead, Amazon brought them back. Alexa can now be used to call other devices in other homes as well. And, like 90s and 00s answering machines, you can leave a message.

Note that anyone who has your number can call your Alexa speaker, but you are able to stop unwanted incoming calls.

I think this is a wonderful and welcome feature, provided my parents don't use me often to check it out ...

2. Take control of your smart home

Controlling your lights, door locks, appliances, switches and other smart home appliances is probably the best thing that Alexa can do. You can browse the tools that are compatible with the smart home, but here are some ideas to get you started:

Control your lights. You can ask Alexa to turn the lights on or off. Even if the lights are changing colors, they will change colors as well.
Open or close your garage door. Working with smart garage door openers, such as Garageview, Electa.
Change the temperature. "Hey Alexa, set the temperature to 68." Honeywell, Nest and Ecobee are just a few of the thermostats that work with Alexa.

3. Get cooking ideas and tips

No, actually you can't cook axica (yet), but it definitely makes cooking easy and stressful. I personally keep Alexa in the kitchen to do things like:

Get the conversion "Alexa, how many tablespoons in a quarter cup?"
Ask for recipes. Alexa can get recipes from All Archipes. It can also be used to follow recipes step by step with GoodNice on your iPad.
Play music "Hey Alexa, play some smooth jazz." Because cooking is more fun with music!
Control a swollen video machine. If you cook a sauce video, you can ask Alexa to set the temperature.
Set a timer You can set more than one timer and ask it for the rest of the time.
Here's a long list of everything in the kitchen (and how it all works).

4. Get the News

When you get ready for work or come home after a day, Alexa can tell you what's happening in the world. This is called your flash briefing and can be customized to include the news sources you want to hear from. What do you say Do you want to hear CNET news? No problem.

5. Hours Have your kids entertained for hours on end

Actually, even more like, "Let your kids enjoy themselves." Alexa is full of games, Easter eggs, crazy answers to stupid questions and more. Here are some ways that Alex can keep your kids busy.

play games. This guide includes our favorite Amazon Echo game ($ 100 on Amazon).
Find the Easter Eggs. Alexa likes a good joke inside.
Set a timer and play music. Kids will quickly learn how to talk to Alexa and ask for timers, music and random trivia.

6. Learn more features

If Alexa can't do anything out of the box, then maybe she has the skills. There are a lot of skills, in fact, Amazon has acquired some skills that you can find. Start by saying "Alexa, OpenScale Finder" or "Alexa, tell the skill finder to give me the skills of the day."

Here are 35 of our favorite Alexa scales.

7. Fit (or try)

Although you cannot take Alexa to the gym (unless you have a faucet), you can provide her with fitness feedback and guidance. Can get it. Here are some ways they can help you get healthy.

Check your FitBat stats. Once you have your Fitbit synchronized with Alexa, you can ask many things, such as "Alexa, Fitbit can ask how I am doing today."
Learn about nutrition. "Alexa, how many calories is in banana?"
Exercise After activating the 7 minute workout skill, just say "Alexa, start the 7 minute exercise."
8. Control your TV
Forget digging for a remote - Alexa can almost completely control your TV with sound. Setup takes a little time (and money), but once you're set up, you can say things like:

8.Alexa, turn on the TV.

Alexa, turn on Netflix.
Alexa, tell harmony to pause

9. Use Spotify to play music

By default, Alexa plays music via Amazon Music, because of course. But if you use Spotify, you can change this setting so that Electa uses Spotify as the default player. How is it
However, Alexa has more built-in features for Amazon Music. For example, you can ask Alexa to sing that day, and she will sing for you.

10. Train Alexa to do practically anything else

Alexa can't talk to every device or website - many companies can't go on board right now. Similarly, not all features of supported smart home devices can be controlled by Alexa. However, there is a work process that lets you connect Alexa to unsupported devices, apps, and websites. This is called IFTTT.

So, for example, you can use IFTTT to create a "rule" that changes the color of your light bulbs when your timer expires. This is not something you can easily ask Alexa about - you have to program through IFTTT. If you're up for bed, here are our favorite Alex IFTTT recipes.

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