The best Amazon Echo Skills and how to use them
Voice-controlled assistant Alexa can also be used to help organise your life, tell you Star Wars jokes and teach you about space
It might have taken its time to arrive in the UK – a year after hitting the shelves in the US – but the Amazon Echo home speaker system has thousands of skills that users can use.
Order pizza
Pizza firm Domino's has introduced a new skill that allows Echo users to order food using their voice. The system works by using Domino's 'Easy Order' option, which allows customers to select their usual order simply by asking Alexa. Alexa will then automatically tell the company to accept the order for the selected items.By saying 'Alexa, ask Domino’s to feed me' the system will place the order. There are also voice options to know what stage of production the food is in (in the oven or out for delivery, for example) and in some areas of the UK, which are trialling GPS tracking, Alexa will respond with how far away the delivery is based on traffic conditions. To use these options, say: 'Alexa, ask Domino’s where my pizza is' or 'Alexa, ask Domino’s to track my order'.
Use it on your desktop
Thousands
of skills have been developed for the Echo since its launch and
developers have been able to put Alexa into their own, third-party,
devices. The Alexa Skill Testing Tool
from iQuarius Media allows the voice recognition assistant to be used on
desktops. It's primarily intended as a test environment for devs, and
can't play music or support far-field voice recognition, but the website
allows Alexa to be used for answering simple queries.
Weather from the Met Office
You've been able to ask Alexa for the weather for some time. However, things got more reliable with a new Echo skill from the Met Office. The weather forecasters have created a Met Office Flash Briefing skill that allows for the upcoming weather conditions to be outlined for local regions as part of the Echo's quick briefing system.Stream live football
Arsenal recently became the first football club to launch its own Alexa Skill. Called (imaginatively) Arsenal Skill for Alexa, it gives fans in the UK and US live commentary and real-time match stats, plus pre-match build-up, line-ups, score updates and post-match analysis. It was developed in support with digital agency AKQA.Pair with Bluetooth speakers
More than two years after the Amazon Echo was released in the US, it has been upgraded to be able to pair speakers via Bluetooth.Play Beat the Intro game
Beat The Intro began life as a family DVD game before evolving into an app. It is now available on Alexa devices including the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, and Tap.Alexa device owners can enable the Beat the Intro skill via the Alexa app or by saying, “Alexa, enable Beat the Intro.” To play, ask Alexa to open Beat the Intro and start playing.
Play a murder mystery
Cambridge-based developer Jagex is best known for its MMO RuneScape, and it's that fantasy world the team is turning to for its first Echo game. Available as a Skill for all Alexa-equipped gadgets, One Piercing Note adapts an in-game quest for Amazon's audio assistant, turning it into an interactive spoken word murder mystery.The audio game abandons all physical controls, with players becoming the voice of an adventurer investigating a murder at a secluded abbey. This being RuneScape though, the scene takes a turn for the demonic, with unholy secrets uncovered along the way.
Do basically anything
Well, not quite. But the If This Then That (IFTTT) integration allows the Echo to be connected to a multitude of other applications and web-based technologies. As IFTTT's name implies the service is trigger based: one action prompts another.The 'applets' within IFTTT increase the functionality of Alexa and the Echo. For example the service can be used to 'Ask Alexa to Add Items to iOS Reminders,' 'Keep a Google spreadsheet of the songs you listen to on Alexa' or 'Add your Alexa To-Dos to Evernote'. The options are (almost) limitless.
Get the latest football scores
You can now ask Alexa how your favourite team is getting on in the FA cup. Just ask "Alexa, what is the Peterborough United score?" and Alexa will respond with your team's current score if the game is in progress. If your team isn't playing at that point in time, then Alexa will give you the score from the last game they played in.Alexa can also keep you updated on the latest matches in the Premier League, Bundesliga and Champions League.
When starting to learn about the planet, realising just how far away it is gives you a sense of perspective about the work agencies like Nasa are doing in space.
Why is Mars red?
Nasa wants to improve the public understanding about Mars and so has equipped Alexa with the knowledge to answer questions about the make-up of the planet.
Curiosity Rover
Alexa can now tell you what is the latest with Nasa's Curiosity Rover on Mars, such as where it currently is on the planet and what the Rover is working on for the agency.
Become a wizard like Harry Potter
To celebrate the launch of Harry Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Amazon has added a host of 'spells' and related Skills to Echo and Dot. All Harry Potter-themed Skills can be found and enabled using the Amazon Alexa app, which is free to use with the voice-activated speaker.Silencio! You can now control your phone with Harry Potter spells
Not sure whether you belong in Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin? Alexa will now sort you into the correct Hogwarts house. Answer seven questions to test your wizarding character and Alexa will reveal all.
Characters of Harry Potter
From Dumbledore to Hagrid, Alexa helps you refresh your Harry Potter character knowledge. The speaker can answer questions about more than 200 different characters across all of the Harry Potter books.
Test your Harry Potter knowledge
Alexa comes with a number of trivia quizzes built in and the latest tests you on your knowledge of the Harry Potter universe.
Amazon Music Skills
Amazon
Ask Alexa to play specific songs
Amazon Music Unlimited adds family subscription plans
You can even be more specific, by asking Alexa to “play David Bowie from the 70s” and Alexa will play tracks from that period.
Control your TV
By combining Alexa with a TV remote, Amazon has made a way for you to control your television with your voice. The latest Fire TV Stick,
which streams content through Wi-Fi, allows for voice search via a
remote that comes with the stick. It has a button that enables voice
search - when the button is pressed it's possible to speak to the remote
and take control of the TV. Saying 'open Netflix' will see the
streaming platform launched, asking for a certain type of content
(romcoms, for example) will see a selection delivered to your screen.For those with Amazon Prime, Alexa will also control the playback: it's possible to pause, fast forward, and rewind a TV show or movie by asking for it to happen.
Play music from a specific genre
Depending on your mood, you can ask Alexa to “play ‘Happy Music’” and Alexa will choose a playlist based on your listening history such as “Happy Friday Feeling,” “100 Greatest Feel-Good Classics” or “Pop Pick-Me-Up”. If you're having a party you can ask, “Alexa, play party music” and Alexa will choose a playlist based on your listening history such as “100 Greatest Party Songs”, “80s Hip-Hop Party Starters” or Dance Pop House Party.” Plus, if you don't know what to play, ask, “Alexa, play music” and Alexa will find something personalised for you.
Plan your outfit according to the weather
Is it cold outside, do you need a scarf? Will it rain later, should you take a coat? Don’t waste time opening the weather app on your phone, just shout “Alexa, what’s today’s weather forecast?” and she’ll tell you all you need to know.
Set a timer for cooking
Hands covered in ingredients? Just tell Alexa to set a timer and she’ll sort you out – hands-free - ensuring you can get on with preparing dinner without fear of burning it to a crisp.
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If you’d like to wake up to something different to your phone's alarm tones, you can opt for Echo to wake you up with a daily alarm, just ask Alexa to set it up for you. There are more than 10 different alarm tones to choose from, and you can create recurring alarms that repeat daily, the same day every week, or just for the weekdays.
Sort your schedule via calendar
The Amazon Echo can sync with your Google Calendars, meaning you don't need to look through your phone to see what will make up your day. Ask Alexa and she’ll tell you all you need to know about your meetings and appointments that day.
Amazon has also extended its calendar feature to include non-Google email addresses. From February 2017, Outlook.com users can set their calendar as the default one that works with Alexa. Those with addresses ending in @outlook.com, @hotmail.com, @live.com are able to use the feature.
The support includes being able to ask what is on a schedule, add items and asking whether you are free at a certain time. Find out how to set this up, here.
In March 2017, the Outlook support was increased, allowing people with Office 365 commercial accounts to connect their calendar to the Alexa app. This means Outlook support is possible for business accounts that run on Microsoft Exchange servers.
As well as supporting Gmail and Outlook, Amazon has also added calendar support for Apple iCloud accounts for those in the UK, US, and Germany. Adding an iCloud calendar can be done through the settings tab in the Alexa app.
Never be late again
Alexa is able to tell you all the latest train schedules, proving up-to-the-minute information about trains and services all across the network via the National Rail integration for the Alexa app.
EDF Energy teamed up with Amazon Alexa, allowing customers to check their energy accounts using the smart speaker. This skill makes it easy to make a payment and check your meter reading.
Hear the latest news and sports scores
Just ask Alexa “what’s the news?” and she’ll read the headlines aloud to you. You can choose which news sources Alexa will read beforehand and you can also change which news sources you want through the Alexa app.
Just Eat
If you can’t decide where to have dinner, you can ask Alexa for recommendations for nearby restaurants and she’ll list them for you, choosing from any cuisine you want. Alternatively, if you don’t fancy leaving the house, Alexa has access to more than 27,000 restaurants through the Just Eat partnership. Simply tell Alexa your standard takeaway order and she will do all the ordering.
Manage your finances
In March, Amazon enabled a new “skill” that allows you to access your banking information with Capital One, meaning you can use Echo for banking purposes, such as checking your recent transactions and paying your credit card bills. You don’t need to worry about people accessing your private information, either, as you can create a 4-digit personal key that you’ll need to recite every time you ask Alexa a banking-related question
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