Here is a knowledge base on Alexa Skills
If you have more than one Echo (dot, show, spot), you can use them as an intercom to communicate with other people in your house.
Say: “Alexa, drop in on (Device Name).”.
You can now talk with whoever is in the same room as the device.
First, you need to make sure your location is set on your device for the area you are in. Go to your Alexa app on your phone and under “Settings” add your location. Country and Zip Code should be enough.
“Alexa, “What movies are playing?”
“Alexa, “When will Star Wars play?”
“Alexa, “Tell me about the movie The Wall”
“Alexa, “What comedies are playing Saturday night?”
If you have an Echo Show, you can ask her to show you the trailer for a particular movie
“Alexa, show trailer for [name of movie]
Do you find yourself lying on the bed or couch all day, unable to motivate yourself to get up?
The Get Me Up skill will help motivate (or annoy) you to get up off the couch and do something with your life.
Say: “Alexa, Get me up.” And she won’t take “no” for an answer.
Try it out. Go to the Amazon Skill page and enable it on your Echo Dot. Get UP Skill
If you enjoy laughing at classic fart noises, then Alexa has you covered. Using the Pull My Finger skill, Alexa will play fart sounds.
Say: “Alexa, pull my finger.” Then enjoy the hilarious sounds of farts.
Try it out. Go to the Amazon Skill page and enable it on your Echo Dot. Pull My Finger
Have you ever wished you could talk to your favorite Star Wars characters? The Chewbacca Chat skill allows you to have a conversation with Chewbacca.
Say: “Alexa, open Chewbacca chat.”
Then you simply start talking to Chewbacca.
Try it out. Go to the Amazon Skill page and enable it on your Echo Dot. Chewbacca Chat
Have you ever lost your phone and spent hours trying to find it? The Alexa skill Find My Phone can call your phone so that you can find it.
First say: “Alexa, find my phone.”
Alexa will then ask for your phone number. Once you have given her your phone number, she will text you a security code.
After you have given Alexa the security code, you can now use the skill at anytime.
Say: “Alexa, find my phone.” Alexa will then call your phone.
You can also add other phone numbers. Say: “Alexa, ask find my phone to add another number.” then follow her instructions.
To have Alexa call the other numbers say: “Alexa, ask find my phone to call (name).”
Try it out. Go to the Amazon Skill page and enable it on your Echo Dot. Find My Phone
Do you have guests over at your house, and are having a difficult time getting any kind conversation going? Don’t worry, Alexa can help.
The Conversation Starter skill will provide a variety topics and questions for you and your guests to discuss.
Try saying: “Alexa, ask Conversation starter for a topic.”
Are you feeling uninspired and unmotivated to finish a task? Alexa can help by giving you some motivating words.
Ask: “Alexa, motivate me.”
or “Alexa, inspire me.”
Do you want to learn a random fact? Alexa knows a lot of random facts.
Say: “Alexa, tell me a fact.”
How to get Alexa to tell a joke
Do you want to hear something funny? Well, Alexa is capable of telling jokes.
All you need to do is Say: “Alexa, tell me a joke.”
Alexa can also be more specific with the type of joke you want to hear. For instance,
say: “Alexa tell me a baseball joke“
How to View calendar on Echo Show
With the Echo Show, you can link your calendar to Alexa using the Alexa app on your phone. After you have everything set up you can view your calendar on the Echo Show.
Simply say
“Alexa, show me my calendar.
To add events to your calendar, say:
“Alexa, add [activity] to my calendar on [date or day] at [time]
“Alexa, add PARK to my calendar NEXT FRIDAY at 4pm”
Alexa, add SHOPPING to my calendar MAY 8TH at 1pm”
“Alexa, move my meeting at noon to 3 p.m.“
How To Turn on Lights With Alexa
I use Alexa to turn on my lights. We have set up our house to have Smart Lights or Smart Switches in every room. We can turn the lights on or off anywhere in the house. This requires using Smart Things or Hubitat to control.
“Alexa, turn [name of room] lights on”
“Alexa, turn [name of room] lights off.
You can also group lights together using the Smart Things or Hubitat. We have group the downstairs lights together. When we go to bed, we just say “Alexa, turn downstairs off”
How to Make a Shopping list
This is very convenient. When you run at of items, you can quickly tell Alexa to add that item to your shopping list. You can find your shopping list on your Alexa App.
SHOPPING LIST
“Alexa, add eggs to my shopping list”
“Alexa, add milk to my shopping list”
You can enable the Follow-up Mode on your Alexa App on your phone which allows you to add several items to your list with out saying the wake word “Alexa”
All you need to say is:
“Alexa, add cereal to my shopping list” followed with
“add water”
“add coffee”
and Alexa will add all items to your shopping list if you have the Follow-up Mode set up on your Alexa app.
You can also create other list by saying
“Alexa,create [name of list] list”
“Alexa, create Vacation Packing list.
To add items
“Alexa, add camera to Vacation Packing list.
You can clear all items from a list by saying
“Alexa, clear [name of list] list.”
Set a timer
I love this feature when cooking dinner. Many times, I need to set several times that run at the same time while making a large dinner. I love that I can set these timers using voice commands. There’s no need to quickly wash my hands to set the timer on the oven or microwave.
“Alexa, set timer for Roast for 10 minutes”
“Alexa, set timer for casserole for 30 minutes”
Since there is no visual clock on the echo dot, you can ask Alexa how much time is left.
“Alexa, how much time is on the Roast timer”
You can set several timers at one time.
What is the weather?
I’m so bad at checking the weather. With Alexa, we just simply say
“Alexa, what is the weather”. Alexa will give you the weather report for your area.
You can ask for the whole week or a particular day. She can only give you weather information for 10 days.
“Alexa, what is the weather for Tuesday” or you can say
“Alexa, what is the weather for May 1st”
“Alexa, what is the weather for the week”
What time is it?
Our clocks are never set correctly. So we always ask
“Alexa, What time is it”
With Alexa, you can now wake up to music! Wake up to your favorite artist or genre or your favorite radio station every morning instead of that annoying ringing sound.
Alexa does have 15 custom sounds or 10 celebrity sounds that you can choose from your Alexa app on your phone, but if get tired of that, why not try waking up to music.
To set your alarm, simply say:
“Alexa, wake me up at 5:30am everyday to music”
Maybe you want to wake up to the news. Say:
“Alexa, set an alarm for 7 am using BBC news on TuneIn”
“Alexa, wake me up at 7 am to [insert radio station] on TuneIn”
“Alexa, wake me up to [insert favorite artist name] at 8 am”
“Alexa, wake me up to [insert favorite genre] music at 8 am”
This works with Amazon’s music services as well as Spotify, Pandora, TuneIn, SiriusXM and iHeartRadio.
Now there is a cool way to announce to your family that dinner is ready. When you use this command “Alexa, announce that dinner is ready” an announcement will go out to all the Echo devices in the house. It will do an announcement warning, then ring the dinner bell, and then repeat whatever you said after “Alexa, announce that…”
That is how we gather all the gang in for dinner now and it is great. I must admit I laughed out loud several times when we have used it but now it is a great tool instead of having to travel around the house shouting dinner is ready.
There are also several other options that will play different sound effects such as “Alexa, announce time to go to sleep”, “Alexa, announce time to wake up”
What great fun!!
