#77 Alexa
Do you know what Alexa is?
Do you know how to use Alexa?
Do you know what you can ask her to do?
Whether you have low vision or 20/20 vision, she can be super helpful.
She has no buttons or dials to fiddle with and no controls to navigate. You only need to use your voice to use her. Here’s a picture of my Alexa speaker. If you have a smart phone, you don’t need a separate speaker. The phone works just fine after you download and setup the Alexa app.
Here are some simple questions or commands to give you an idea of the possibilities:
- “Alexa, what time is it?”
- “Alexa, what’s the weather today?”
- Are you cooking and need to set a timer? Do you want to be at a certain place at a certain time? No problem. It’s easy with Alexa. “Alexa, set a timer for 30 minutes.” Or “Alexa, tell me when it is 3:20 pm.”
- Want to hear some music? “Alexa, play some Elvis Presley music.” Want to hear a specific song? “Alexa play Tenderly.”
- Alexa can even tell a joke. “Alexa, tell me a joke.”
- Alexa can tell you what’s on TV. “Alexa, what is on TV?” or say, “Alexa, tell me when the national news is on.”
- Alexa will search for information about things you want to know. “Alexa, what headlines are happening in the world right now.”
- Alexa will read Kindle books. She will first ask you if you want to turn on assisted reading. You reply, “Yes.” Then you say, “ Alexa, read …” and name a book in your Kindle library.
- “Alexa, what can you do?”
- Is Alexa talking too fast or too slowly? You can ask Alexa to adjust the speaking rate to your preference. Say, “Alexa, speak slower” or “Alexa, speak faster.”
- Want to hear a Bible verse? Just say, “Alexa, read John 3:16.”
To get Alexa to respond, you first have to say her name. If you don’t understand what she said, you only need to say, “Alexa, repeat that?”
I tend to pause after saying Alexa. Not good. Say the request without pausing, otherwise ahe will ignore you.
Readers, do you use Alexa? If so, please share with us some hints that I haven’t mentioned in the blog.