How do you use your Alexa?

[MooFroo]

Hi All

we have a small Alexa / echo dot I think? It’s really only used as a speaker

My DS used his one to set alarms and play music

I know it can do a lot more and just read some posts on a threat where people had reminders on Alexander for certain things

Would love to hear how you’re using your Alexa 59 make life better / easier etc?

thanks so much

She wakes me up, timers for cooking, plays music, shopping lists, reminders, tells the kids to get out of fucking bed.

Alarms, listening to the radio, timers for cooking, reminders to do certain tasks monthly or as a one off. Also when grandchildren are hear. it's useful for random things they ask, like "what noise does a giraffe make?"

We have them in practically every room of the house. I rarely use them as speakers because I can use them to control our whole house sound system. I do use them for timers, alarms, announcing dinner, getting hold of DS without having to go / shout up stairs, controlling lights, checking the weather forecast….. all sorts of things. DD (who lives in her own place) has hers connected to ours and we use it to leave her messages and vice versa. I honestly find them ver useful.

I love these comments. No, they're not that easy to hack. I mean, I would imagine a small number of very sophisticated hackers exist who COULD. But 1. why would they 2. if someone hacks your amazon account and then listens into your alexa, you'd know that someone is listening in because the Alexa shows it.

We have them all over the house and use the 'announce' function a lot.

Timers for cooking

Morning alarm

Playing music. I use the multi room function to have it playing all through the house if I'm moving around the house doing stuff.

Setting temperature, controlling lights, security cameras and lots of the other smart home functions.

Reading my kindle books to me if I can't be bothered to read myself

Random questions

Shopping list

Reminders

I work in IT. I have one Alexa. I mainly tell it to fuck off every time it pipes up.

I ask her to translate coffee bean 100 in Welsh 🤣

Disclaimer - do not do this with young kids in the room!

Ha ha just tried it out 😂

Music only really

I’ve been struggling to even get mine connected to the wifi 🤣🤣

kept thinking of all the things I could do with it once it’s set up - will wait for DH to get home and see if he can do it.

although I did tell Siri to set a timers for the boiled eggs to start getting used to it!

On/off lights, heating, radio, alarms, drop in, my mum can call me if she falls. All sorts.

Bought it to act as a chime for the ring doorbell. Use it mostly for that but also:

Kitchen timers
Adding to shopping list
Radio/podcasts/audiobooks
Ask her what the weather will be like

I agree with PP who said how they often try and speak to Alexa when not at home!

In the car recently, my 3 year old asked me if it was going to rain. I said I don't know and she then proceeded to shout "Alexa is it going to rain today?" 😂 something which I do ask a lot, but I had to explain there's no Alexa in the car.

At home she just asks for Let it GO or Baby shark ALL THE TIME!!

Classic FM every Sunday morning. Radio 2 when. Get in from work whilst cooking tea.

dont know what else i can use it for

I'm so overwhelmed with all this. It sounds like the sort of thing we need in our house but having looked on Amazon, there are so many different types. Are echo things the same as Alexa and what do they all do? I feel like my grandmother when she used to get me to set her video player to record shows 😣

They all do pretty much the same, the only real differences are sound quality in the more expensive ones, and the echo shows have a screen. If I were you I’d get a cheap dot to start with and see if you get on with it, then maybe consider upgrading to a show if you think the screen would be helpful.

Acknowledging this thread is slightly old, it is very useful.
What is the name of the app we need for this please?
Is Alexa better than Google?

You need the Alexa app. Then you can setup whatever you want to use it for.

My daughter uses it more than me. She plays music and stories on it and asks every day how many sleeps until Christmas 😂We use it for timers when we are cooking . When my daughters friends are around the mainly ask her to tell them jokes and make fart noises haha.