To ask you to talk me through Alexa

[StopInhalingRevels]

Ok. I'm not a complete technofool. But I'm very much "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" with technology in my life.

Several times colleagues have referred to their echos and Alexas. I know they control lightbulbs should I buy the compatible ones. I also know you can ask it questions.

What else do they do that's actually life changing? Because a quick Google suggests they play music, control plugs/lights, can answer spoken questions aloud (rather than type into Google) but none of this seems that special to warrant the kind of "I couldn't live without mine" comments I overhear at work.

Can someone talk me through Alexa/Echo and what they do that's so brilliant? Are they life-changing?

Thank you x

They don't do anything unique, its mire its just convenient with the voice activation rather typing on a screen or pressing buttons

almost our entire house is ruled by alexa.. my most favourite app is the shopping list, i can simply tell alexa to add such and such to the shopping list and hey presto its there on my phone ready for the supermarket shop.

most if not all of our lights are hooked up to her, and also our kettle! this all started when i had back surgery and moving was difficult and it made life a bit easier and its just stuck.

chaos reigns if the internet goes down though..

I mainly get mine to turn the lights on and off, turn the heating on and off, set timers, tell me what’s the weather, wake me up, play the radio station I want, play music, answer the door (got a eufy doorbell connected to it) and, most usefully, tell me how old the actors I’m watching on telly are

Oh yes shopping list is great.

my favourite passtime is checking the ages of actors... i like to guess and then check! how sad am i?

The clock in my kitchen recently broke and it's been brilliant to shout 'Alexa, what time is it?' or 'Alexa set an alarm for twenty minutes'!'

I never thought I'd get on with mine (bought for me as a present), and I don't need it to turn on lights or anything, but it has been useful for random questions that occur to me when I'm doing stuff - and I have quite a lot of those.

Hadn't used the shopping list - it doesn't rush off and buy it all from amazon for you does it?

Mine is mostly used for radio (including telling it to go to sleep in x minutes, I get tetanus and get to sleep better with background noise) alarms, cooking timers, and yes, along with PP above, reminding you when someone on the radio died or how old they are is v useful.
I also ask her to tell me the time, temperature - and if I'm being super lazy, whether its raining. (TBF, looking out of the window only tells you what happening at that moment, she tells you if it's likely to rain later).

All of the above. I also like it for audiobooks at night to fall asleep too (you can set a timer to turn it off). It’s quite helpful for sleep training DC too (eg you can use it like a gro clock, to play music or read stories).

Clock
Timers
Alarms
^ all useful hands free when I’m cooking

Annoucements via the other Alexas in the house so I no longer bellow like a fishwife upstairs. Alerting people to dinner has never been so calm (also, she automatically plays a dinner bell)

Weather, knowing the date to write on things, doing quick sums for me when I’m scaling up or down a recipe, playing iPlayer radio, playing one of the many playlists we’ve set up, playing albums, news headlines, answering stupid general knowledge questions that occur to us, audiobooks, turning things off and on…

If I’m in the kitchen my hands are usually busy. Alexa takes orders hands free. Not essential, but often handy.

We have recessed lights through the house, can Alexa control them?

For me its mainly rhe radio. Have one in the home office and the living room and it's on as background all day. Also helps calm the guinea pig. And the dogs when we go out. We just bought an echo which shows the ring doorbell which is pretty cool. We have no lights or heating wirh it. We just use that function at all. Alarms. Calendar. Weather. General questions are good too. Daughter also has one in her room. I second the not needing to shout up the stairs

When using American recipes, I use Alexa to translate temperatures F to C, or cups to grams etc.

I use it to turn in my bedside light before I go upstairs, check the weather the next day, check notifications of Amazon orders. I also like my pictures of the day in the morning (Echo Show) and it glows at night.

I could do without it, but it's useful.

Pity women called Alexa! Must be so annoying. At least Siri is a bit of an unusual name...

It's amazing how quickly Alexa becomes a member of the household!

It (she?) turns on the radio, tells me the time, sets reminders and timers (v useful when you're cooking and have your hands full), keeps shopping lists up to date, and settles arguments about who was No1 in the charts in April 1984.

And I still love coming into a dark house, waving arms around in a dramatic fashion and shouting 'Alexa! Let there be light!'. 😁

We use ours to control lights, curtains, control our CCTV system, play music, song quiz and general day to day questions, reminders, timers....etc
We have a couple of different routines set up on it so when I come downstairs in the morning I can just say "Alexa good morning" and it'll open curtains, put the TV on, tell me the weather. She used to turn the kettle on but we kept forgetting to put a mug underneath the spout so quickly removed that after the 3rd time of having boiling water all over the kitchen counter and floor.

It's very useful but also made us pretty lazy.

Occasionally it's infuriating and has a mind of its own, will randomly make noises, interrupt a conversation. We have the one that's shaped like a ball and my kids like to unplug it and bowl it down the hallway.

Hey Google: Turn on the floor lamp, set floor lamp to 65%, turn on the fan, set a timer for 15 minutes, play Spotlight playlist, play the latest episode of the Archers etc. The broadcast function (when you have two speakers) is useful when you have teens so you can shout at them to get up without having to venture into their caves.

Recently stayed in a hotel and my god was it annoying having to manually set alarms, play podcasts etc.

I have to say, thank you to all who have posted, but I can't see this being of much use. Maybe one in the kitchen as a novelty.

I use the timers almost every day. When I cooked Xmas dinner I wrote a time plan and then set all the timers on Alexa so I could sit in the lounge with the family and then Alexa would tell me it was time to put the potatoes on / take the turkey out etc.

I use the shopping list all the time as despite writing it on a bit of paper, I don't have the paper with me all the time.

Well, I’m probably (definitely) a technofool but I thought you were asking people to talk to you through your Alexa, like some new fangled audio penpals 😂

Routines are the life changing bit. We have routines for everything. Theres one that switches all the lights and plugs off and set the intruder alarm to night mode when we go to bed, and another that switches certain lights on and turns the alarm off in the morning. When we leave the house we tell Alexa we’re leaving and she again switches everything off and sets the alarm to fully armed. There’s one for the grandkids that involves shouting “oh no, there’s a shark” then the light turns the room blue and baby shark starts playing. But my favourite routine is “Alexa, this place is a mess” Alexa says “FFS Dusty, you had one job”, then the robo vac comes trundling out while Alexa berates it with various insults that DH and I change on a regular basis.

My parents have one, and if they need me all they have to do is say “Alexa drop in on aposter” and can be speaking to me in seconds. Literally life saving if one of them had a fall when alone and couldn’t reach the phone.

Theres an echo show in the kitchen which is used as a timer, but also for showing recipes, or more often the instructions for operating the dishwasher/washer/oven etc, when it’s not in use it acts as a digital photo album.

Other things we use them (we have five) for include listening to music, checking the cctv cameras, announcing that there’s someone at the door, shopping lists, reminders, countdowns to holidays and Christmas, and playing daft games/quizzes.

The first full sentence my autistic speech delayed daughter said clearly was "Alexa play baby shark" .

I use it for timers and kitchen discos.

I love ours and the house is controlled by it. The most useful thong is medication reminders. Then general timers. Then weather reports.

The most fun is music and podcasts. Which at whim I can choose to play in one room or all depending on my task.

So my favourite use for Alexa is to control the electric blanket on my bed in the winter. I can switch It on from downstairs 10 minutes before going up and I have a lovely warm bed to get into. I use the shopping list function a lot. I like to go to sleep listening to music so I use it for that and I can tell it to switch off after 20 minutes.

Our new TV is compatible so Alexa will change stations. Great if you are disabled. It will recommend films too. I also get it to do calculations.

Oh yes, I also play Pointless!