Amazon.com has in its hands one of the biggest accomplishments in tech in the last few years. Amazon Alexa is the smart voice assistant that can do almost anything, from telling you the weather to open your front and start your car.
Alexa powers several devices, but it was developed as the voice of the Amazon Echo. With the connected home hub in mind, the company then made smaller replicas in the Echo Dot that make the best out of the assistant.
CEO Jeff Bezos reportedly has in mind a new set of Alexa-powered devices that work as a replacement for telephones. The company is thought to be developing an intercom system that harnesses the power of the voice assistant.
Setting up your Amazon Echo and Echo Dot
The best part about the Amazon Echo and Echo Dot is how simple and intuitive it is to set them up. While the Echo is a tall speaker shaped like a cylinder, the Echo Dot is more like a hockey puck with a more limited reception range.
They can work together as a mesh network around the house, so you can have several devices connected at once in each room. It is as simple as getting them out of the box, hooking them up to a power outlet, and sync them to the Alexa app on your smartphone or tablet.
On the Alexa app, your mobile device will pair your Echo speaker or Echo Dots to your Wi-Fi network. Once that’s done, all you need to do is access the settings within the app to configure the functions your home assistant can perform.
Alexa has a wide array of skills to help you out
Amazon Alexa has a catalog of over 10,000 skills. Skills are unique functions that the software can carry out when prompted by a particular voice command.
Standard capabilities of the Amazon Echo include playing music, telling the weather, giving news briefings, reporting on traffic, and more. Alexa is compatible with smart home devices and third-party apps that give it an increased functionality range.
In that sense, the home assistant can turn off the lights and other systems, add items to your shopping lists, set timers when you are cooking, answer questions on-the-go, set the temperature on your thermostat, and even keep your door locked.
The Amazon Echo costs $179.99 and the Echo Dot just $49.99. The Alexa app is free to use, and it is compatible with other free apps like Gmail, IFTTT, Spotify, Audible, Todoist, and Uber. In case you don’t have a mobile device, you can control the assistant online as well.
Source: The Telegraph