6 Methods to have Enjoyable with Amazon Alexa
This site contains affiliate links. I may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you.
Estimated studying time: 11 minutes
The way in which that persons are interacting with expertise is altering. Certainly communication strategies have seen large modifications during the last decade. A voice assistant can be utilized that can assist you get organised, name family and friends and have enjoyable. There’s a rising library of issues to check out from music, books and studying a brand new ability corresponding to cooking or a brand new language.
On this weblog we share with you a few of our favorite methods to have enjoyable with Amazon Alexa. We hope you take pleasure in attempting them out!
We reside in an ageing society. However what does that actually imply?
Within the subsequent 20 years the steadiness of younger and previous will shift to the purpose the place there shall be one aged individual for each two folks of working age. The problem this presents is two-fold, a discount in members of the family in a position to present assist and a smaller pool {of professional} carers.
TL Tech is a Sensible Houses Options supplier with a distinction. We assist folks get the very best out of sensible residence applied sciences and create distinctive residence environments to fulfill their wants and finances. Our imaginative and prescient is to “create a house that cares for you as you age”.
Sensible residence applied sciences have the ability to rework lives, particularly for the weak in our society. This weblog sequence shall be trying to showcase the alternatives, discover out extra in regards to the folks working on this area and the way we are able to create a world the place “sensible meets form®”.
Most of the abilities that we present you, we found by trial and error and thru shopping the Amazon Alexa Ability retailer.
Create a music playlist together with your favorite artists
You possibly can play music that you’ve got beforehand bought from Amazon both in laborious or digital copy without spending a dime out of your music library. There are additionally a lot of subscription music streaming companies that work with Alexa. When you have certainly one of these already you may hyperlink it together with your voice assistant. The most typical on-line music companies are:
- Amazon Prime £79/yr: The Amazon Prime service is most well-known for the limitless free supply on procuring, but it surely additionally consists of a variety of different advantages, together with entry to movies, music and picture storage. The Prime music library has over 2 million songs.
- Amazon Music Limitless from £7.99/month: If you’d like entry to a much bigger tune library (over 60 million songs) you may join Amazon Music Limitless. You possibly can trial it free for 30 days.
- Apple Music from £9.99/month: When you’re already a consumer of Apple merchandise you may choose to stay with their music service. It’s nonetheless suitable with different gadgets and has a music library related in dimension to Amazon Music Limitless, with over 60 million songs. You possibly can trial it free for 3 months.
- Spotify from £9.99/month: Spotify is one other actually fashionable service. There are over 50 million songs and at the moment the service is providing a free 3 month trial. Spotify premium additionally consists of entry to over one million podcast reveals. Their library of content material is rising every single day by 1000’s of latest issues to take heed to. A pleasant contact is that you could create collaborative playlists and share them with family and friends that they will additionally edit and add to.
- Deezer from £9.99/month, or £99.90 while you pay for a yr in full: Deezer might have a smaller following than the opposite suppliers, however they do boast a big music library of over 56 million songs. In addition they have a neat, personalisation characteristic referred to as Circulate, which curates a playlist for you. You should utilize it together with your Alexa machine by saying “Alexa, play Circulate”. Just like Spotify they’ve a big podcast library included within the subscription.
- Notice: that these particulars are right on the time of writing.
Immerse your self in guide or take heed to journal articles
I found audio books at Christmas time and luxuriate in listening to private growth books and biographies. Audible is a good way to immerse your self in guide, usually the authors additionally do the narration which I feel provides an entire new dimension to the expertise. There’s a large vary of books. When you take out the subscription (which is on the time of writing £7.99) you get one guide a month included.
You possibly can browse books on the cell phone app or by way of the desktop web site. There’s a want listing the place you may add new books. Notice that you just can not make purchases by way of the cell phone app at current, this may require you to enter the web site to buy after which you may obtain into the library in your cellphone. This implies you may take heed to your content material each on-line or offline. You can too take heed to your library utilizing an Alexa speaker. The beauty of that is that it retains your home as you progress out of your cellphone to the opposite audio system in your house.
There are some free titles obtainable to check out and see in case you just like the service, simply say: ‘Alexa, what’s free from Audible?” You additionally get the primary month and guide without spending a dime and may cancel the subscription in case you resolve it’s not for you.
Some new abilities on Alexa embody listening to articles out of your favorite magazines. one which covers issues like, Dwelling, Way of life and Trend is Journal by Victoria. There’s some promoting on this content material, however it’s not too intrusive and the articles present helpful suggestions and tales.
Reminisce over previous images of household gatherings and holidays
There are solely two selections relating to displaying your images in the meanwhile, both Amazon Photographs or Fb. Photographs will be set as a static background, or a slide present or you may ask Alexa to view your images simply by saying “Alexa, present me my images”. So long as your picture recordsdata are saved with a date, Alexa can collate those from the identical day collectively and present you ones from the identical day in years gone previous, simply say “Alexa, present at the present time images”.
Amazon Photographs: The Amazon Photographs service is included with the Amazon Prime membership and provides you limitless picture storage and 5 GB of video storage. Photographs will be uploaded to your Amazon Photographs account.
There’s a cell phone app that you should use to auto back-up your images, which is admittedly good to unencumber house in your cellphone, or in case your cellphone is damaged, misplaced or stolen.
The beauty of Amazon images is you may share images and entire albums privately with family and friends. It additionally straightforward to print your images, and you may even create personalised presents together with your photos.
When you have a Fireplace TV Stick you can even show your photos in your TV.
Fb: Linking Alexa with Fb is a little more simple. It shows photos out of your Fb account, assuming that you have already got an lively account that you just share posts on. The performance is just a little restricted in contrast with the Amazon Photograph service as you may solely share albums with different Fb members and you can’t handle your albums through the app.
Brush up in your language abilities
Studying a language is a good exercise for pleasure and to maintain your mind lively. You can too use your new ability maybe in your subsequent vacation or follow with pals who’re native audio system.
Constructed-in to Alexa is a translator for over 50 completely different languages. You possibly can ask her “Alexa, how do you say bread in French?” and she is going to inform you it’s “Ache” in a not unhealthy French accent. Or “Alexa, what’s the German phrase for bread?” She will be able to additionally translate longer sentences, simply say “Alexa, translate, the place is the bakery, in German”.
If you wish to do a bit extra with conversational language abilities, Rosetta Stone has classes for French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, Japanese, or Russian. You decide your language after which a subject corresponding to Greetings, Instructions, Procuring, Time, Journey, Colors, Meals and Drink. You first are launched to a brand new phrase after which get to have a go at utilizing it in a sentence.
Fake you’re a gameshow contestant
Have you ever been enjoying extra board video games not too long ago? We definitely have been having fun with classics like Monopoly and Cluedo. However isn’t it annoying when you may’t discover the cube, or when the youngsters recover from excited and roll the cube so laborious they find yourself rolling underneath the furnishings. Do you know that Alexa can roll the cube for you, simply say “Alexa, roll the cube” And she is going to decide a random quantity for you between 1 and 6. You can too roll a number of cube, simply say “Alexa, roll 3 cube” and she is going to inform you every quantity and the entire of the numbers.
Do you like watching gameshows on the telly? Do you would like you could possibly be a contestant? Nicely now you may all from the consolation of your personal residence! Listed here are a few of our favorite recreation abilities on Amazon Alexa to attempt. To open a brand new ability simply say for instance “Alexa, open Tenable”.
Tenable – that is the Warwick Davis TV gameshow. The Alexa model is full with Warwick guiding you thru, the theme tune music and the suspense of seeing in case you’ve received a top-ten reply.
Deal or No Deal – that is the Noel Edmunds gameshow, full with suspense constructing music and the ringing cellphone. Noel’s voice guides you thru the sport, whereas the banker sounds suspiciously like Alexa!
Query of the Day – There’s a new query every single day overlaying a variety of subjects from arts and leisure to literature and science. This can be a good fast exercise to do and also you gather factors over time for every query you get right. Simply say “Alexa, what’s the query of the day?”
Different uplifting concepts
I’m not one for horoscopes, nonetheless they are often entertaining. Sally Morgan is a widely known physic on our TV screens and he or she has a ability on Alexa, to make use of it simply say “Alexa, launch Sally Morgan Horoscopes”, inform her your signal after which you may verify in day by day for brand spanking new content material.
There are a great deal of humorous abilities that you could check out, 1000’s actually so that you can browse within the Amazon Alexa Ability retailer. One in all our favourites is “Alexa, make me smile” after which she’ll inform you a random joke.
We additionally just like the built-in options that Alexa has to carry out songs, attempt asking her “Alexa, rap for me”.
And in case you get to the tip of the day and fancy chilling out in entrance of the telly, there’s a helpful ability referred to as TV Information. This reveals you what’s on with the intention to plan your viewing. Simply say: “Alexa, open my TV information” after which you could find out extra about what’s on at a specific time or on a specific channel by saying, “Alexa, ask my TV information what’s on telly tonight?” or “Alexa, ask my TV information what’s on BBC at the moment?”
One of many nice issues about voice assistant abilities is that they’re actually handy to dip out and in of. It’s straightforward to pause your audio guide and are available again to it, or transfer to listening to it in your cellphone when you’re driving within the automobile. You possibly can multitask when you’re cooking and take heed to your Spotify playlist or the radio and skip songs palms free.
Will probably be fascinating to see how the talents obtainable change into much more interactive and personalised as adoption of voice grows.
When you attempt any of our suggestions it might be nice to listen to your tales. Maybe you could have a favorite Alexa leisure tip that you just want to share. Do get in contact as we’d love to listen to your ideas on utilizing expertise to seek out pleasure and fulfilment in life.
You can too take a look at our web site for extra technical recommendation or subscribe to our mailing listing to be notified when we have now new posts and assist materials obtainable.
