12 new things to try with your Alexa speakers

In September, Amazon announced 12 new devices powered by Alexa which included everything from a new Echo Dot and Show has a microwave and connected Wall clock.

With the new hardware, Amazon has also announced new software enhancements. It had to progress to make Alexa more conversational and less transactional, while adding a handful of features that enhance the overall experience of the voice assistant.

Here are 12 new ways to use your Alexa speakers over the next few months.

Alexa Guard

At best, a smart home is a great way to deter potential burglars. You can lock the entrances, receive alerts when someone is in your house, schedule the lights on throughout the day to give the impression that someone is at home him and more.

Alexa Guard is a new feature that uses machine learning to do all those things without much effort. To activate Alexa Guard, simply say: "Alexa, I'm leaving." Your Echo devices will then be on alert for unusual sounds, such as broken windows or smoke detectors. It also turns the lights on and off according to what appears to be a natural pattern rather than a rigid schedule to simulate being at home.

If noise is detected, Alexa will send you smart alerts with an audio clip of the sound for your review. You can then choose to forward this alert to Ring or ADT.

Alexa Guard will be available on some Echo devices later this year.

New routines

Routines are a great way to bring Alexa to your service by grouping multiple actions into one order or triggering them every day at the same time. Amazon has announced that it will broaden its routines to have more triggers, for example when the temperature in a specific room becomes too high or too low, when you leave or arrive home or if motion is detected.

Deferred actions are also new for routines. Instead of the actions starting as soon as the routine is triggered, they can start a few minutes later if necessary. And if you want a routine to play music, you can create a sleep timer for that sound in the routine.

Amazon has also announced Routines for Kids, which are routine models that will display a beautiful (customizable) message, turn off the lights, and sound sleep sounds when you say, "Alexa, good night."

Multi-step requests

In addition to tracking mode, where Alexa will continue to listen for one second after your first request, Amazon will update Alexa with multi-step queries.

This means that you can request multiple actions in one order. For example, say something like "Alexa, add eggs, milk and bread to my shopping list" or "Alexa, listen to Jazz music on Spotify at volume three".

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Location-based reminders

At the beginning of the year, Google updated the wizard and Google Home speakers to work with location-based reminders. Now, Amazon is turning around with similar functionality. You can say something like: "Alexa, remind me to water the plants when I get home." When you arrive home, a notification will be sent to your phone.

The scope of these location-based recalls is not yet clear. Location-based Google Home reminders, for example, work with generic placements (such as "grocery store"), trade names, and specific addresses.

Probable as a result of The recent partnership of Alexa and Cortana, Amazon also announced a new call option at the event: Skype. You'll be able to make voice and video calls to your Skype contacts by simply saying, "Alexa, call [person’s name] on Skype."

Cooking with Alexa

Alexa was already a great help in the kitchen with features like several timers, grocery lists, tons of third-party cooking skills and more.

Alexa will soon be working more closely with these third-party skills (Cooking Stories, Allrecipes, Epicurious, Food52, TheKitchn and SideChef) to give you detailed instructions. To start, just say, "Alexa, let's start cooking."

E-mail

Alexa will soon receive an email integration. After linking a Gmail, Outlook or Hotmail account, you can say, "Alexa, do I have new emails?" It will read your emails and you can answer using only your voice.

Whisper mode

A die worst The things about a smart speaker are volume control, especially late at night when other people around the house are sleeping. Google Home has a feature called Night Mode that will automatically increase and decrease the volume according to a schedule. But the upcoming Whisper Mode for Alexa speakers is totally different from the problem.

If you whisper your order to Alexa, her answer will also be in a whisper.

Know when a new album hits Amazon Music

If you use Amazon Music on your Alexa speakers and follow your favorite artists, Alexa will inform you of new albums and will follow the releases of the followed artists. As a cherry on the cake, some exit notifications will be issued by the artists themselves.

Hunches

You know what it's like to have an intuition, now Alexa is trying to imitate that with machine learning. By continuing to use your smart devices, Alexa will learn How you use them and make suggestions when these devices are not defined on how you normally use them. It may sound confusing, but it's actually very simple.

Let's say that you usually turn off the light from the kitchen before going to bed, but you have left it. When you say, "Alexa, good night," it might ask you if you want her to turn it off and do it for you (assuming you have smart light bulbs or switches).

It's not yet clear how deep Hunches will be (or what kind of smart home technology it works with), but we'll know more when it's launched later this year.

Local voice control

Normally, when your Internet is turned off, your Alexa speakers will stop working completely. However, the upcoming Echo devices with integrated smart home hubs (the new Echo Plus and Echo Show), you will still be able to control your smart devices installed on the same local wireless network.

This feature will not work with existing Echo devices or new devices without the built-in features of the hub.

Video Doorbell

The Echo Show will work soon with your Ring and August video doorbell. When someone rings at the door, you will be able to say, "Alexa, answer the door." A two-way video and audio stream will reach your speaker.

Until these new features and Echo speakers arrive, try these seven unusual Alexa skills.

If you have not already done so, consider pre-order for new Alexa devices So you can be among the first to try them next month.