8 Ideas for a New Home Gift
Technology keeps advancing and making our lives easier. When it comes to Amazon’s Alexa, you’re able to take care of things in your home—without even being home! If you have Alexa products installed in your home and the corresponding app on your phone, you are all set to do several tasks in your home by either talking or pressing a button.
Here are some of the top things Alexa can help with:
1. Call Friends or Family
Alexa can practically be your new landline when it comes to Alexa-enabled devices. When you sync your contacts to your Echo Dot or Echo Show, you can make calls to loved ones or your friends that also have the Alexa app. Anyone can leave messages as if you have an answering machine at home, and you can also block unwanted calls.
Being able to call others and receive calls is a fantastic feature that keeps you even more connected with family, and with the Echo Show, you’re able to video chat, too.
2. Control Your Smart Home
Did you forget to turn off your lights before leaving? With Alexa, you can fix that from wherever you are. With a grouping feature, you can ask Alexa to turn your lights off or on in the whole house, or on just one level of the home. If you want, you can even set timers for your lights if you wish to turn on the porch lights around sunset.
Depending on the technology you have, you can ask Alexa to arm the security system or lock your doors. Walking around the home to check all of the door locks is a thing of the past. Now, you can easily do it from the couch or even the grocery store while you are gone.
Another great feature is that you can control your home temperature using Alexa, as long as you have a compatible thermostat such as Nest or Honeywell. This is especially convenient if you need to adjust the temperature while you’re on vacation, or if it’s just a hot day and you want to come back to a cool home.
3. Assist in the Kitchen
Having Alexa in your kitchen can help make cooking more manageable and less stressful. You can ask her to set multiple timers, and you can name them, so you know which timer is for your chicken and which one is for pasta.
She can grab recipes from AllRecipes, so you don’t have to flip through your cookbooks every night. She can also help you out with measurement conversions, and play tunes for you because cooking is even more fun when you’re dancing.
4. Play Music from Your Chosen Streaming Platform
Alexa automatically defaults to songs from Amazon Music, but if you use Spotify or Apple Music to jam, you can make one of those your default instead. With this feature, you have all of your favorite songs, playlists, and podcasts ready to go at your command.
5. Tell You the News or the Weather
Keep yourself “in the know” when you have Alexa. When your location is set up through the app, she can tell you the forecast for the day and what the temperature is outside. You won’t have to worry about being caught in the rain without an umbrella.
Ask Alexa what is going on in the world by getting your Flash Briefing set up. You can customize these short and informative pieces by choosing which news sources you most rely on, and she will update you when you want.
6. Give You Health Tips
If you have a FitBit, you can sync that with Alexa, and you can request her to ask your FitBit how you are doing today and keep track of your goals. She can also help you with workouts if you enable the 7 Minute Workout skill on your device.
You can also ask Alexa for nutrition information about different things. For example, you can ask, “Alexa, how many calories are in an apple?” She can help you stay healthy with this feedback and guidance.
7. Provide Helpful Reminders
Much like setting an alarm for something, you can tell Alexa to remind you to do things. This feature comes in handy for people that forget they need to move clothes from the washer to the dryer—Alexa has our backs.
Simply say, “Alexa, remind me in 45 minutes to move my laundry,” and she will follow through with it.
8. Read to You
If you’re dying to hear what happens next in your book, but you are busy cleaning up or cooking dinner, ask Alexa to read your book and she will pick up on your latest read. This ability lets you ask her to read, skip, pause, and resume while she is reading, so you can easily keep up with the story. You can also change her voice if you want to switch up the reading.
9. Turn on Netflix
Losing the remote is always a hassle and can affect your shows. With the right tools and system, you can tell Alexa to turn on your TV, and you can ask her to play your current Netflix binge. If you’re running to get a snack, you can tell her to pause the show. No more arguing over who had the remote last!
10. Tell Jokes!
Lastly, Alexa can tell you a good joke when you’re feeling down and need a laugh. Just say, “Alexa, tell me a joke.” She can also tell you different stories when you prefer that.
When you have questions that need quick answers, need to know how many cups are in a quart, or want to turn the thermostat down before you get home, Alexa has you covered. There are so many ways to simplify things with this technology. How do you use Alexa in your home?
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