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Whoa you got a Amazon Echo. Or maybe you have a Alexa compatible speaker as the excellent Sonos One. Sugar! This stylish little gadget is your first step towards creating a smarter home. The Alexa voice assistant that lives inside will help you do all kinds of things like play games, walk you through a 20 minute workout, tell you how to mix up a perfect Manhattan and, of course, control all of them. Internet-connected devices, speakers, or lighting devices that you have in the house.
One thing Alexa can not you have to configure your Echo for you. Don’t worry, the setup is extremely easy. First, make sure you have the Alexa app installed on your phone (you’ll need an Amazon account). Then turn on the speakerphone, and the app should be able to pair with it and tell the speaker how to access your Wi-Fi network. After that, the app will walk you through the remaining setup steps of your Echo.
Alexa is learning from you, so all you have to do is start talking to her. If you want to teach it how to control the other connected devices in your home – a smart heater or air conditioner, a smart TV, or smart door locks – you add each of those devices individually as ‘skills’. Amazon makes it easy to add skills; you can add them through the Alexa app or on the Amazon website app store interface. Once installed, you can manage and delete skills in the Alexa app.
If you rely on carpooling services, try the Lifting skill. It makes buying a car as easy as saying, “Alexa, get a Lyft.” Try to add the Head space skill to initiate a meditation session. The bartender is another useful tool if you want to be able to ask Alexa how to make sophisticated mixed drinks.
One final tip: if you subscribe to Spotify, you can set up the streaming service as your default streaming service for music requests, so when you say “Alexa, play Black Sabbath,” the speaker will start playing from Spotify without you having to specify “… From Spotify.”
Alexa can do a lot of things. Just know that he’s always listening. The Echo speakerphone’s microphone stays on all the time, just waiting to hear the magic wake-up word, “Alexa.” It doesn’t take action or record anything you say until it hears that wake-up call, but if the idea of ​​a microphone that’s always on scares you anyway, look for it. the microphone mute switch. Almost all modern Alexa powered speakers have one. You should also review ways to keep Alexa data private as well as.
This setup guide was updated in December 2020.
How to configure all your new technologies
You have a cool gadget! You lucky duck. Now you need to configure it. Poor sap. The WIRED Master Guide can help you.
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