Amazon Alexa & Amazon Echo

The Amazon Echo Show 5 is Less Than $50 Right Now

Amazon seems to have decided that it doesn’t want Black Friday to end, at least for its own devices. The company currently has the Echo Show 5 and Echo (4th Generation) on sale for the same prices as the biggest deal day of t…

Dave LeClair Dec 28th, 2021

Alexa Challenged a 10-Year-Old Girl to Electrocute Herself

A 10-year-old girl asked Alexa for a challenge, and the smart speaker suggested one that could have led to her getting electrocuted, which forced Amazon to jump in and fix the issue quickly.

Dave LeClair Dec 28th, 2021

What Are Alexa Hunches, and How Do You Use Them?

Alexa Hunches allow Alexa to perform tasks such as turning off your living room lights when you head to bed–with your permission. Alexa keeps track of your habits, routines, and requests to perform these actions on hunches….

Andy Nguyen Dec 12th, 2021

Cortana and Alexa Are No Longer on Speaking Terms

Microsoft’s Cortana and Amazon’s Alexa have called it quits, as Microsoft dropped the Cortana-Alexa integration. In fact, the company dropped it in September 2021, and it took the internet until November to notice….

Dave LeClair Nov 16th, 2021

Alexa Can Now Monitor Your Home’s Air Quality (For $70)

Amazon is constantly finding new things for Alexa to do. For example, the company has just introduced a new Smart Air Quality Monitor that sells for $70. It’ll make sure the air you’re breathing in your home is clean and saf…

Dave LeClair Nov 3rd, 2021

Amazon’s Ring Doorbell Will Alert You When Packages Arrive

When it comes to video doorbells, Ring is one of the most well-known names. Amazon today announced that package alerts would make their way to two Ring models now, with other devices set to get the much-requested feature next…

Dave LeClair Sep 28th, 2021

Amazon’s Astro Robot Is as Adorable as It Is Terrifying

Amazon had a busy today at its big hardware event. The company announced a new $60 smart thermostat and a new Echo Show 15. But it rounded out its event with a new robot called Astro, and it’s cute and scary at the same time….

Dave LeClair Sep 28th, 2021

Amazon’s New Echo Show 15 Is Like a Smart Piece of Wall Art

Amazon announced a new, larger Echo Show device. While it can be mounted on a stand, the newly-announced Echo Show 15 looks best when mounted on a wall. And it does look quite attractive while still remaining functional….

Dave LeClair Sep 28th, 2021

Amazon Launches a Smart Thermostat With a $60 Price Tag

Amazon kicked off its event with a surprising product— its own Amazon Smart Thermostat. Most shocking is the price. It’ll sell for only $60, which is quite a bit cheaper than most other smart thermostats on the market….

Dave LeClair Sep 28th, 2021

How to Manage Your Credit Card With Alexa

A little-known capability of the Amazon Alexa voice assistant is finances. You can manage your credit card from select credit institutions by using any Alexa-powered device and a simple wake phrase.

Ray Prince Sep 20th, 2021

How to Have Alexa Alert You When a Person Emails You

Waiting on an important email, but don’t want to look at your phone every time you get a notification? Alexa can provide real-time updates on virtually anything, including new emails from Gmail, Outlook, and Hotmail….

Ray Prince Sep 14th, 2021

How to Donate to Charity With Alexa

Feeling generous but don’t want to fill out lengthy donation forms? Through Alexa Donations, you can easily donate to select charities. All you need is Amazon Pay and a simple voice command to make a little difference in the …

Ray Prince Sep 5th, 2021

Amazon Alexa Will Now Yell Over Loud Noises

Try as we might, we can’t always be in a quiet place. Amazon knows this, and it’s adding a new feature to Alexa that’ll make the digital assistant speak louder when it detects that you’re talking to it in a noisy place….

Dave LeClair Sep 1st, 2021

How to Make Your Amazon Echo Listen for Specific Sounds

Among its 100,000+ skills, Alexa includes a Sound Detection feature, which allows it to listen for specific sounds and respond with a routine or command. Today, we’ll show you how to set this feature up and put it to work….

Ray Prince Jul 30th, 2021

How to Set Up and Use Alexa to Get Help in an Emergency

If you have an Alexa-enabled device, you’re not alone in an emergency situation. Along with Alexa’s laundry list of concierge services, like sharing local news or weather updates, it can also request help in the event of an e…

Ray Prince Jul 29th, 2021

How to Set Up Customized Alexa News Flash Briefings

Alexa is arguably the greatest news update tool of all time, providing timely news updates on everything from Philadephia Eagle’s scores to national politics. Now, you can enjoy customized Alexa news flash briefings….

Ray Prince Jul 28th, 2021

How to Schedule Lights with Amazon Alexa

With Alexa Routines, you can schedule your lights to turn on and off, change brightness, and change colors. You can even create schedules for your lights to run on specific days and times. Today, we’ll show you how….

Andy Nguyen Jul 26th, 2021

How to Create a Task Checklist with Amazon Alexa

When you’re heading out the door for the office, school, or a trip, do you like that one last check to make sure you have everything? With the Task Tracker blueprint, just ask Alexa to run through your list….

Sandy Writtenhouse Jul 23rd, 2021

How to Share a Shopping List with Amazon Alexa

Amazon Alexa’s endless array of concierge-like services even extends to sharing shopping lists with loved ones. With a little list management, you can send shopping list items to contacts and receive notifications….

Ray Prince Jul 22nd, 2021

How to Order Groceries with Amazon Alexa

Amazon Alexa is the ultimate concierge, allowing you to do everything from paying for gas to translating conversations in real-time. Now, you can enjoy hands-free, on-demand ordering of groceries from Prime Now, Amazon Fresh,…

Ray Prince Jul 20th, 2021

How to Use Alexa’s Reading Sidekick Feature to Help Kids Read

If your child is learning how to read, Amazon’s Reading Sidekick gives you a way to let them practice on their own. Here’s everything you need to know to take advantage of this feature on your Alexa device….

Nicholas Fysz Jul 18th, 2021

How to Have Alexa Count the Days to Your Event

Alexa may be your go-to assistant for smart home control, but you can do much more with it than that. Using Blueprints, you can create a skill of your own, like having Alexa count the days to an event….

Sandy Writtenhouse Jul 17th, 2021

How to Use Alexa’s Live Translate Mode

Amazon’s Alexa language recognition capabilities extend beyond listening to simple voice commands asking for weather updates and turn-by-turn directions. Now, Alexa’s neural machine translation and speech recognition technolo…

Ray Prince Jul 16th, 2021

How to See Power Consumption with the Alexa Energy Dashboard

Amazon Alexa’s Energy Dashboard can help you monitor energy usage and save power across Alexa-enabled devices. It displays energy consumed by your devices and other useful stats. You can also set automatic actions, such as sh…

Ray Prince Jul 14th, 2021

7 Alexa Skills to Make Your Life Easier on Amazon Echo

Alexa can give you weather and traffic reports on your Amazon Echo devices, so you can always plan accordingly. You can also use third-party skills such as Nag My Kids to tell the kids to brush their teeth….

Andy Nguyen Jul 14th, 2021

Complete Guidesby How-To Geek

Our Latest Product Roundups

Reader Favorites

More from How-To Geek

Latest Geek News

Reader Favorites

More from How-To Geek

Latest Windows Articles

Reader Favorites

Complete Guides
by How-To Geek