The Echo is a great addition to your home. It’s really useful if you have kids around and can be used for various purposes such as playing music, math games, and word games.
Setting Up an Echo
If you have not signed in and checked your Echo, the ring that goes around the top should not light up orange. This means that the WiFi setup process is not yet complete.
If the light is not orange, you may need to press and hold the Action button for 5 seconds to turn it on. The Action button is in the center of the phone. Go to your phone’s WiFi settings and make sure that your network is enabled.
The setup screen should appear and it will remind you to make sure that the light ring is orange before continuing.
If everything is properly set up, you should see a message saying “Connected to Echo” on the next screen. Tap Continue to continue the setup. ..
When you first set up your Echo, you will be asked to choose a WiFi network. This is the network your Echo will connect to when it is powered on. You can change the WiFi network or connect to additional networks later on using the app. ..
The Echo will show you a progress bar as it is prepared. ..
To start talking to the Echo, open the Echo app and click on the Home screen. There you’ll see a tip that tells you how to customize Alexa. To start talking to Alexa, just click on the card that says “Talk to Alexa.”
The Echo works by asking questions and then responding with information. For example, if you ask “Alexa” and then say “What’s the weather like?“, it will tell you verbally, but it will also show the information in the app.
Customizing Alexa
The Echo has a voice training feature that you can use to improve the accuracy of your voice commands. ..
In Settings, you should find the Account section and change your music, news, sports, calendar and traffic settings.
To get started, all you need is an internet connection and a TV. You can use these devices to access the various streaming services and get your news. There are a lot of options available, so I won’t go into detail here. Just check out the different sections on the website to see what suits your needs. ..
Sports Update is a website that allows you to see all of your favorite teams and Alexa will give you an update on all of them when you ask. Traffic only allows you to enter a start and ending destination for now, so it is only good for people who commute everyday on the same route, i.e. home to work. Calendar can be used to add events to your calendar.
The first way to learn the commands is by reading them online. The second way is to tap on the three lines at the top left and then tap on Things to Try.
The Alexa voice assistant has many built-in features that are useful for tasks and activities. The most common feature is timers, which can be set for a specific amount of time or for a specific day. Alarms can be set for a specific time or day, and can also have different sound effects.
Alexa, can add items to your shopping list or to-do list. You can also ask Alexa questions like simple math or conversions. For facts, the device seems to rely on Wikipedia, so that’s either a good or bad thing, depending on who you ask. ..
Alexa Skills
There are a bunch of skills that are currently most in use. However, the list is getting better by the day. Some of these skills are really good. For my kids, I use Baby Animals, Spelling Bee, Human Body Quiz, Mental Math, and Dinosaur Facts. I really like the Mental Math skill for my five-year old daughter.
I use the Capital One skill, This Day in History and Random World Facts. I also have the TP-LINK Kasa and SmartThings skills enabled so I can control my switches, etc. via Alexa. In a future post, I’ll write instructions on how to setup your Smart Home devices with Alexa.
