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Once you’ve found out how Amazon’s Alexa voice control works and what it can do, it can make your everyday life easier in many ways.
Your personal assistant with voice control: How Alexa works
Amazon’s voice assistant Alexa is clever and almost always helps you. We reveal exactly how it works below.
- Alexa runs via smartphone app, on Amazon Echo devices and on certain third-party gadgets. Some of the Amazon devices themselves also have a display and have different sound qualities depending on the price.
- Your voice assistant waits for an activation command like “Alexa” and then records and evaluates the following words.
- First, it transcribes what you say. Then an algorithm tries to find out what you want to do via keywords. This works in a similar way to Google search.
- Now Alexa can retrieve information from the Internet, your Amazon account or third-party services for you and play it back to you as voice output.
These tasks Alexa can do for you
Alexa can help you with many everyday tasks from home.
- For example, you can create a shopping list with Alexa or ask Alexa to set an alarm clock.
- If you have a subscription to a streaming service like Amazon Music or Spotify, you can say something like “Alexa, play 90s music” and Alexa will play the appropriate music for you. If you have a Fire TV or smart music system, you can also play content through it and control playback with just your voice.
- You can order products directly with Alexa using your Amazon account. For example, try “Alexa, order cat food”. After being told the product name and price, you can pick a product and say “Buy now. “
- Alexa can also do small talk. Try asking Alexa how old she is or if she has a pet. If you wish, Alexa can even sing a song for you or recite a poem, making her a great conversation partner, especially for older people with few social contacts.
- We will introduce you to the most useful voice commands in another practical tip.
