These are the best skills of Alexa and Amazon Echo, the ”applications” that we can install on our device to make Alexa more interactive and help us in more tasks, or entertain us if that is what we are looking for.
Amazon Echo launched in India a month ago, and sure they have become one of the best gifts this Christmas. Smart speakers get attention, and the skills are the best things about the Amazon Echo and Alexa. That is why, to get all the juice out of your new smart speaker, we will see the best Alexa skills for India.
An element that differentiates Echo from competition devices, such as Apple’s HomePod or Google Home, are the skills. These are applications that we install to make our virtual assistant more capable.
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How skills are installed in Alexa
First, you must see how Alexa’s skills are installed. It would be great to be able to tell the Amazon Echo ”Alexa, install the Alexa skill”.
In the configuration menu of the application, we select the section ”Skills and games” and, there, we begin to explore. And for now, the application is not the most intuitive that exists but has three categories ”discover”, ”categories” and ”my skills” where we can see the different applications.
When we have selected the one we want, we all have to click on it and select ”allow its use”. After a few seconds in which the skill is activated, we can say the activation words to start using the skill in Alexa.
If you want to deactivate the skill, repeat the same process, but give it to ”disable skill”. By the last, before moving to the best Alexa skills in Amazon Echo, from the section ”My Skills,” we see those that need an update and those that we have activated. Now, let’s see what are the best skills of Alexa at this time, the most useful or with which we spend more time.
Trivial
The Trivial skill of Amazon Echo is one of the most used. It is one of the best skills of Alexa to play alone or with three other friends. It is the classic Trivial Pursuit and has two levels of difficulty, questions for children and adults.
The Trivial Pursuit Family skill is one of the best in the Amazon store. Although you have to keep in mind that there are times a few times when you will give us an answer, the app doesn’t pick the right words said and makes the answer incorrect, so be careful with that.
Cookpad
The Amazon Echo is a great tool for cooking. We have already told you that one of the best functions of the Echo, at least one of the most used, is the timer to control the cooking times of food. It’s great that you can perform a timer handsfree, and it can also tell us some recipes.
That’s what the Cookpad skill does for the Amazon Echo. This is one of the two cooking skills that we have on the list, and this one specifically serves well to give us cooking recipes. Its use is quite simple, and all we have to do is open it with the activation command and ask for a recipe for a pizza, for example.
At that time, Cookpad will begin to drop a string of instructions and start with the most basic. In the case of pizza, for example, the dough. We can advance at our pace, the app tells us how long it takes to make each recipe, and the truth is that the variety is not bad.
Direct to the palate
The skill of Direct to the palate is another of the best skills of Alexa. It is another cooking skill that perfectly complements Cookpad, since the dishes that one lacks there are available here, and vice versa.
Its use is just as simple, and we found many recipes step by step to cook dishes that we might never have considered. Something good that this cooking skill has for Alexa is that it has dynamic content. What does this mean? Many skills on this list have that qualification, which means that they are periodically updated to add content. In fact, for desserts, Direct to the palate seems to me, even a better skill than Cookpad, nothing more than how dictates the instructions.
Bamboo is perfect for meditating
When talking about the best features of Alexa, the skills of the Bamboo app is a must to recommend. It is one of the best skills of Alexa because it helps us to take a few minutes and rest our minds.
It is an app that is not to be put in the background since it requires that we participate actively. This skill will help us to initiate ourselves into the universe of mindfulness, a relaxation technique that wants us to put our mind to rest and is worth, for example, to have more energy in the day-to-day to free ourselves from stress.
Hue
If you want an Amazon Echo to start building a smart home, Philips Hue devices should not be missing. One of the best intelligent skills with Alexa is the pleasure of regulating light.
In addition to controlling light bulbs, the Hue skill in Alexa serves to create environments. That is, we can configure different environments with bulbs that have different regulations or colors and manage them with this skill. That is, with the skill, we can go beyond the classic ” Alexa, turn on the bedroom lights ” to ask, for example, ” Alexa, put the relaxing atmosphere in the room ”. Of course, this skill does not come alone, and we need to have the Philips Hue application installed on the mobile phone.
Sounds to sleep
If you are one of those who has trouble sleeping if you do not have a background sound (hey, it can happen), this skill is for you. It is a skill that has many sounds that reproduce in the background to help us fall asleep.
There is a fairly interesting variety of sounds, such as a thunderstorm, rain, ocean, or jungle, but also the rattle of a train, the crackle of the chimney, a cat purring, and more rare things like a vacuum cleaner, the sound of a shower or a dishwasher. In addition, it has a tool to add more sounds; its managers are very aware of the feedback of users and have dynamic content that will be updated in the future.
Xiaomi Universe
If you like Xiaomi and have an Amazon Echo, you can now not listen to a podcast that tells the brand news. Universe Xiaomi gives you the news with a fairly relaxed tone.
For example, it is a perfect format to listen to while having breakfast or preparing food since it is enjoyable and you hear a lot about all the news from Xiaomi.
Television news in four minutes
Something similar is what this skill offers is a TV content report that allows us to be informed of all kinds of news about what it takes to make a coffee. It’s an application that opens with a simple command of ”Alexa, what is the news of the day” and tells us the most remarkable events that happened around us.
These are news that is distributed by Amazon, and if you have the Amazon Echo Spot, the Amazon Echo with a screen, you can also follow the summary of the news on video in a very pleasant format.
Environmental sounds: Distant storm
In addition to the sleep application we mentioned before, This app also offers skills focused on this type of sound. and offer variety to choose the distant Storm as we could have chosen any of the others since the variety of themes is quite broad.
It is one of the best skills of Alexa since it fulfills what promises, to loop a background sound that comes great in those periods in which we need to study, and we can not stand the ringing of the ears when we close our eyes a little while to rest the view or when we are lying down doing nothing because all we need is a background sound to relax.
Chill Out Radio
Music is a very important component of the Amazon Echo. The quality of the speakers of the four Echo is quite high and, therefore, they are great solutions if we need a Bluetooth speaker. We can use the Echo both with the music of a device that we connect by Bluetooth and with what we reproduce from Amazon Prime Music, Spotify, or TuneIn.
However, on those ”radios” relaxing music is not abundant, and that’s why Chill Out Radio is one of the best Alexa skills you can try if you need quiet music to set the workspace or because you love this style. The variety is quite wide and, in addition, the loop lasts long enough to enjoy a good relaxation session.
Akinator
Akinator is one of the best Alexa skills games. It is a game in which we must think of a real or fictional character, and Alexa must guess who she is.
Through different questions, to which we respond with ”yes” or ”no”, Alexa delineates the character until we finally give an answer. It is an application of the most fun to which we can play as many players as we want and that always goes well to set a party.
The dreams of Pocoyo
The Dreams of Pocoyo is one of the best skills of the Amazon Echo because of the simple but also effective skill that tells stories of Pocoyó set in different times and places. It keeps the little ones entertained and, in addition, the narration is very good.
Yes, some stories may be missing since the range is not very broad, but its creators have marked it as a skill with dynamic content, so we can expect more in the future with Updates.
