How to Use Alexa

Co-authored by wikiHow Staff

Last Updated: February 26, 2022 Tested

This wikiHow teaches you some of the most useful Alexa abilities and the voice commands you need to use them. Once you have set up a new Echo you might not know where to begin. Since there are so many different abilities it can be hard to know where to start, so this will help you get to know some Alexa abilities you will want to start using on a day-to-day basis. You may also want to give Alexa's wikiHow skill a shot.

Part 1

Part 1 of 3:

Asking General Questions

1
Ask for the time. Get the current time or the time in different cities around the world. You can also ask about when different days are.
- "Alexa, what time is it?"
- "Alexa, what time is it in London?"
- "Alexa, when is Easter?"
2
Ask about the weather. Ask about local weather, the weather in a particular city or a weather forecast for either.
- "Alexa, what's the weather today?"
- "Alexa, what will the weather be like on Tuesday in Chicago?"
- "Alexa, is it going to rain?"
Advertisement
3
Get current traffic info. To enter in your home and work address in the Alexa app, tap ☰, then Settings and tap Traffic. You can also ask about traffic to a certain location.
- Say "Alexa, check traffic," to get the travel time to the work location you set.
- "Alexa, how long will it take to get to 45th Street?"
- "Alexa, what's the traffic like to Home Depot?"
4
Get a flight status.
- "Alexa, what's the status of American Airlines flight 4444?"
5
Check stock prices. Say the name or spell the symbol of any stock on the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ.
- "Alexa, check Amazon stock."
- Alexa, stock price for A-M-Z-N."
6
Get a definition, use the thesaurus or get the spelling of a word. If you're reading or writing something, you don't even need to look away from the page, just ask:
- "Alexa, what does 'flocculant' mean?"
- "Alexa, what's another word for 'big'?"
- "Alexa, how do you spell 'maintenance'?"
7
Do mathematical calculations. Ask Alexa to add, subtract, multiply, divide, get the square or cube root, power or factorial. You can only use one operation at a time though.
- "Alexa, what's 92 divided by 14?"
- "Alexa, what's the square root of 5?"
- "Alexa, what's 100 factorial?" (Hint: It's a really big number.)
- Alexa may know other math questions as well, so give it a try if you're not sure. For instance, she can answer some questions about prime factors, give you the value of 'pi' or 'e' and calculate sine, cosine or tangent.
8
Get measurement conversions. Convert to or from any imperial or metric units of volume, weight, distance or temperature or get conversions to and from different currencies. This can be especially helpful when you are cooking.
- "Alexa, how many milliliters in 2 and a half cups?"
- "Alexa, 10 kilometers is how many miles?"
- "Alexa, how much is 100 dollars in Australian dollars?"
9
Ask general knowledge questions. Try asking about things like facts about geography, general info on celebrities or historical figures, about movies or TV shows, nutrition facts on food, and various other facts and figures. You can also ask Alexa to search Wikipedia and she will read several lines from the article.
- "Alexa, what's the population of Chicago?"
- "Alexa, where was Abraham Lincoln born?"
- "Alexa, what year was '12 Angry Men' released?"
- "Alexa, when does 'Game of Thrones' air?"
- "Alexa, how much saturated fat is in a steak?"
- "Alexa, how far away is the moon?"
- "Alexa, how tall is a giraffe?"
- "Alexa, Wikipedia 'fractals.'"

Part 2

Part 2 of 3:

Entertainment

1
Listen to music. Listen to Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Prime Music, iHeartRadio or SiriusXM.
- "Alexa, play dance music on Pandora."
- "Alexa, play Post Malone."
- "Alexa, play Maggot Brain by Funkadelic on Spotify"
- You can now play music over multiple devices if you have more than one Echo.
2
Listen to Podcasts. Alexa will play the latest episode of the podcast you request. While you can play/pause, fast forward or rewind, if you ask Alexa something else while listening, you will lose your place in the podcast.
- "Alexa, play Radiolab."
3
Play Audible audiobooks. As long as you are logged in to your account, your playback position should be synced between the Echo and any other devices you listen on.
- "Alexa, play Ready Player One."
- "Alexa, resume my book." (Plays the audiobook you last listened to.)
- "Alexa, go back/forward" (Goes back or forward 30 seconds.)
4
Play most Kindle Books. Using text-to-speech Alexa can read many Kindle books from where you last left off and keep your place. ^{[1]
X
Research source}
- "Alexa, play the Kindle book, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry."
- "Alexa, pause/resume."
- "Alexa, set a sleep timer for 15 minutes."
5
Play music over Bluetooth. Just pair any Bluetooth-enabled device, like your phone, to play anything on Alexa.
- After the device has been paired initially just say, "Alexa, enable Bluetooth." or "Alexa, connect." to pair that device again.
- This is often a better option for playing podcasts than Alexa's native ability since you have more control over playback and won't lose your place.
6
Play a game. There are many game skills available for Alexa in the skill store. Popular ones include:
- Jeopardy! There are also Sports and Teen versions of the game. Remember to answer in the form of a question! "Alexa, play Jeopardy!"
- Song Quiz. This popular game will match you against an opponent and ask you to identify clips of music. "Alexa, start Song Quiz."
- Twenty Questions. Play this classic game and try to stump Alexa. "Alexa, play Twenty Questions."
- The Magic Door. This is basically a choose-your-own-adventure novel being read out loud to you. "Alexa, open The Magic Door."
- Go to the skill store to browse through many other games skills.

Part 3

Part 3 of 3:

Practical Features

1
Use Timers. You can manage and pause timers from the Alexa app.
- "Alexa, set a timer for 12 minutes and 30 seconds."
- "Alexa, set an 'chicken' timer for 15 minutes."
- "Alexa, check timers."
2
Set alarms. You can even set an alarm to wake you up with a particular artist, song or genre of music. Manage alarms from the Alexa app.
- "Alexa, set an alarm for 4 pm."
- "Alexa, set an alarm for 7 am to the Beatles on Pandora."
- "Alexa, set a repeating alarm for 8 am every weekday to 80s music on Spotify."
3
Set reminders. Alexa can remind you to do something at a specific time or after a certain amount of time has passed.
- Reminders will also go off on your phone through the Alexa app, so you will be sure to be reminded even if you aren't nearby your Echo.
- "Alexa, remind me to take out the trash in 1 hour."
- "Alexa, remind me to go to the bank at 4:30 pm."
4
Connect your calendar. Go to the Alexa app and tap ☰, Settings and Calendar. Follow the steps to link your account. Currently, Google, Microsoft (Outlook, Office 365 or Exchange) and Apple accounts are supported. Now you can ask Alexa about events on your calendar or add an event to your calendar.
- "Alexa, add an event to my calendar." (Alexa will then prompt you for the day, time and name of the event.)
- "Alexa, what's next on my calendar?"
- "Alexa, what's on my calendar for Thursday?"
5
Get shipping updates on Amazon orders. Alexa will also give you a notification when a package has been delivered or will be delivered that day.
- "Alexa, check my packages."
6
Listen to your flash briefing. Set up what news services you want to get in your flash briefing by going into the Alexa app and tapping ☰, Settings and then Flash Briefing. Alexa will now read breaking stories from these services whenever you ask her to.
- "Alexa, read my flash briefing."
7
Make phone calls or call through the Alexa app. Alexa can make outgoing calls simply by asking her to dial any U.S., Mexican or Canadian number. If you have contacts added on the Alexa app you can also make a voice call, send text messages (over the Alexa app), or use the drop in feature if you have set it up.
- "Alexa, dial 555-555-5555."
- "Alexa, send a message to Susan." (Alexa will then prompt you for the text message you want to send)
- "Alexa, call Susan."
- You can also send and receive voice calls and Alexa messages from the Alexa app. Tap on the speech bubble icon at the bottom of the screen. If you haven't yet set up messaging yet, it will walk you through the set up.

Community Q&A

Question

Will she understand me if I say, "This is so sad, Alexa, play Despacito"?

Sir Basmati

Community Answer

Yes, but she'll play the Justin Bieber remix, so you might want to specify which Despacito.
Question

Do I need to subscribe to a service to use Alexa?

Community Answer

No, although to get the best out of your Amazon Echo, you might want to subscribe to things such as Prime, Amazon Music, Audible or Spotify.
Question

What is the minimum equipment needed to run an Echo Dot?

Community Answer

It needs power, either from wall adapter or from your own source (such as a power pack, solar panel with regulator, etc.). Then you just need to connect it to the internet (which will require a cablemodem/router), and that's it.