Amazon Echo

Amazon Echo product line consists of multiple different size speakers and some with displays.

Amazon’s voice is known as Alexa

Amazon Echo is made to be laced around the house and it answers questions for you and
acts as a personal assistant.

Works really well with IFTTT (If this then that).

With Amazon integration adults with autism can also use the device to order items they may need.

My Amazon Smart Speakers Video

Amazon Echo Alexa Skill Blueprints

Alexa Features

Alexa makes your life easier, more meaningful, and more fun by letting you voice control your world. Alexa can help you get more out of the things you already love and discover new possibilities you’ve never imagined.

The Amazon Alexa app is a quick, easy way to try Alexa on your phone, as well as set up and manage compatible devices.

Alexa Skills bring you great experiences from top partners you know and love, as well as tens of thousands more for you to discover. Play games, listen to podcasts, meditate, order food—there’s something for everyone.

Advocate Uses Amazon Echo to Help at Home

Alexa Smart Home

  • Connect devices such as smart lights, camera, televisions and thermostats.
  • Create routines, Routines are short cuts for Alexa, saving you time by grouping together a bunch of actions so you don’t have to ask for each one individually. There are many ways to activate Routines -via voice, time of day, with your smart home devices, when you turn off your alarm, and more.
  • Guard: Set up Guard for free in the Alexa app to get mobile alerts if your Echo devce detects the sound of a smoke alarm or glass breaking while you’re away. You can also subscribe to Guard Plus for even more help protecting your home—liken Emergency Helpline you can call with just your voice.

Alexa Productivity

  • Set timers and alarms
  • Manage and personalize your calendar and email
  • Stay organized and set reminders
  • Create to-do lists and manage notes

Alexa Shopping

  • Whether your hands are full or you’re on the move, Alexa helps you build and share lists with everyone in the house so you can focus on what matters most.
  • Add items to your shopping list using your voice with Alexa, and it will automatically go into your app (Alexa or Amazon). It will always be in your phone, whenever and wherever you need it!
  • You can track your orders and confirm the delivery date with Alexa. Alexa can also notify you when your package is delivered. Once you receive and use the product you ordered, you can rate it with Alexa and provide valuable feedback to help other customers.

Alexa Entertainment

  • Alexa has an array of fun ways to keep the good times rolling. Rock out to beats from your favorite streaming services, including Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, SiriusXM, and Pandora or listen live to a radio station of your choice. Get all this and more on your Echo device or devices with Alexa built in.
  • Prime members and Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers can make a variety of special music requests.
  • Binge on your favorite podcasts with your Echo device. And, ask for recommendations in your favorite podcast genre.
  • Let Alexa bring you the best of Audible. Listen to best sellers and new releases plus, stream our new Plus Catalog. It’s filled with exclusive Originals, popular audiobooks, and bingeable podcasts. All available at home and through your Echo device.
  • Speaker groups allow you to play music, podcasts and news on multiple Echo devices at once, providing a multi-room audio experience. In the Alexa app, you can create custom speaker groups, such as “Upstairs,” “Bedrooms,” or “Downstairs.” You can also just say, “Alexa, play music everywhere,” and music or audio will play together on all the supported devices throughout your home. Learn how to listen to music everywhere using Multi-Room Audio.

Care Hub: A free remote caregiving solution from Alexa

The Care Hub offers new ways to remotely check in on parents or loved ones with features that let you know they’re up and active –so you can worry less. All you need is an Echo smart speaker to get started.

  • FREE with the Alexa app.
  • Stay updated on how your loved one is doing. Receive daily alerts and emergency contact notifications to your phone.
  • Easy for your loved one to use –they just use their Alexa-enabled devices like normal.
  • See a snapshot of Alexa and smart home interactions to check if everything is OK.
  • Set up alerts to notify you on your phone when your loved one first uses Alexa, or if Alexa is not used by a certain time.
  • Alexa will call and message your phone when your loved one uses their voice to ask for help.
  • Set up alerts to notify you on your phone when your loved one first uses Alexa, or if Alexa is not used by a certain time.
  • Get quick access to call or drop in (works like an intercom) from the Care Hub in the Alexa app.
  • It’s easy to check in and know everything is going well throughout the day. A quick glance at the activity feed shows your loved one’s activity by category (like entertainment). You won’t see the song they played or what they said. Set up alerts to notify you if there’s no activity or when the first interaction happens every day. It’s reassurance for you and independence for them.
  • Alexa will call and send a notification to your phone if your loved one asks for help. You can then call or drop in on them through the Care Hub, or decide to contact emergency services.

Alexa News

  • Whether you are listening to hours of coverage from NPR, a short news update from your Flash Briefing or being alerted to breaking news on your device, Alexa is here to keep you informed. Learn how your Alexa-enabled device can help you stay up-to-date on the latest news, when and where you need it.
  • Access long-form news coverage from top Alexa news providers like NPR, Fox News, ABC, Bloomberg and more. You can listen to top headlines, popular news shows, interviews and more, all from your favorite news outlets. Even better, news is on-demand, so you always start at the beginning of a show and can skip to the stories that interest you most.
  • When you are crunched for time, Alexa Flash Briefing gives you the day’s top headlines from newsrooms like CNN, Bloomberg, and Reuters. You can also find Flash Briefings in categories that interest you most like humor, sports, entertainment, gaming, healthcare, and more.
  • Make listening to the news even easier by incorporating your customized Flash Briefing into an Alexa Routine. Either set up a custom Routine to include your daily Flash Briefing or enable a Featured Routine in the Alexa app such as “Alexa, start my day” or “Alexa, good morning” to listen to your short news update as you get ready for the day.

Alexa Routines

Routines are short cuts for Alexa, saving you time by grouping together a bunch of actions so you don’t have to ask for each one individually. There are many ways to activate Routines -via voice, time of day, with your smart home devices, when you turn off your alarm, and more.

Fun with Alexa

Alexa can be your go-to sidekick for fun at home. Just ask her to play a game and she can open it on your FireTVstreaming device, Echo Show, or Echo Dot. You can also ask her to tell jokes and play trivia. Check out some examples below, and scroll down to discover all the ways Alexa can entertain the whole family.

Alexa Multi-Room Audio

  • Speaker groups allow you to play music, podcasts and news on multiple Echo devices at once, providing a multi-room audio experience. In the Alexa app, you can create custom speaker groups, such as ‘Upstairs,’ ‘Bedrooms,’ or ‘Downstairs.’ You can also just say, “Alexa, play music everywhere,” and music or audio will play together on all the supported devices throughout your home.
  • If you have two of the same Echo device models, you can use the Alexa app to create a left-right stereo pair for a wider sound stage or add the Echo Sub for increased bass.
  • Transform your living room by turning it into a home theater. With the Alexa app, it’s easy to pair your Fire TV and compatible Echo devices and take your streaming experience to the next level with Alexa.

Alexa for Kids and Family

  • Alexa can help kids learn and grow—while having fun along the way. And with free parental controls from Amazon Kids, you can make Alexa kid-friendly. Discover how kids can use Alexa, watch helpful how-to videos, get answers to FAQs, and more.
  • Amazon designs Alexa and Echo devices with multiple ways to manage privacy protection from microphone controls to the ability to view and delete your voice recordings, so parents can feel in control. Once Amazon Kids is enabled, Alexa will give kid-friendly responses, filter songs with explicitylyrics and give you access to the Amazon Parent Dashboard where easy-to-use parental controls let you review kids’ activity and set time limits at no extra charge. Learn more about privacy.
  • Alexa is packed with skills and features that help kids learn and grow every day. When they’re feeling curious, they can ask Alexa questions. If they’re stuck on their homework, Alexa can help.
  • Alexa can help the whole family with simple ways to kick-start and wind down each day. In the morning, kids can wake up to an alarm or their favorite music. At bedtime, they can get lost in the magic of a narrated tale from Disney Stories or fall asleep faster with Sleep Sounds.
  • Routines are shortcuts for Alexa, saving you time by grouping together a bunch of actions so you don’t have to ask for each one individually. Grownups can create their own routines to personalize Alexa’s responses via voice, time of day, or your smart home devices. Try out our Amazon Kids recommended routine.
  • Skills are like apps and with your permission, kids can explore skills for games, learning, music and more. To grant permission for your profiles simply visit Manage Parental Consent. With Amazon Kids+ you can unlock more skills content.

Alexa Information

  • Get help planning your day. Alexa can tell you the weather forecast and how your commute is looking.
  • Get facts on all kinds of topics. If you have a question, Alexa will have an answer on things like calculations, conversions, and other facts.
  • Ask for the latest sports information, including scores, schedules, standings, statistics, and more.
  • Alexa helps you find places and products at local businesses. She can also tell you movie showtimes at nearby theaters.
  • Translate words and phrases into more than 50 languages including Spanish, French, Japanese, German, Chinese, Italian, Hindi, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Norwegian, Swedish, Romanian, Danish, Dutch, Icelandic, andWelsh. Fingers crossed for Pig Latin!

Alexa hacks for the Kitchen

  • The kitchen can be a hectic place. Whether you’re putting groceries away, meal planning, prepping meals and following recipes, or even helping kids finish homework, Alexa is ready to pitch in. Below are some helpful Alexa hacks that can make life easier in the kitchen.
  • Find, save and cook along to step-by-step recipes from Food Network Kitchen, Tasty, Allrecipesand more. Plus with a premium subscription to Food Network Kitchen you will have access to thousands of free recipes, on-demand classes, and your favorite Food Network shows ad-free. Just say, “Alexa, open Food Network Kitchen” to explore.
  • If you’ve found the perfect dinner recipe but check the fridge and need ingredients,
  • Alexa can help here too. Alexa can also help around the smart home. Check in on the nursery camera while washing the dishes or wind down with smart lighting and multi-room music.
  • Use Alexa to add items to your grocery list. Check the list in the Alexa app while on the go and even share it digitally with your partner at the supermarket.
  • Short on time? Ask Alexa what you can use as a substitute ingredient, or order the item via Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods Market in select areas.
  • While Alexa helps you keep track of the cooking with multiple timers, enjoy some background music or quickly catch up on a TV episode by streaming Prime Video or Netflix.
  • Messy kitchen at the end of the night? Take the time to call your friends. Use voice or video calling via your compatible Echo device to catch up with family and friends who couldn’t be there and make chores fly-by.

Alexa hacks for the bedroom

  • An Echo device brings so much more to the bedside table than a standard alarm clock. Use your voice to set your favorite song as your alarm, check the weather, add reminders, get traffic info, check your calendar, and more. With Alexa by your side, you have everything you need to start your day right.
  • Create custom Routines in the Alexa app to get mornings moving, automatically. You can start them using your voice, an alarm, or a time. For example, when you say “Alexa, good morning,” Alexa can kick off your day with the weather forecast, followed by words of inspiration and news updates.
  • Ease into the evening with your favorite songs from Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, and more. Not in the mood for music? Kick back and listen to an Audible book or that podcast you can’t get enough of.
  • Your Echo device gives you access to dozens of Alexa skills designed to calm your mind and give you a good night’s sleep. Follow a guided meditation with skills like Headspace or drown out ambient noise and drift off to dreamland with Sleep Sounds.
  • Echo Dot Kids Edition is our most popular smart speaker with Alexa, designed specifically for kids. Kids can ask Alexa to play music, hear stories, call approved friends and family, and explore a world of kid-friendly skills. Parents can also set alarms or send announcements to keep the family on track.

Alexa Autism-Related Skills

  • Learn About Autism
    Because every person is different, no one thing can be said about autism and be true overall. Learn About Autism from our daily flash briefings.
  • Autism Facts
    Learn facts about Autism.
  • Autism Help
    Autism Help is designed for parents and caregivers who are busy and overwhelmed, to use the convenience of Amazon’s Echo device to teach functional, social and verbal skills. You will be offered skills to work on, with each step of that skill provided. You can work on multiple areas at a time, and Alexa will track your progress.
  • Spectrum Autism Research –Briefing
    Your latest update from Spectrum, the leading source of news and expert opinion on autism research.

Additional Smart Home Add-Ons

  • Smart Plugs
  • Add to Lights, etc.
  • Microwave
  • Smart Oven
  • Echo Glow
  • Various Lighting
  • Smart Entry Systems
  • Detectors and Sensors
  • Home Entertainment
  • Pet Accessories
  • Vacuums and Mops
  • Lawn and Garden