Amuse your kid and impress your guests, the Amazon Echo is a hit all around. Better than a dicer/chopper and less annoying then that last gizmo you got on As Seen On Tv.

The Echo is a stand alone voice like Siri (intelligent personal assistant and knowledge navigator) device.  It listens for its wake word and then responds to the command given.  The most common commands at our house are “Alexa, set timer for xx” followed closely by “Alexa, please play Jpod.”

The timer function is hands down our favorite. You can set and cancel the timer from your mobile device, as well as via voice, and it helps immensely to have a hands free timer when cooking. As for music, you have a plethora of options: upload your library to Amazon, use the music in Amazon Prime, connect to IHeartRadio, and or connect to Pandora.  More options are constantly being added.

Recently, Echo has provided support to a limited range of connections in IFTT that can also help you to connect to list making services like Evernote, Todoist, and Google Sheets.

This by no means is even close to an exhaustive list of commands that Echo knows. New commands and integrations are added often, including some new ones that work with several smart light  bulbs.

On a parental note. Since we have a small child, we quickly realized that to teach our child manners we must ourselves demonstrate them. Having a robot that takes our commands is great but having a kid who can’t tell the difference between giving commands to a robot and giving them to a person is not.  So remember to thank your Echo for every action and to politely ask it to play your favorite tunes.

Next time: “Fry all the Potatoes – aka Burning Down the House via Mobile.”