Alexa tricks and skills

[Darrell KSR]

No, Doc...this isn't Katina's classier cousin. This is the Echo thing.

This thread may go nowhere--I don't know who uses Alexa in their ecosystem; maybe very few people, and this will have no interest. I use one at home (it used to be at my office, but I relocated it last week) and one in my car. I'll post my most recent "favorite" skill I found.

Recollect Manager. I tried 7 different ones, and all of them were terrible. This one, pretty good. Basically, you tell Alexa to "open Recollect Manager," and it does. Then you can say, "where is my round dial tire gauge?" It will tell you it has one memory of it, and will replay when you previously told it you put it in your SUV's console. You can tell it to "Remember my wifi password at work is honestAbe1776, and then ask it later, "What's my wifi password at work?" You can tell it to "memorize that I put my gun safe key in the china cabinet behind the gravy boat, and then ask it later, where's my gun safe key?

Strengths -- unlike most of them, it actually recognizes your language very accurately. By far the best. Does a great job of matching up what you ask with the correct memory. You don't have to remember exactly, for example, I could have said "where's my gun key" and it will play the memory. Or if it sort of matches two things, it will tell you it has two "memories" on that, and play them both. Really nice.

Weaknesses -- some really irritating ones. First, it doesn't ask you to verify what you just asked it. So if you screw up when you are asking it to memorize something, you just have to live with the screwup. I do that occasionally, so I try to be very careful when I ask it to remember something. Some of the others say, "you want me to memorize that you have your gun safety in the chinese cabinet--right?" and you can tell it "no," and start again. You can't do that here. 2nd weakness -- you can't delete. So if you move something--for example, you change your tire gauge to your minivan, and want to remember that, you have two memories when you ask about your tire gauge, one saying it is in the SUV, and one in the minivan. Actually, you CAN delete, but if you delete, you delete every memory, not just the one you select. That's an issue. Final weakness--there's no ability to print that out, which is what I'd like to do from time to time. I think what I'm going to do it to create a google spreadsheet/table and put on there what I have included in Recollect Manager. That way I have a backup, AND if I start to change passwords, move things around, want to "fix" where I mispronounced something, etc., I can.

So a lot of weaknesses. But it's really cool.

I'll add more skills to the thread if this thread has interest. Coming up: calendar, traffic/commute, Todoist, news brief, etc.

[Catfan73]

Does it recognize your voice? Or if I break into your house and ask Alexa for the combination to your safe is she going to tell me?

[Darrell KSR]

Does it recognize your voice? Or if I break into your house and ask Alexa for the combination to your safe is she going to tell me?

I think it recognizes ANYBODY's voice. She will be all-too glad to tell you, if you know to ask, "Alexa, open ______" (whichever skill you're using), and then "tell me where I put my XYZ."

I think the odds of that are rather low, unless one of you reads this thread, knows my specific Alexa skill, and breaks in!

[blueboss]

Does this count as a trick?

I have a Google Home, so I said:

Hey Boo Boo, unleash the fart.

She said:

Okay, pull my finger, then she made a raspberry sound.


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[Doc]

No, Doc...this isn't Katina's classier cousin. This is the Echo thing.

There is no "classier" than Katrina. But there is the Evil cousin Natasha