Amazon’s Alexa,

and what can it do?

Alexa is Amazon's interactive, all-knowing voice assistant. Alexa can do quick arithmetic for you,
start your favorite playlists, check news and weather, and control many of your home's smart goods.
Alexa is available on Amazon's Echo speakers, intelligent thermostats, sound bars, lamps, and
lights, as well as straight on your phone through the Alexa app.

Who/what is Alexa?
Most people only need to know that Alexa is the name of the voice that may be heard through Alexa-
enabled speakers. In a nutshell, Alexa is Amazon's equivalent of Apple's Siri. Alexa is a voice to
which you may ask questions and receive responses, such as "How is the weather in Chicago today?"
Alexa is built into several Amazon services and may be used with devices like the original Amazon
Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Spot, Echo Show, and Amazon Fire TV.

But really, who is Alexa and what does she do? When you ask Alexa a question, you're talking to a
cloud-based service. The Alexa Voice Service (AVS) is designed to resemble real conversations, but
you use intuitive voice commands to direct it to complete specific tasks. "Alexa" is merely a "wake
word" that signals the service to begin listening to your voice. To receive a response from most
gadgets, simply pronounce the wake word.
The Alexa Voice Service (AVS), according to Amazon's Developer site, is hosted in the cloud.
Amazon's AVS is a natural language understanding and intelligent speech recognition service. Any
connected device with a microphone and speaker can use the service to voice-enable it. As a result,
Alexa is beginning to appear in headphones and other devices. According to Amazon's Developer site,
"Alexa is continually getting smarter with new capabilities through machine learning."

While Alexa is Amazon's official voice assistant, you may also use "Amazon," "Computer," or
"Echo" as a wake word. This is a great tool, especially if your name, your partner's name, or your
roommate's name is Alexa or something close.

Why Alexa?

Siri is an Apple product. When you say "OK, Google," Google Home activates the Google Assistant.
Alexa is a virtual assistant developed by Amazon. But why is that? The name "Alexa" was picked for
several reasons, according to David Limp, an Amazon executive who oversaw the service's
development. To begin with, the name "Alexa" is a reference to the Library of Alexandria, which
aimed to compile all of the world's information. Amazon is aiming to accomplish something similar.
Alexa is always learning, but it should be a constant source of information in principle.

The service's name, Alexa, was chosen because it contained the unusual "X" sound. Because this is a
voice-activated service, Amazon needed a moniker that wouldn't be mistaken with other terms that
can bring the gadget up accidentally:

“We went over a few names, and the name is just as significant as the computer-based speech
computer in the cloud for the personality it produces around the persona. "But it's also based on
computer science," Limp explained. "If any of you have Echoed, please let me know," says the
narrator. You know it only wakes up when it hears the word "Alexa," and the phonics of that word, as
well as how it's parsed and the fact that it has a hard consonant with the letter "X," is crucial in
ensuring that it only wakes up when it's called for. As a result of the combination of those two factors,
we were able to narrow in on Alexa."

Alexa & Us
You'll need a gadget that supports Alexa's voice technology to use her. This usually refers to an
Amazon device like an Echo, Echo Dot, or Echo Show, but the cloud-based personal voice assistant is
also integrated into the Echo Auto and some third-party systems. Alexa works with select third-party
products, including the Eco bee Switch+ light switch, the LG Insta View refrigerator, headphones
(such as Echo Buds and some Plantronics models), and the fore mentioned Sonos One speaker. Alexa
was even set up to work with a Big Mouth Billy Bass.
Alexa is also at the heart of several smart-home systems, such as Wink, SmartThings, and Logitech
Harmony. Alexa may also be used to piece together your smart home, as it can pair with hub-less
devices like WeMo switches and Nest thermostats.

Here's a rundown of some of the top Alexa-compatible smart home products.

What can Alexa do?

The list of commands Alexa can understand seems to grow daily. Amazon calls these “skills,” and
you can even create your skills through Amazon Blueprints. Upon review from Amazon, you can
even publish your skills in the Amazon Skills Store for other people to use on their Alexa devices.
The number of tasks that Alexa can accomplish is  more than we can list in this article.

In addition, Alexa can assist people in establishing sleep and morning routines. All you must do is
assign a command, and that command can set off a chain of events. For example, saying "Alexa,
goodnight" may cause the machine to turn off all the lights in the house, arm the security system, and
put on an ambient noise machine all at once.

You may also customize your routine; for example, you could tell Alexa to turn on your favorite
lighting, wait 10 minutes, and then start the coffee maker. If you get up earlier than your partner, you
can use Alexa's whisper mode, in which she responds in hushed tones and actively listens for your
murmurs. In our how-to article, we show you how to set up routines.
When you're not at home, Alexa Guard is a useful security feature that attentively monitors the
perimeter of your property as well as activities inside it. If your Echo speaker detects unusual sounds,
such as breaking glass or another strange noise, Alexa will send you a notification to investigate.
You'll get the same home-monitoring feature, access to Amazon's emergency hotline, and several
additional security tools with Alexa Guard Plus (a premium version of the same feature).

By developing useful and intuitive technology, Amazon is continually working to improve and
expand Alexa's functions and capabilities. For example, the business is now working on adding
frustration-detection features, which would allow Alexa to recognize your tone and determine if
you're annoyed with her. Simply ask Alexa, "Alexa, what's new with you?" to discover more about
these new Alexa features. and she's delighted to share.