In late 2017, Amazon opened up push notifications for Alexa app developers, which means as long as people follow the guidelines, all kinds of apps can add push notifications to your Alexa-enabled speaker. This allows Alexa users to set push notifications for a growing number of Alexa skills and native abilities, so that Alexa can speak up on your device and give you important updates as you want them. Just what can Alexa do with these notifications? Here’s a list.
Even if you don’t see a capability on the list, it’s worth checking your Alexa skills to see if you can enable a voice alert. Fortunately, third party notifications won’t suddenly turn on by themselves. If you miss any enabled notifications, you can ask Alexa to review your recent notifications to make sure you caught everything.
Apps like Accuweather can provide you with weather warnings if there’s a particular alert for your area like high windows, flooding, and so on. You can also ask Alexa “What’s the weather like?” at any time to get a rundown of the temperature, forecast for the day, and any ongoing alerts. Make sure the location is set to your current town.
Recommended VideosApps such as Kayak can offer information on flights and flight times, as well as when planes have landed. This allows you to keep track of loved ones in the sky, plan for pickups at the airport, and many other useful things.
What would the world be like if we couldn’t find out the latest on our pizza order? One of the first third-party apps to enable notifications was, of course, Domino’s. They now allow customers in the United States to get notifications about their pizza orders. You can now be apprised of when the pizza is cooking and when it’s about to be delivered.
Alexa also provides a native traffic information notification option that you can add to your general Alexa morning update, or ask about at any time. Currently, this is one of Alexa ’s weakest offerings, since Alexa ’s sources of traffic information appears to be pretty limited, so it’s not much use outside urban areas.
The app provides updates on your loved ones, giving you notifications on where they are based on who you are tracking. This means you can set up the app to automatically notify you when someone with a tracker gets to school, leaves work, and so on. Like Domino’s, this is basically the same updates the app provides on its own, but set up as a voice notification via Alexa instead.
Alexa will automatically search for news headlines and provide them to you on demand (a feature that can be customized with various skills for different types of news). However, specific apps like The Washington Post offer the ability to enable automatic notifications. When an important piece of breaking news comes up on the skill, Alexa will tell you about it. This is one of those notifications that you’ll either love or hate, depending on how closely you follow the news.
Order something through Amazon, and Alexa will notify you when your package has shipped, so you can know when to expect it. You can also ask for additional updates on where the package is and if it’s out for delivery. This is especially useful for Prime users, who can expect many packages within two days but may want more specific information for important shipments.
Currently, sports-oriented skills rarely push notifications that prompt Alexa to speak on her own, but they do provide a wealth of information and updates on demand. You can search for skills to get updates on scores, sports news for your team, upcoming game days, injuries, fantasy league stats, and a lot more.
If you’ve forgotten what was added to a recent shopping list, just ask Alexa, and she’ll give you an update on all your shopping list items. Note that Alexa can now distinguish between different voices as well, which may cause her to create multiple shopping lists for different people. This could create some confusion if it happens unexpectedly.
You can also program Alexa to give you automatic reminders that you can set yourself.
These reminders are handy when you want Alexa to tell you about specific tasks that you may otherwise forget. You can specify the times that Alexa gives you the reminders, and make them re-occuring if necessary.
If it can be streamed, voice-activated, made better with an app, or beaten by mashing buttons, Tyler's into it. When he's not…
Need a smart lock? This one dropped below $200 for Labor Day
The Labor Day deals hang on and that means there’s still time to upgrade your home with a superior smart lock for less. Right now, you can buy the Eufy Video Smart Lock E330 for just $190 meaning you’re saving $90 off the usual price of $280. The 32% saving makes this one of the better smart lock deals around, but you’ll need to be quick as it’s a limited time deal. Here’s what you need to know before you buy.
Why you should buy the Eufy Video Smart Lock E330
Offering many of the features that the best smart locks provide, the Eufy Video Smart Lock E330 is a great addition to your home. It works as a 3-in-1 security device. It has a speedy fingerprint recognition based smart lock, a 2K HD camera with an f/1.6 lens, and it works a video doorbell too.
The Amazon Labor Day deals are sticking around after the holiday, but not for much longer. You don't have long left to grab a Eufy X8 Robot Vacuum for $200 instead of $320. Once the stock allocation is fulfilled the deal ends, so you don’t have much time to save $120, or 38%. One of the better Labor Day deals around, this is a big price cut, and it’s the ideal way to streamline how you clean your home. Ideal for anyone seeking robot vacuum deals today, here’s all you need to know about it before you buy.
Why you should buy the Eufy X8 Robot Vacuum
Eufy is a big name in the robot vacuums world, even if you won’t see its name among the best robot vacuums. Popular for offering great value solutions, the Eufy X8 Robot Vacuum has all the essentials you need.
If you tend to experience a lot of dry skin or coughs, then it's very possible that grabbing yourself a good humidifier can help you quite a lot. It can help bring the humidity back up to a more comfortable and healthy level, and you don't even need to buy one of the best humidifiers on the market to get something that will help. In fact, there are some pretty great discounts you can snag right now on some budget-oriented options, although there are also great deals on bigger humidifiers made for bigger spaces that can last longer. Either way, we've rounded up some of our favorite humidifier deals below, and while you're at it, be sure to check out these air purifier deals and air conditioner deals that might also help a bit.
Rosekm Humidifier for Bedroom -- $22, was $33
Another great budget option that's slightly more aesthetically pleasing is the Rosekm Humidifier for bedroom, and is great if you need something for a relatively small area as it can cover 323 square feet. It has a solid 0.53 gallon reservoir and can run for a full 24-hours on the lowest settings, although you're more likely to use it on the higher settings. Output sits at around 200ml/h, so it should help raise the humidity quite quickly in a smaller room, while the 360-degree nozzle lets you aim it to wherever you need the humidity first.
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