Gadgetory

frankly Alexa speakers can be pretty overwhelming at first where do you even begin what features should you try first and what features truly matter here are five of the most important tips for new Alexa users first personalize your flash briefing think of this as an update for all the things that you truly care about it'll give you the weather for your home address as well as updates from other news and sources that you follow to change which sources play in your flash briefing in which order they play open the Alexa app on your phone then go to settings and then flash briefing there you can toggle sources on or off remove them and find new ones which range from CNET NPR and top reddit posts to sports channels word of the day and recipe tips from Food Network to play your Flash briefing just say Alexa what's in the news or Alexa play my flash briefing here's what is in the news your top story of the day Apple admits it's Lowe's older iPhones earlier this year Amazon added voice recognition to its multi-user support it's called a voice profile and everybody gets one and it allows Alexa to learn your voice and distinguish it from other people that may use your Alexa speakers this means that you can add events to your calendar and your to-do and shopping lists without interfering with other people's lists and calendars it also means you don't have to specify that it's you to play your preference and music or get events from your specific calendar to set up a voice profile open the Alexa app on your phone and go to settings then accounts and then tap your voice tap begin and select the nearest Alexis speaker and follow the on-screen prompts after it's had ample time to learn your voice you can say Alexa Who am I and she will tell you who is speaking Taylor is speaking you're in Taylors account one of the most helpful and often overlooked commands for Alexa is making her repeat herself if you didn't hear what she said or you just like to hear it again for reference you can say Alexa what did you just say the last answer will be repeated to you verbatim out of the box Alexa speakers can play music from several different sources Amazon Prime music Amazon music and limited Spotify Pandora iHeartRadio Sirius XM and tune in if you find yourself using one service over another pretty often you can simply change the default music service to do this open the Alexa app and go to settings music and media choose default music service you change the default you will no longer have to specify where you want music to play from if your preferred music service isn't officially supported by Alexa you can still use your Alexa speaker to stream that music using bluetooth to turn on Bluetooth and enable pairing say Alexa pair then in the Bluetooth settings from your phone computer or tablet select the Alexa speaker to pair after they're paired the Alexa speaker will work just as any other Bluetooth speaker and to connect your phone manually to the Alexa speaker say Alexa connect from time to time you'll issue a command to Alexa and she'll say sorry I don't know that one or she's not sure when this is the case it's a perfect time to check out the skills section in the Alexa app skills are - Alexa speakers as apps are to your phone there are third-party software that enable your speaker to do much more than a can out of the box skills range from games like jeopardy and 20 questions to travel apps like kayak support for smart home devices and ambient sounds with over 20,000 skills available the list of possibilities for Alexa continues to grow for more Alexa tips and tricks and other how to's be sure to check out see Netcom forward slash how to