Alexa Skills are like apps that make your Amazon Echo and Fire devices more powerful.
The best Alexa Skills
If you have ever owned an Amazon Echo smart speaker or other Alexa-enabled devices, you're already familiar with the basic vocal commands that you can issue to Alexa and what the virtual assistant can do for you. You know that you can use Alexa to play music, get news bulletins and updates, control your smart home devices, and even set timers and reminders. However, while you may have heard about Alexa Skills, you may not really know how powerful they can be.
Historically, it has been challenging to wade through the thousands of Alexa Skills to find useful ones, and even more difficult to remember which skills you'd already enabled...
We've taken a lot of the guesswork out of finding great Alexa Skills and compiled them into this list for your quick and easy reference. This list is by no means exhaustive or comprehensive, but hopefully, it'll help you try new Alexa Skills so you can truly get the most out of Amazon's virtual assistant. Note that any of these skills can be enabled from Amazon's website, by asking your Alexa device, or in your Alexa app. All are free to enable, though some may have in-skill purchase options.
The best News and Entertainment Alexa Skills
The best Alexa Skills
You can find news and entertainment skills from a wide variety of local, national, and international media outlets such as NPR, ESPN, and The Weather Channel, not to mention Hulu, Disney, and game shows like Jeopardy. Set up a Flash Briefing or add news updates to custom Alexa Routines. Whatever your preferred source, chances are there's an Alexa Skill for it.
NPR
NPR, or National Public Radio, is one of the most recognized and trusted news sources in the U.S. Mostly funded by donations and grants, the organization focuses on in-depth reporting on politics, science, social, and cultural issues facing Americans.
The NPR Alexa Skill allows users to stream a live feed from their local NPR station or any station they set as their default in the Alexa app or by asking Alexa. Users can ask for specific programming such as Morning Edition, and they can skip past stories they don't want to hear by asking Alexa to skip.
NPR
Get live news or daily updates from your local station or any in the NPR network.
ESPN
The ESPN skill plugs you right into the action of ESPN's radio network. You can listen to specific programs and hosts or peek into live programming. There are also ESPN Alexa Skills for flash briefings, and many ESPN radio stations have their own skills. This skill is particularly easy to enable with just your voice. Simply ask Alexa to "Play ESPN Radio," and you'll be basking in sports highlights in no time.
ESPN
Hear your favorite ESPN personalities and programs, and follow live ESPN radio stations through this popular Alexa Skill.
The Weather Channel
The official Weather Channel Alexa Skill can give you the temperature, weather, and allergy forecasts in your area, as well as provide updates on the Coronavirus outbreak and much more. On Echo Show and Fire TV devices, you also get live radar and weather maps.
The Weather Channel
Keep up to date on the weather in your area and plan for the days ahead with the most popular and trusted weather Skill.
This Day in History
Even if you're not a history buff, this is a fun Alexa Skill to have in your quiver. Each day the History Channel delivers new updates based on what happened on — you guessed it — this day in history. You can request the update at any time or build it into your morning flash briefing. You can also skip to specific dates by asking Alexa something like, "Alexa, ask This Day in History what happened on May 2nd," for example.
This Day in History
This skill brings history to life by telling you what happened on this day in years gone by.
Disney Stories
This Alexa Skill is perfect for the little ones in your life. Alexa channels Disney characters that can read stories from Monsters, Inc., The Lion King, Frozen, and more. Some stories are free while others require a small in-skill purchase. Alternatively, Freetime Unlimited (now Amazon Kids+) subscribers have access to all of the stories as part of their subscription.
Disney Stories
What could be more fun for your young ones than to ask Alexa to have Disney characters read their favorite stories to them?
Jeopardy
Jeopardy is one of the longest-running and most popular game shows in TV history for one main reason: it's lots of fun! The quiz show where you are given the answers and have to provide the questions is one that players of all ages can enjoy, and the game is well-suited to the Alexa Skill format. This skill is free to enable, but there are in-skill purchases available as well.
Jeopardy
Play Jeopardy at any time through your Echo speaker with Alexa leading the way. It's fun for individuals or groups of friends and family.
The best Health and Fitness Alexa Skills
The best Alexa Skills
This is one of Alexa Skills' fastest-growing categories. From guided workout routines that you can follow along with checking up on your fitness band stats, Alexa has many ways to keep you in shape and line. There are also many skills to help with holistic health, wellness, and mental well-being, such as apps for yoga, guided meditation and reflection, and skills for rest and relaxation.
7-Minute Workout
With many of us spending much more time at home and away from the gym, we are looking for other ways to stay in shape. 7-Minute Workout provides a series of over 25 exercise programs from low-impact up to advanced. Best of all, you can complete them in under 10 minutes (hence the name). The skill is free to enable and offers in-skill purchases for additional workouts and reporting.
7-Minute Workout
If you only have a few minutes to spare, the 7-Minute Workout Skill can help you get into shape and stay in shape from the comfort of your own home.
Animal Workout
Adults aren't the only ones who need to burn off some energy now and then. Thankfully, there are fitness skills available for kids as well. Animal Workout makes exercising fun for younger kids, allowing them to pretend they're different kinds of animals while they move about. The skill is free but offers in-skill purchases that add new workouts and animal characters.
Animal Workout
If you are looking for a fun way to get your young kids some physical activity, give this skill a whirl. It will build their muscles while also building their imaginations.
Fitbit
If you wear a Fitbit to monitor your basic health metrics and track your workouts, then you'll want to enable this Alexa Skill. When you connect your Fitbit account, you can ask Alexa to tell you how you're doing for the day, how you slept last night, or how many steps you've taken. What a great way to stay on track!
Fitbit
Ask Alexa to help you stay on track with your fitness goals by checking in to see how you're doing in the Fitbit skill.
6-Minute Full Body Stretch
Being fit means more than just having strength and endurance. It's just as important that you stretch your muscles to prevent injury and speed up recovery. Stretching can have other therapeutic benefits as well, including helping to keep you calm and centered. With this skill, you can reap the benefits of a good stretch in the time it takes to make a pot of coffee!
6-Minute Full Body Stretch
Keep those muscles, tendons, and ligaments limber with six minutes of stretching each day. Just ask Alexa to open the full-body stretch skill and get started today.
Headspace
Even in the best of times, life can be a bit overwhelming, but now that we're in the midst of a pandemic and other socioeconomic upheavals, we're all feeling more stressed and depressed than usual. Guided meditation has been shown to help people cope with pent up feelings and frustrations and get into a better headspace. This official Headspace skill is free to enable, and if you're a Headspace subscriber, you can follow your existing programs with Alexa or in your Headspace app.
Headspace
It's more important than ever to take care of your mental health and emotional wellbeing, and an Alexa Skill like Headspace can help you do just that.
Rain Sounds by Sleep Jar
I've been using this Alexa Skill for several years now as a white noise app to help me sleep. While you can find other Sleep Jar skills for calming sounds like thunderstorms, oscillating fans, or animals, I find the steady rhythm of a rainstorm puts me to sleep almost instantly. I even use it through the Alexa app on my smartphone when I'm away from home. Even if you don't want to use this app for sleep, it's great to block out other distracting noises to help you focus and concentrate on the task at hand. This skill is free to enable, but in-skill purchases are available for improved audio quality and enhanced looping with 10 hours of continuous playback instead of one hour with a sound gap.
Rain Sounds by Sleep Jar
Whether it's to help you sleep or block out distractions, the Rain Sounds by Sleep Jar Alexa Skill is one of my favorite white noise skills/apps.
The best Food Alexa Skills
The best Alexa Skills
Food skills are where the dream of ambient computing is realized by busy and lazy alike. You can enable numerous cooking and recipe skills to follow along with while making your next big meal, and you can even take advantage of grocery list skills so that you know what to buy for that next kitchen session. If all of that is too much work, just order something yummy from a restaurant skill or reserve a table if you want a night out.
Food Network Kitchen
The Food Network Kitchen Alexa Skill brings your favorite Food Network stars to the small screen of your Echo Show for live and on-demand cooking classes and over 80,000 recipes. You also get commercial-free access to Food Network shows and live Q&A tutorials with Food Network chefs.
Amazon has an interesting partnership with the Food Network and has been offering the Food Network Kitchen Skill and channel for free for a year with new Echo Show devices. In fact, this is a skill that works best with screened Echo devices. To enable this video skill, you will need to go to the TV & Video section within your Alexa app's Settings menu.
Food Network Kitchen
Bring the best of the Food Network to your Amazon Echo Show for cooking tips and guidance and recipes from your favorite Food Network shows and stars.
OurGroceries
OurGroceries is one of the most popular shopping list apps on iOS and Android, and it's also one of the most popular Alexa food skills. You can ask Alexa to add items to your shared grocery lists, which are instantly synchronized on all of your devices, which have the OurGroceries app. It's a convenient way to keep your family grocery lists in sync while cooking or remembering a new item to add.
OurGroceries
Keep your family's grocery list in sync with the easy-to-use Alexa Skill.
Meal Idea
Interactive recipe skills and grocery lists are great, but what if you have no idea what you want to cook? That's where the Meal Idea Alexa Skill comes in to play. You can ask Alexa to give you a random meal idea or for more specifics based on the ingredients you have. Alexa will then push the idea to your Alexa app's home screen so you can decide if you want to go grocery shopping or plan for your next get-together.
Meal Idea
Ask Alexa for your next Meal Idea so that you're not stuck trying to figure out what to cook at the end of a long, hard day.
Domino's
This is one of my most-used Alexa Skills because of the effort to reward ratio. I can just ask Alexa to start a Domino's order and have my yummy pizza in hand shortly, or I can ask Alexa to order a saved order from my Domino's pizza profile. I can even ask Alexa to track my order's status when I'm getting impatient and hangry.
Domino's
Start your next pizza night off right with the Domino's Alexa Skill. Reorder a favorite or start a new order, and then keep track of it all with Alexa's help.
Starbucks Reorder
Like the Domino's Alexa Skill, with the Starbucks Reorder Skill, you can ask Alexa to reorder your favorite caffeinated beverage or pastry and have it ready and paid for when you arrive at the store. That's just about as convenient as it gets! In fact, you can actually order from between your last five previous orders. Just ask Alexa to "tell Starbucks to start my usual order."
Starbucks Reorder
If you've never had a human assistant get your "usual" coffee order, now you can have your favorite virtual assistant handle it for you.
OpenTable
We may not be going out to restaurants nearly as much during pandemic times, but there are still places where you can go out, practice social distancing, and enjoy a safe and healthy meal at your favorite local restaurant. You can use the OpenTable Alexa Skill to search available time slots and make a booking for you. Support local businesses and feel like a high-powered executive thanks to Alexa.
OpenTable
Now Alexa can search restaurant availability and make you a reservation through the OpenTable Alexa Skill.
The best Productivity Alexa Skills
The best Alexa Skills
Alexa-enabled devices can sometimes be a distraction, but they can also keep you on track. Get Alexa to jot down an important reminder, or use a skill to find your phone if you've misplaced it. Your kids can use skills to check on their homework while you try a cleaning skill to make sure your home is as healthy as possible.
Todoist
Todoist has been my favorite to-do app for more than five years. It's also one of the most popular productivity apps across just about every ecosystem. This skill syncs your daily Todoist tasks with your Alexa to-do list each morning and also syncs any tasks you add to Alexa back to Todoist. Whenever you add something to your Alexa Shopping List, it will appear in a corresponding list in Todoist, and vice versa.
Todoist
Stay on top of your day by using Alexa to interact with your favorite to-do app.
Find My Phone
This Alexa Skill seems silly until you need it, and then it's the most important skill around. I've used it several times when I needed to locate where I misplaced my phone around the house (it's usually in the couch cushions). Alexa will call your phone, and then you can following the ringing, buzzing, or vibrations to location your precious smartphone.
Find My Phone
Never lose your phone again with this utilitarian Alexa Skill.
UPS
If you're someone who regularly receives packages (like, I don't know, a tech reviewer), then this is a great Alexa Skill to enable. You can track your UPS packages and ask Alexa if any deliveries are coming your way. When you link your UPS account to the Alexa Skill, you can even track packages without a tracking number!
UPS
Get Alexa to help you keep track of all of those UPS deliveries so that you can get back to work or play.
Canvas
If you have grade school-age children, chances are you're familiar with the Canvas application for managing coursework and assignments. When you link your child's account to your Alexa app, your child can ask Alexa what homework assignments they have or if there are any new announcements from the school.
Canvas
Alexa can help your kids stay on top of their homework thanks to the Canvas skill.
Uber
We all know what Uber is, so no need to rehash that here. However, what makes this such a great skill is that you can just ask Alexa to order you a ride rather than pulling out your phone and fiddling with the app. It's actually much more convenient when you have your hands full and/or are in a hurry.
Uber
Order an Uber in seconds with this handy Alexa Skill instead of trying to get the app out.
Cleaning Buddy
Keeping your living space clean and tidy has always been important, but it's particularly so these days. This Alexa Skill can make cleaning fun (yes, I said fun) and help keep you on task with tips, scheduling, and even music.
Cleaning Buddy
The Cleaning Buddy Alexa Skill can help you stay on a regular cleaning schedule. It even adds in exercises and songs between tasks.
The best Smart Home Alexa Skills
The best Alexa Skills
Amazon has the largest ecosystem of smart home products, and it even owns some of the biggest names in smart home devices like Ring, Eero, and Blink. The chances are that if you have a smart home device, there is an Alexa Skill available. From bulbs to vacuums and cars to printers, this is an area where Alexa really shines.
Ring
Ring is an Amazon company well-known for its high-quality smart cameras, doorbells, and other home security devices. When you connect your Ring account to the Alexa Skill, you'll be able to ask Alexa to show you feeds from your various cameras and arm or disarm lights and security systems. If you use the Alexa Guard feature, you can connect your Ring security system to keep you notified of alarms or security breaches.
Ring
This skill lets you use Alexa to control your Ring smart home devices and see live camera feeds and recorded footage in the app or on your Echo Show or Fire TV devices.
Blink Smarthome
Like Ring, Blink is another Amazon smart home security company. It makes several affordable smart home security cameras that we highly recommend, particularly if you're not a fan of its Ring products. This skill works similarly to the Ring skill in that it allows you to monitor and control your Blink cameras through Alexa.
Blink Smarthome
Ask Alexa to show your security camera footage or to turn off any of your Blink cameras with this skill.
Wyze
Wyze is another manufacturer of quality, affordable smart home security technology, and this skill lets you access and control it all via Alexa. Wyze makes various indoor and outdoor cameras, lights, and even smart doorbells and door locks, all of which will work with this skill.
Wyze
Use Alexa to control your Wyze smart home devices.
Eufy Home
If you have any Eufy smart home products like lights or robot vacuums, you'll want to be sure to download this Alexa Skill. Our favorite use of this skill in my home is to ask Alexa to tell "Gene," our Eufy robot vacuum, to start cleaning (Eufy sounded like Eugene, which became Gene).
Eufy Home
This is another useful Alexa Skill to enable if you have any smart home devices manufactured by Eufy.
Toyota
These days the smart home extends into the garage and out to the driveway, where your beloved automobile lives. Many car manufacturers have Android and iOS apps that let you do things like unlock your vehicle, start your car, or turn on the heater, and nearly as many have Alexa Skills for these functions as well. We picked Toyota here on a whim, but there are similar Alexa Skills for Audi, Ford, Chevrolet, Lexus, Genesis, Ram, and many more.
Toyota
Have Alexa ask Toyota to start your car, unlock your car, or see how much gas you have in the tank.
HP Printer
You may not have realized it, but you can ask Alexa to print things like to-do lists, recipes, or crossword puzzles as long as you have the HP Printer skill enabled. Now you don't have to go to your computer or pull out your phone. Just ask Alexa! There are similar skills for Epson and Canon printers.
HP Printer
Alexa can speak to your HP Printer to print out shopping lists, coloring pages, or other documents.
The best Build Your Own Alexa Skills
The best Alexa Skills
One of the coolest Alexa features that almost no one knows about is Alexa Skill Blueprints. Blueprints give you the power to create your own Alexa Skills based on your devices and needs. You can create a practical Blueprint with instructions for the pet sitter or create a fun Blueprint to dish out insults to your roommate. The sky is the limit here! Amazon offers templates for you to get started, or you can create something unique!
School Schedule
Use this template to build out a school schedule to help keep your kids on task, whether they're going to school in person or learning remotely. You can create custom reminders for different Echo devices per class period and ask Alexa to tell you what class is next on the schedule.
School Schedule
This custom Alexa Skill is great for parents of younger schoolchildren, but it is particularly useful in households where both the parents and the kids are working from home.
Chore Chart
No more fighting with your kids or roommates over who does which chore with this custom Alexa Skill. You can create a list of household members, assign each weekly chores, and schedule them. Then you can ask Alexa what your chores are for each day and keep track of who is doing what with a "chore score."
Chore Chart
Keep your household running like clockwork with this Alexa Skill to manage chores.
Houseguest
This skill is great for those who may have an Echo device in a guest room or may lend or rent out properties to others. You can set up the skill to let Alexa tell guests where you keep common household items, how to operate appliances, where you keep important contact information, or the Wi-Fi password! That way, they can get what they need without bugging you all the time.
Houseguest
This Alexa Skill blueprint is fantastic for those with frequent houseguests.
Babysitter
Like the Houseguest Skill, this Babysitter Skill is a great way to leave important information for the sitter. They can simply ask Alexa to open My Babysitter and instantly get information like where you keep the diapers or what junior's allergies are.
Babysitter
This skill is the best friend of babysitters and parents alike. It helps them keep track of important information or where everything is.
Personal Trainer
If none of the official third-party fitness skills suit your needs, no problem! You can create your own with this template and ask Alexa to start your personalized workout. Best of all, you can update it at any time to keep things interesting and engaging.
Personal Trainer
Who needs a personal trainer when Alexa has your back?
Build Your Own!
We've highlighted several of Amazon's Skill Blueprint templates, but the beauty of these Blueprints is that you can make them into just about whatever you want. For example, I built one to compliment my wife, which is particularly useful when I've done something stupid (which is frequently).
Build Your Own!
You have the power to make your own skills thanks to Alexa Skill Blueprints.
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