Amazon Alexa Skills Explained
When first jumping into SmartHome technology, the requirement to download or enable a specific skill can be quite confusing. Here we hope to shed some light on the subject and help you to get the most out of your platform of choice. Amazon’s Alexa Platform refers to these bolt-on applications/drivers as “skills.” To date
Skills enable you to personalize and customize your experience with your platform of choice. The easiest way to think about skills is to compare them to an application you download onto a Smart Phone or a home computer. Additionally, when referencing smart home devices, you can think of skills like you would a driver for that new printer you just purchased.
Alexa Skills are used on hardware including:
There’s really two mains categories of skills that can be enabled or downloaded. First, it’s Applications, like you’re used to using on your Smartphone of choice. Second, it’s drivers for SmartHome devices.
Types of Skills you can enable/download for Amazon Alexa:
Downloading Smart Home Skills
SmartHome Skills can feel like drivers for hardware components such as Light Bulbs, Switches, Plugs, Vacuums, etc. Most hardware components will require you to enable a 3rd party skill to interact with them.
Additionally, with SmartHome skills, you may be required to link an account that you’ve set up with that particular SmartHome manufacture. It’s highly likely that you will end up with multiple skills dedicated to various smart home tech.
Using Skills
Alexa Skills are used by voice command. Application type skills can be enabled by saying:
“Alexa, open (Insert Skill name here)” or
“Alexa, play (insert game skill name here).
SmartHome skills are typically tied to the hardware components that you have integrated. So control is as simple as saying:
“Alexa, turn on (insert home appliance here)”
In the background, Alexa knows to “ask” the skill to execute the command. Below is a screen snip after toggling the on button for a smart switch. In this example the Switch is the: TanTan WP3 Smart Plug and the skill is SmartLife.
We hope this article shed some light on the Alexa Platform and how Skills Enable a new and exciting user experience for Amazon Smart Products. Find More information on Amazon’s website here: Amazon’s Alexa.
