From controlling Philips Hue smart lights to delivering coronavirus updates, Alexa brings a lot of talents to bear.
Amazon's voice assistant, Alexa, is infiltrating your home, your beach trips and even your ride to work. Now that there are many ways to interact with Alexa -- with the Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Studio, Echo Look, Echo Show, Dash Wand, Echo Flex and the Amazon Fire TV -- you might find yourself talking to her more often.
The list of commands is expanding rapidly, as is the number of third-party services and devices that Alexa officially (and unofficially) supports.
Here is the (almost) complete list of Amazon Alexa commands.
Summoning Alexa
By default, Amazon's connected speakers have the same wake word. All you have to do to queue up a request is say, "Alexa." In the Amazon Alexa mobile application or at echo.amazon.com, you can change the wake word to either Amazon, Echo or Computer.
If you have an Amazon Tap, Dash Wand or the Amazon Fire TV voice remote, you'll need to press a button to wake Alexa. Amazon updated the Tap with a hands-free mode that you must enable in the settings. The only wake word available to the Amazon Tap is Alexa.
Earlier this year, Amazon added a feature called Follow-Up Mode that makes it easier and faster to issue multiple commands to Alexa without having to keep repeating the wake word. When you enable the feature, Alexa will continue to listen for another command after it's completed your first request. You can keep issuing more commands until you're done or until you say "stop."
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Amazon has also built on this a multiple commands feature by allowing you to string two related commands into one. You can say something like, "Alexa, play folk music in Amazon at volume six," or "Alexa, add bread, milk and eggs to my shopping list."
Editors' note: Originally published on April 13, 2016, this article is regularly updated to include new Alexa commands, features and information.
Other places you can access Alexa
While the most obvious or natural way to use Alexa may be through an Echo speaker from Amazon or a third-party speaker, it's not the only way you can call up Amazon's digital assistant.
In fact, there are more and more ways to access Alexa being created all the time and you don't even need any specialized devices. Here are some of the most prominent ways to use Alexa with the devices you already have:
Within the mobile apps, the wake word won't work. Instead, you'll have to look for the Alexa icon and tap that to queue up the assistant. Not all features -- like reminders -- work within the mobile apps either.
On an updated Windows computer, open Cortana and say, "Open Alexa." After the initial connection is made, saying this will queue up Amazon's assistant through Cortana.
Alexa Echo Auto connects allows you to connect your phone to Alexa in your car. Echo Auto is capable of carrying out many of the commands and features as your home device.
The complete list of Alexa commands
The list of Alexa commands is expansive and grows with every new service or device it supports. Alexa isn't perfect, but it's pretty great at understanding natural language, so you don't always have to speak the commands exactly as you see them below. Many commands work when worded several different ways or even with words omitted.
When you consider the possible third-party commands through Skills, essentially the apps of Amazon's Alexa, the list goes on even further. To learn what individual skills are capable of, visit the skill's page from the Amazon Alexa app or alexa.amazon.com.
Coronavirus commands
Echo Show
The Echo Show and Echo Spot are the only Echo speakers with touchscreen displays. This means you can tell them to show you things.
Fire TV and Fire TV Stick
You can now use compatible Echo devices (Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Look, Echo Show and Amazon Tap) to control your Fire TV and Fire TV Sticks.
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