Key Points
- Our choices for the best Alexa skills are those that make your life easier!
- The best Alexa skills are the ones that work flawlessly every time.
- Alexa skills let you customize your personal assistant. These are the ones you probably didn’t know exist but should install now!
- We use Alexa every day, and here’s our list of the ones we use the most often.
Alexa can help us with so many things, from setting reminders to giving us recipes and news. However, did you know she’s capable of so much more than her native features? Pair Alexa with some lights for hands-free control of your lamps, or set her to play music on speakers all over your house. Or, add skills and give her a bit more functionality and customization.
If you want to make Alexa a little more useful, we’ll tell you about our favorite Alexa skills. If you need to upgrade some of your Alexa devices, check out our top picks here.
- Sound automatically adapts to any room
- Control your music streaming service with your voice
- Built-in hub to voice control compatible smart devices
- Set timers, reminders, and alarms with Alexa
History-Computer’s Top Picks for Alexa Skills You Never Knew About
Best Alexa Skill for Freebies: Send Me a Sample
The Send Me a Sample Alexa skill is hands down one of the most lucrative and rewarding skills you can enable! You know that your Echo devices can help you stay on schedule and give you recipes. But did you know you can enable a skill to get free stuff delivered right to your door? The Send Me a Sample skill does just that! You must create a Send Me a Sample account and enable the skill, but after completing those short and simple steps, Alexa will show you products with a sample logo.
Whenever you see a product with the sample logo, simply say, “Alexa, send me a sample,” and she’ll order it for you! If you like freebies, this is an excellent skill for you!
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| You can get a variety of free samples. | There is limited product availability. |
| Alexa reminds you to ask for a sample. | It can take up to 14 days for shipping. |
Best for Staying Organized: Alexa, Open Morning Routine
No matter what your mornings look like, Alexa is better with a morning routine, and the Morning Routine skill is a must-have! Fortunately, there’s a skill to help you get through either hectic or relaxing mornings. The Morning Routine skill is an excellent way to start your day!
The Morning Routine skill can motivate you, check tasks off of your to-do list, play music, and even give you new tasks! If you’re a morning person, you’ll love diving into morning chores and being productive early in the day. If you aren’t a morning person, maybe the skill will help you learn to enjoy the wake-up process. You can even connect your FitBit using the Alexa and FitBit integrations and really stay on track with your routine!
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Initiate pre-loaded morning routines by saying “Alexa, open morning routine.” | You have to enable it and customize it. |
| It helps you start your day on the right foot. | It doesn’t start automatically. |
Best for Communication: Alexa, Simple Translator
The Simple Translator is easily one of the best translator skills for Alexa! Not all of us are looking to learn a new language, and that’s OK. Especially when you have the Simple Translator skill. Have you ever scrolled social media comment sections only to find many users speak other languages? Perhaps you have a pen pal overseas who prefers to speak their native tongue.
No matter the reason you need a translator, this skill is definitely a must for most people. While you may not need a translator every day, it doesn’t hurt to add the Simple Translator skill so it’s there when you need it.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| It is accurate. | It may not be something you use every day. |
| There are minimal glitches. |
Best for Sleep: Thunderstorm Sounds by Sleep Jar
Sometimes we all need a little help getting to sleep, and that’s why the Thunderstorm Sounds by Sleep Jar made it to our best skills list. If the sound of storms helps you get to sleep, this skill is for you. All you have to do is tell Alexa, “Alexa, open Thunderstorm Sounds” and it will play for an hour. You can even loop the sounds by saying, “Alexa, ask Thunderstorm Sounds to loop.” The Skill will remember your preferred settings for future looping so you won’t have to say it again the next time.
Although the skill is free, premium audio quality and enhanced looping features are only available with the Pro Membership. These in-skill purchases cost .99 cents a month.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| The sounds block out unwanted noise. | Enhanced features require a Pro Membership. |
| The skill can help you sleep better. | It only loops for one hour by default. |
Best for Supper: Restaurant Finder
If you’re like most people who struggle to find something to eat, you’ll quickly see why the Restaurant Finder skill is one of the best Alexa skills you can enable! This top-rated skill will help you decide what you’d like to eat and help you choose a restaurant nearby!
Completely rid your life of the “I don’t know” response to every restaurant mentioned. Just say, “Alexa, ask Restaurant Finder to find a burger restaurant in my city!”
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| This skill helps you to figure out which restaurants are the best in your area. | It won’t help if don’t have an idea what you want. |
| It’s easy to use and free! | Some locations may not have a wide variety of restaurants. |
Best for Fun: Pikachu Talk
Alexa can bring you closer to your favorite celebrities and characters, that’s why we love the Pikachu Talk skill. From Samuel L. Jackson to Pikachu and many more, you can activate a simple skill to have the voice of your favorite people respond back to you!
If you have kids, or you’re nostalgic for the good old days of Pokemon battles, we definitely recommend the Pikachu Talk skill.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Pikachu is so cute! | It has limited responses |
| It can tell stories, sings songs, etc. |
Best in Games: Hide and Seek
Wouldn’t you love to have the option to play Hide and Seek with Alexa? Even if you don’t want to play, Alexa can entertain your kids so you can get some parental downtime. Perhaps you’re a kid at heart and you want a good game of Hide and Seek but you have no one to play with. Either way, the Hide and Seek skill is a must-have for fun and entertainment.
All you have to do is enable the skill and say, “Alexa, play hide and seek!” and she’ll try to find you! Of course, you have to stay in the same room as her, so make sure you have some great hiding spots. If she doesn’t find you after three guesses, you win.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| It’s a great way to entertain yourself and your kids. | You have to restart the game each time. |
| It’s free to play. | Alexa may have trouble hearing your responses. |
Best for Trivia: Quick Fire Quiz
We all love to test our general knowledge of random facts. Fortunately, Alexa can be the moderator when you install the Quick Fire Quiz skill. If you’re already familiar with trivia games, learning this one is a breeze. Alexa will rapid-fire questions for 60 seconds. Try to get them all right to win!
The skill is easy to enable, and when you’re ready to play, simply say, “Alexa, play Quick Fire Quiz.” She’ll let you know to get ready, then start asking questions. Of course, do keep in mind that you must be close enough for her to hear your answers. You don’t want her to win by default.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| It’s free to play. | Sometimes Alexa doesn’t hear your answers correctly. |
| It’s easy to set up and use. | Apparently, she really likes Mrs. Doubtfire but doesn’t let you get that answer correct. |
How to Pick the Best Alexa Skills: Step by Step
Naturally, Alexa skills are easy to enable and disable. However, you don’t want to waste your time messing with skills that aren’t useful and don’t work properly. Fortunately, we have some tried and true methods for choosing the best Alexa skills.
The Reviews
First, it’s a good idea to always check the reviews. Other users who have wasted their time enabling a bad skill will certainly let you know in the Reviews section. Simply go to the Amazon website or look at the skill in your Alexa app.
Tap on the Reviews option to see how many stars it has. Then, read through a few of the comments. If people are consistently reporting the same problem, skip that skill.
The Customization
By nature, Alexa skills are meant to customize your Echo devices and make them more functional. These days, there’s a skill for nearly anything you can think up. Go to the Alexa app on your phone and type any keyword that pertains to your needs, such as budget, recipes, weather, traffic, news, etc.
You can also go to the Amazon website and search for skills with more than four reviews! Of course, be prepared to do some scrolling, because there are a lot of top-rated skills out there!
What to Know Before Enabling an Alexa Skill
Now that you know how to choose the right skill, let’s take a moment to cover a few more things you should know before enabling an Alexa skill.
Price
Not all Alexa skills are free. What’s more, is that not all Alexa skills make it clear that they aren’t free. Some offer a free trial and some have severe limitations if you don’t pay a monthly subscription fee.
Read the fine print before you enable any Alexa skills. You certainly don’t want to accidentally sign up for any subscriptions without being aware of the charges.
Privacy
Another important factor to consider before enabling an Alexa skill is whether it will invade your privacy. We give Alexa a lot of our personal information, from our contacts to our addresses and even our banking information.
Check out what the skill can access before you enable it. If you aren’t comfortable with the data a skill accesses, it’s probably best to pass on it.
Using Alexa Skills: What It’s Like
After researching the skill and enabling it, you can easily use it any time you’d like! Whenever we have trouble deciding what’s for supper, we just ask Alexa to find us a restaurant! She typically gives us great recommendations! If we want to hear Samuel L. Jackson tell jokes, we just ask, laughing and huddling around our Echo Show.
Those of us with Echo devices with screens can easily follow along with recipes, and when we’re ready for the next step, we don’t even have to touch the device. We just say “Alexa, next step in the recipe!”
Alexa skills are a hands-free way to make the most of Echo devices. They’re simple to enable, user-friendly, and easy to disable too!
Best Alexa Skills Wrap Up
Alexa skills make your Echo devices more entertaining and useful. You can talk to your favorite characters, create morning routines, and so much more! These are some of our favorite Alexa skills that we use regularly, but there are so many more!
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- Sound automatically adapts to any room
- Control your music streaming service with your voice
- Built-in hub to voice control compatible smart devices
- Set timers, reminders, and alarms with Alexa
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11/29/2023 10:55 am GMT
Summary Table
| Skill | Description | Pros |
|---|---|---|
| Send Me a Sample | Enables you to get free stuff delivered right to your door. | Variety of free samples, Alexa reminds you to ask for a sample. |
| Morning Routine | Helps you get through either hectic or relaxing mornings. | Initiate pre-loaded morning routines, helps you start your day on the right foot. |
| Simple Translator | Translates languages for you. | It is accurate, minimal glitches. |
| Thunderstorm Sounds by Sleep Jar | Plays the sound of storms to help you sleep. | Blocks out unwanted noise, can help you sleep better. |
| Restaurant Finder | Helps you decide what youâd like to eat and choose a restaurant nearby. | Helps you figure out the best restaurants in your area, easy to use and free. |
| Pikachu Talk | Allows you to interact with Pikachu. | Pikachu is cute, can tell stories, sings songs, etc. |
| Hide and Seek | A game of Hide and Seek with Alexa. | Great way to entertain yourself and your kids, free to play. |
| Quick Fire Quiz | A trivia game where Alexa asks questions for 60 seconds. | Free to play, easy to set up and use. |
The image featured at the top of this post is ©Panthere Noire/Shutterstock.com.
