Amazon echo devices use the Alexa voice assistant which allows you to do many things, such as listening to music or managing home automation devices in your apartment. But what is a skill? and how to install an Alexa skill ? Alexa’s features are increased every day thanks to the creation of new skills that are a sort of app that increase the potential of your voice assistant. Rather than installing an Alexa skill it would be correct to say enable a skill on Alexa because it will not be necessary to proceed with any installation but a particular skill will be enabled for your Alexa profile.
As I said, new skills are produced every day and by now there are thousands of them available and ready to be enabled.
I will explain in very few lines how to install an Alexa skill via voice command or via the Alexa app.
Index
- Install a skill on Alexa with Voice Command
- How to install an Alexa skill with the Alexa app
Install a skill on Alexa with Voice Command
You can enable or disable a skill on Alexa with the simple voice command
“Alexa enable (skill name)”
“Alexa disable (skill name)”
Obviously you will need to know the name of the skill and also the installation of the skill will not have to require special configurations. In fact, there are skills (for example broadlink) that require some additional steps during the installation phase for which it will be necessary to install them via the alexa app
How to install an Alexa skill with the Alexa app
Enabling a skill with the Alexa app is the most practical and fastest way so I recommend it to everyone. Below he will explain how to install an alexa skill via app.
To enable a skill, open the Alexa application from your mobile and click on the button with three lines at the top left; a menu will open where you have to select skills and games .
By doing so you will have entered the skills section where you will be able to see the thousands of skills available to be used by your echo devices. By clicking on the words Categories you can find the skills divided by categories (for example sports, games etc.); by clicking on Your Skills you will be able to see the skills you have previously enabled and if you click on Discover you will see all the new skills proposed and the most popular ones. There are skills for all tastes and you just have to look for the most useful ones and those most voted by users. Most of the skills are free and are really well done.
A list of available skills can also be found on the Amazon pages .
To search for a skill you will have to click on the button with the magnifying glass symbol at the top right and then enter the name or part of the name.
Once you have searched and chosen which skill to enable, all you have to do is click on it and the detail page of the skill will open with the main information.
On this page below you will find the voice commands to use for the skill and some ratings by users. To install the skill, all you have to do is click on the Enable to use button .
As I told you at the beginning of the article, some skills require further configuration (such as the “Smart Life” skill); you will notice it because once you have clicked the enable button you will be prompted to perform further steps. Normally it is just a matter of entering user and password for particular services. For example, for the Smart Life skill, once you have clicked the Enable use button, you will be asked for the user and password of your smart life account so that Alexa is synchronized with the service.
Now that you know perfectly how to install Alexa skills and know how to enable and disable them, I recommend that you learn how to use Alexa routines which are another very powerful tool. I have written a short guide that will teach you how to create very useful routines to better manage all the home automation devices inside your apartment.
