5 surprisingly helpful uses for Alexa right now

Why? Because turning lights on and off with your voice is magical. And setting up an Alexa smart plug with your current lights is so much easier than setting up smart lights. The smart plug is essentially a voice-activated on/off switch that you control by talking to Alexa.

How? “Alexa, turn on living room light”

Set-up (easy): The Amazon Smart Plug (which is normally $25 but currently on sale for $15) is the easiest smart plug to set up (you pretty much just have to plug it in and open the Alexa app), but there are some cheaper options that also work with Alexa from Gosund, Teckin, Etekcity and others.

Pro Tip: The one downside of a smart plug versus smart lights is that, since it’s really just a smart on/off switch, you miss out on the ability to set different lighting scenes like dimming your lights (although there is a simple (partial) workaround to dim your lights with an Alexa smart plug).

Why? Imagine a world in which you can wake up peacefully as your lights gradually come on to coax you out of bed while your favorite morning music plays softly. Once you live in that world, you’ll never want to go back.

How? If you set up an Alexa wake-up routine that kicks off at a certain time, all you have to do is sit back and let it happen. Here is my wake-up routine…

• 6:35am: Alexa turns on my bedroom smart lights dimmed at the lowest level
• 6:40am: She turns them on slightly brighter
• 6:45am: Alexa plays my Otis Redding Pandora station — this usually gets me up out of bed
• 7am: The lights come on at full brightness — so if I'm not up, I now have no choice but to get up

This is ten times better than waking up to a loud beeping alarm clock and hitting the snooze button, which is how I used to get up. It also means I no longer have to sleep with my phone on my night table for a dependable alarm clock.

Set-up (it’s a lot easier than you might think): Open your Alexa app, tap the hamburger icon in the upper left corner > Routines and tap the + icon in the upper right corner. This will take you to the “New Routine” tab where you can follow these instructions on how to set up Alexa routines to choose a trigger (could be a specific time or a voice command like “Alexa, good morning”) and the things you want to happen in response to the trigger (could be the lights coming on, music playing, weather and traffic updates or even Alexa telling you a joke).

Pro Tip: I also have a routine that turns the bedroom lights off at 9am. I love that I no longer have to remember to turn the lights off when I leave the house because Alexa just does it for me.

Why? Alexa shopping on Amazon is easier than most people think. If you are one of the millions of people who, like me, reorder things through Amazon multiple times per week, it will save you a lot of time and energy. For example, I noticed as I was making breakfast this morning that I was running low on walnuts…

1. I said “Alexa, buy more walnuts on Amazon”
2. Alexa said “Based on your order history, I found Nut Cravings California Walnuts […some other brief product info], and it’s $11.95 on Amazon. Would you like to buy it?”
3. I said “Yes” and the order was confirmed!

How? “Alexa, buy more [insert item you want to reorder] on Amazon”

Set-up (less than 30 seconds): Open your Alexa app and tap the hamburger (three horizontal lines) icon on the upper left > Settings > Alexa Account > Voice Purchasing and toggle “Purchase by Voice” on. Note that you’ll need to have an Amazon Prime membership to be able to take advantage of this feature.

Pro Tip #1: For those of you with mischievous little ones running around, you can also require a 4-digit voice code to confirm Amazon purchases and payments.

Pro Tip #2: Say “Alexa, where’s my stuff” to track your recent Amazon orders.

Pro Tip #3: If you have an Echo Show (Echo with a screen), Alexa is great for non-reorders too because she will show your purchase options on the screen so you can flip through them. Give it a try!

Why? Have you ever been tying up your shoelaces rushing out of the house and remembered you totally forgot you to text your aunt a happy birthday message? You can tell Alexa to set a reminder for when you get to the office, and she’ll send your phone a push notification as soon as its GPS shows that it’s at your office. I love using location-based Alexa reminders because I no longer have to guess when I’ll be somewhere and set the reminder for that time — Alexa will just remind me when I get to the place, whenever that may be.

How? “Alexa, remind me to text Aunt Susie happy birthday when I get to the office”

Set-up (1 minute): All you need to do is set a few locations in the Alexa app and check your phone’s location settings.

Pro Tip: You can also set up a location-based Alexa routines that kick off when you come and go from certain locations. For example, you could have your living room lights turn on every night when you arrive home from work. Pretty cool.

Check out the VoiceBrew 22 for the full list of the 22 best Alexa skills right now.

Katherine Prescott is the Founder of VoiceBrew, a free website and newsletter that helps people get the most out of Alexa.