Skip to main content

Amazon invites you over to see just how awesome Alexa is

Amazon Echo Alexa Laughing
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Alexa seems to be quickly approaching goddess status, and now Amazon is setting up shrines in her honor — sort of. On Wednesday, the e-commerce giant introduced what it’s calling Amazon Experience Centers, which will offer customers the ability to “experience first-hand the convenience of the Alexa smart home experience and more in a real home environment.” The assumption is that once you try Alexa, you’ll never be able to live without her.

Recommended Videos

Amazon Experience Centers are now opening in select communities throughout Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, Orlando, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington DC, with further locations coming soon. The Centers will be located in Lennar model homes, which have been built to be Alexa-enabled from the ground up. That means these entire homes are effectively Alexa-responsive — you can ask Amazon’s smart assistant to turn on the television, turn off the lights, set the thermostat, draw the shades, and more.

It won’t just be Alexa that these model homes show off — Amazon will also be shining the spotlight on Dash Buttons, Fire TVs, and even Amazon Home Services.

“We wanted customers to experience a real home environment that showcases the convenience of the Alexa smart home experience, great entertainment available with Prime, and Home Services,” said Nish Lathia, general manager, Amazon Services. “We are excited to extend our relationship with Lennar with the launch of Amazon Experience Centers. As one of the nation’s largest homebuilders, Lennar offers the potential to enable this experience within easy driving distance of millions of customers.”

If you’re interested in visiting a model home to see how you could upgrade your own residence, you can check out Amazon’s new Experience page and set up a tour.

“Amazon’s ability to bring a home to life with Alexa smart home experiences, entertainment and services — coupled with their obsession with customer experience — is a natural extension of our Everything’s Included approach to homebuilding,” said David Kaiserman, president of Lennar Ventures. “We picked Amazon because of our shared commitment to customers, their Amazon experts across the country, and their ability to connect customers with thousands of service providers through Amazon Home Services.”

Lulu Chang
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
What to do if your Amazon Alexa app is not working
Alexa app on phone.

If you use Amazon Alexa and its quit responding to you, you may have realized by now that there are a ton of thing that could be causing that problem. One big issue is that the Amazon Alexa app itself has potentially shut down communication with you. Instead of getting overwhelmed by the all of the possibilities, letting your Amazon Echo devices sit there useless, and feeling despair, try an ordered list of potential fixes to get things started.

While there are a lot of different reasons for an Alexa to quite responding, if you go through the following techniques one by one, you'll certainly get a resolution to any problems you might be having with the Alexa app. We'll walk you through everything from updating your Alexa device to contacting Amazon for advanced help if no simple fix will work.
Check for a software update

Read more
How to use all Amazon Alexa alarm clock features
Woman in bed looking toward Echo Dot.

Amazon Alexa is a powerful voice assistant. Along with dishing out commands to your smart home devices or updating you on the latest news, Alexa can function as a pretty robust alarm clock. From setting reminders for later in the day to waking you up with music, there's a lot of functionality packed into the assistant.

Before you can start using all these Alexa alarm clock features, you'll need to know how to activate them. And unless you know exactly how to trigger the actions, it can be tricky to figure out how it all works. Here's a comprehensive look at how to use all Amazon Alexa alarm clock features, including setting a one-time alarm, setting alarms on connected devices, and triggering a recurring alarm that activates with music.
A comprehensive list of all Alexa alarm clock voice commands
We'll examine the best commands in detail later on, but here's a look at every Alexa voice command that triggers an alarm (remember to say "Hey, Alexa" before giving each line):

Read more
Can Alexa call 911? How to set up Alexa for emergencies

 

If you've got an Alexa in your home, you can use it for more than just alarms and playing music. The device can help out in an emergency, allowing you to get in contact with help if there's an unexpected crisis. In 2023, Amazon announced it was adding an Emergency Assist feature to the device, which is a paid service to help a user connect to an agent who will call 911 for them. The device can't call 911 directly, but it can put you in touch with someone who can call on your behalf and give out key information to emergency responders.

Read more