Best Alexa Tips & Tricks!
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Has anyone got any good tips or tricks for alexa?
I use mine for music, drop in on my son upstairs 
drop in on my parents because their not good with their phones. We play the What am I? Quiz, Tenable, Harry Potter Quiz (although you only get a few questions daily.
We use it for reminders, weather, amazon notifications etc. I dont have any bulbs or plugs to use it to control other devices.
Is there anything else that people use it for that i mah find usefull but havent discovered yet.
I use mine for; free phone calls, radio stations, weather, time, temperature, news, notifications, calculator, questions about anything (when did x die etc). It can read your kindle books to you. Jokes, limericks all sorts of weird stuff. I have Alexa in the living room and a google nest mini upstairs so I may confuse which speaker has which features.
KirsteyJames I had read this last year but with Telegram and Whatspp it didn't seem necessary.
Go into the settings section in your Alexa app, turn on the calling feature from within 'Communications' and allow the app access to all your contacts when prompted.
Now you can call everyone in your contacts on all their gadgets completely free of charge. Free? But surely it's somehow using my mobile minutes or piggy-backing on my landline package? No. Don't ask me how Amazon does it, but calls to all mobiles and non-premium landline numbers are completely free of charge.
KirsteyJames Here's the help page.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=202136150
I just ask it to call the number but it can also work with contacts etc. Of course no premium numbers. At the moment I'm with Now Broadband that has a free call package but when that ends in May I think I'll make use of this Alexa feature far more.
BonzoBanana May I ask how the Now Broadband is for you (speed and cost etc.)- I am with Now just for TV but will be changing from TalkTalk in a few months for broadband. I've had no problems with NOW. (wish I could say the same about TalkTalk.... AKA as "TT all kak" to those who like anagrams)
davidstockport I've only got standard broadband, it was a great deal at the time its £18 a month but with the free call package. I think the cashback through topcashback was £80 or possibly £90. So was £216 for the year before cashback and about £126/12 in real terms about a tenner a month. I've had no speed issues but only get 6.5-8 Mbps as I only went for slow standard broadband. It was the best deal at the time but I always change yearly to maximise savings. I've got a big pile of routers to prove it.
BonzoBanana thats fab thank you. Just tested it calling my wifes mobile. Another feature i will be using my alexa for 
Thanks for your answer, as mentioned I'm with TalkTalk paying £25 a month (and refusing to pay the thieving barstewards anymore - I just cancelled the things they started charging for - if I hadn't I'd be paying over £40). I am supposed to be getting 30 Mbps, minimum, it was OK at first but they've been reducing it so it's more like 25 Mbps, although that is sufficient for my needs I object to paying for what I don't get. I could be getting similar elsewhere for under £20 a month ( that's just faster BB and phone line).
TalkTalk are now charging EX customers £5 a month (or £50 a year) for each TT email account they have.... just another way for them to "encourage" people to stay. (a reasonable charge OK but that's extortion! - it is estimated a few pence a month would cover it).
Fortunately seven of my email accounts are with AOL (ASS 'OLES Limited) who "TT all Kak" took over from and apparently are not in TTs control, so I'm saved £350 a year... phew! They're technically Yahoo now... complicated innit
I'd advise anyone who has TalkTalk email addresses to get the FREE ones - I think Gmail and AOL are two, so they can sort things out in their own time. If it's sprung on you suddenly it can cause real problems.
Some other email providers have, or are, introducing charges (I got this from Radio 4 two days ago) so it might be worth some people checking things out.
Some people might wonder how any email provider can provide the service for nothing - my answer is they should be paying you for distributing their adverts. (Think about it)
I was with talktalk and remember really struggling to leave them, they made in awkward to say the least, I'm guessing they were annoyed that I was leaving right at the end of my minimum contract. I promised myself I would never go back to them because of the hassle of leaving them which I'm sure is no great loss for them as I always move providers regularly. Not a fan of talktalk to say the least. I always use gmail accounts for email so I'm not tied into the broadband provided email addresses. Many years ago I had ukonline email address as my main email address but that was a long time ago now.
BonzoBanana They lured me into my current 2 year contract with the promise of free sim for mobile phone (200 minutes a month) then two months into the contract said I had to start paying £3 a month for first year, then £14 a month after, I was refused permission to leave the contract, and didn't want court action, trying to get the code to take my number to another mobile phone sim provider which works out at £2.52 a month and allows 252 minutes a month or a text in place of each minute. Any not used gets rolled over to the next month (I'm currently £38.96 in credit) was horrific, first time in my life I've ended up screaming down the phone at anyone.
A large number of people I've tried to discourage from having anything to do with TalkTalk have said "you don't need to tell me - I know". Do they know that the founder of the company, Charles Dunstone actually hired a convicted fraudster, Ernest Saunders, for business advice when he set up CarPhone Warehouse. It's all on record so no defamation, one has to wonder if CD's donations to both main political parties has kept him out of prison or bought him his knighthood.
Those who don't know might like to marvel at the miracle that the convicted fraudster "Ernest Saunders" (AKA Deadly Ernest) got out of prison because of Alzheimer's disease (uncurable) from which he made a "FULL RECOVERY" after his release. And is still living happily ever after nearly 29 years later.
If that last bit caused you to think this is a fairy story read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Saunders
That explains why talktalk is such an aggressive company with regards customer service and why they never let honesty get in the way of a profit. I'm not going to pretend that my dealings with them were as bad as yours but they were enough to stop me using them again.
rls what does it do? Ive been warching videos on youtube - i seen some of alexa making fart noises
Their "mouthpieces" on their community forum (supposedly for help) are snide and sarcastic towards customers, I saw one customer who was explaining about the associated problems of going to another provider for her father in his late eighties, or paying the exorbitant "ransom demand"being asked "Haven't you ever moved house?"
You have to imagine what chaos it would be if you suddenly lost your email account and all the contacts it contained, it is buried in the terms and conditions that they can just terminate email accounts if a person dares to leave. They should give ample time for people to switch at the very least.
I suppose it could be classed as "Blackmail for Email".
Just occurred to me; I wonder if they'll start charging existing customers for email - their promise of "Never increasing price of BROADBAND during contract" doesn't stop them charging for things that were provided free in the contract when it started (without increasing the price of broadband), they've already done it three times inside the last 2 years. As already mentioned if I hadn't been determined to not give them a single penny extra I'd now be paying £42 a month (from £25) some of that to O2, who they thought their customers for mobile SIM should go to. They're still sending me emails offering O2 packages- nowhere as good as I got.
If anything I've said here or elsewhere has discouraged people from even considering TalkTalk in the future, GOOD! (I've probably cost them thousands by now) - the upcoming YouTube video (possibly a musical) might cost them even more.
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