Need Help Making Alexa Useful

This solution is for people who want to be able to help a parent with appointments; or possibly enter joint appointments into a calendar that they are able to see; or generally facilitate them being able to use Alexa for calendaring issues.

In a previous article, I described how to set up a Zoom meeting in your loved one's calendar for their Echo Show. Using that setup, they can say "Alexa, join the meeting" and later "Yes" to confirm that they want to join.

While an Amazon Echo Show provides a great deal of useful information to you, it may be overwhelming to your loved one. In this article, I’ll suggest some best practices for keeping your loved one informed while reducing confusion.

Alexa Routines are small pieces of software that you can easily create, and which can make an Echo active rather than passive.

In other words, instead of requiring your parent to initiate an interaction with Alexa, you can automatically trigger an interaction in response to some predetermined stimulus — for example, a motion, a time of day, or a spoken phrase of your choice.