Currently, Alexa is found primarily in Amazon’s Echo speakers. But you can also find the virtual assistant in a number of third-party devices, such as the Ecobee4 Thermostat as well as speakers like the Sonos One. The virtual AI is popping up in new places all of the time, so you might as well make it as smart as possible. Currently, some of the best Alexa skills includ e Mastermind, MyPetDoc, Ask My Buddy, Thunderstorm Sounds and more. Here are some of the best skills to enable on Alexa. Make sure you check out all our top picks for smart lights, locks, speakers, and more on our best smart home products page.

Get exclusive deals

If you ask “Alexa, what are your deals?” you’ll hear a series of Prime member-exclusive deals that you need an Alexa-enabled device to order. You can also visit Amazon’s Voice Shopping page to get the sentences you’ll need to say to trigger them.

Make a donation

Through Alexa, you can donate to a charity or organization. Just say “Alexa, donate $20 to the American Cancer Society,” or even more simply, “Alexa, make a donation,” and then you will be prompted to choose an organization and a dollar amount. Currently, there are over 270 charities with which this feature works, including the American Heart Association, ASPCA, Doctors Without Borders, One Laptop Per Child, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and the Wikimedia Foundation. Here is a complete list of organizations that accept voice donations via Alexa. In order to use this service, you need to have set up an Amazon Pay account, and have voice purchasing enabled.

Get help for your pet

If your pet is sick or acting strangely, and you’re not sure what’s wrong, Alexa can help. Let MyPetDoc know Fido’s symptoms, and Alexa will ask follow-up questions and provide advice. If Alexa doesn’t know what’s wrong, it will forward your conversation and phone number to a veterinarian, who will give you a call within a few minutes. (Just remember that while Alexa can give you some guidance, it’s not a substitute for an official vet visit).

Get recipe ideas

If you’re stumped on what to serve for dinner, you can select one of many Alexa skills to help you choose. Try Easy Meal Ideas for quick-and-easy recipe recommendations, or check out America’s Test Kitchen Daily Cooking Q&A, from the editors of Cook’s Illustrated, which posts new recipes, tips and techniques in its weekly Q&A. Morton’s Salting Sous Chef can tell you exactly how to salt everything you’re cooking, and delivers general salting tips as well. If you have an Echo Spot or Echo Show, just say “Alexa, show me recipes” and Alexa will present a list of top meals from services such as SideChef, AllRecipes, and Kitchn. Select your favorite, and Alexa will walk you through the steps. You can pause, and ask for repeats, as often as you’d like.

Call another Alexa-enabled device

Amazon allows you to make voice or video calls to and from other Alexa-enabled devices, such as the Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Show, and the Alexa app on your smartphone. Alexa looks through your phone’s address book to find contacts who have the Alexa app or an Echo device, and then gives you the option of calling them.

Play Music

You can stream music using Alexa from a variety of services (Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music, Sirius XM, iHeartRadio, Deezer, Tidal, Gimme, TuneIn, Pandora, Pandora Premium and Vevo), and within each, up- or down-vote songs and play selected playlists. With Amazon’s music library, you can also launch playlists based on specific activities, eras, artists, even your mood. You can also combine categories, such as “80s music for running,” or, if you’re feeling frisky, you can even ask Alexa to play hook-up music.

Here are some examples of things you can say:

• “Alexa, play Pandora”
• “Alexa, play Christmas music”
• “Alexa, play ‘Castle On The Hill’ by Ed Sheeran”
• “Alexa, play Taylor Swift on Spotify”

Use as a personal trainer

Alexa can whip your behind into shape with the 7-minute-workout skill. If you say, “Alexa, start 7-minute workout,” the virtual assistant will suggest reportedly tested exercises that will increase your metabolism, improve your energy and remove fat. The best part: You can take breaks when you need them.

Check your credit-card balance

American Express-card holders can manage their accounts with the Amex Alexa skill. Saying “Alexa, open Amex,” will allow you to connect your account. Then, you can check your account balance, make a payment, review charges, check your available credit and more. .

Find the right restaurant

Looking for a place to eat? Alexa has all the information you could need about the businesses around you. Just ask “Alexa, what time does Taco Bell open?” or “Alexa, what’s the address of Wendy’s?” It can tell you a restaurant’s hours, location, phone number, address, and more.

Play games

Alexa can also supply the fun. There are a ton of different trivia-related skills, but you can also use the smart assistant to play Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock; 20 questions; bingo; Jeopardy; tic-tac-toe and others. Check out the Games, Trivia & Accessories section of the Alexa app to find the game you want to play.

Schedule a meeting

Provided you have access to their calendars, you can schedule meetings with your contacts using Alexa. Amazon’s assistant will suggest meeting times based on both of your schedules. If a conflict arises after you’ve scheduled a meeting, you can ask Alexa to move the appointment to a different time. Supported calendars includ e iCloud, Gmail, G Suite, Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange (only through Alexa for Business).

Get a weather report

While Alexa has built-in support for weather forecasts, the Big Sky skill will provide hyper-local forecasts based on your street address. The service uses information from Dark Sky, and can provide data such as wind speed and humidity.

Get help

The Ask My Buddy skill will send a notification (text, SMS or phone call) to a preselected contact when you’re in an emergency and can’t reach your phone. While this feature is not a substitute for 911, it lets you tell loved ones you need help.

Relax

When it comes to rest and relaxation, Alexa has something for everyone. Enjoy the sound of a good, strong downpour? The Thunderstorm Sounds skill plays a loop of a thunderstorm to help you relax. Too intense? There are also Ocean Sounds and Rain Sounds skills, and the Sleep and Relaxation Sounds skill is particularly popular. Those who like to switch it up will enjoy Healing Sounds, which can create the atmosphere of a Japanese garden, a beach, a desert and more. And anyone interested in historical music should try Gregorian Chants for some ancient and highly contemplative tunes; those who enjoy nature might prefer Cricket Sounds or Coqui Frogs. We’ve rounded up some of our favorites in our list of Best Alexa Ambient Sounds Skills.

Get the latest news

The NPR Hourly News Summary skill is a 5-minute briefing of the day’s headlines, updated every hour. If you want to test your knowledge of the news, try out NPR’s Wait Wait Quiz based on the comedy show “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me.” You’ll be asked fill-in-the-blank trivia questions about the week’s news. If you answer five correctly, you’ll be entered for a chance to have your name mentioned in the next episode of the show.

Go on an adventure

Tell Alexa to open the Magic Door, and you’ll be off on an interactive adventure with magical creatures to admire, puzzles to solve and hidden items to find. At the end, you’ll get a prize, too. There are number of interesting games to suit every player; you can accompany a regretful goblin on errands in Pug’s Adventures, or practice your royal math skills with The Queen’s Mathematician.

Connect with your Fitbit

Want to find out how close you are to reaching your daily step goal? The Fitbit skill lets you ask Alexa how many steps you’ve taken, how well you slept and how you did on other metrics recorded by your Fitbit activity tracker.

Turn your lights on or off

Why bother reaching for your phone or a light switch when you can simply tell Alexa to turn off your connected lights? You’ll need a smart plug for this skill to work, but it’s pretty handy. Skills are available for a number of smart-home platforms including Lutron and Control4. Here’s how you can connect Alexa to your Philips Hue lights.

Watch TV

There are several ways to control your TV using Alexa. If you have a Logitech Harmony remote, you can use this skill this skill to link the remote to Alexa. It’s recently been upgraded so you only have to say “Alexa, turn on my TV” or “Alexa, pause,” and the command will automatically be sent.  Here’s how to connect Alexa to your Harmony remote.

Tivo Bolt, Roamio, and Premiere owners can also control their DVRs using Alexa, as can Dish, Fios and Frontier customers. Here’s our guide for connecting Dish and Alexa.

Clean your apartment

A number of robot vacuums, including the Shark Ion R85, the Samsung Powerbot R7070, the Neato Botvac Connected and Connected D7 and the iRobot Roomba 650, 690, 890 and 960 can be commanded to start and stop cleaning using Alexa. Vacuuming has never been this hands-off!

Start your car

Want to get your car started and warmed up before you drive off? A number of auto brands have skills that allow you to start your vehicle remotely, lock and unlock doors, change the interior temperature, turn on the lights and more. These includ e Hyundai Blue Link, MyFord Mobile and EV Car for Teslas.

Follow your favorite teams

The Amazon Echo wants to help you stay on top of your favorite sports and teams. In the Alexa app, in the menu, tap Settings. In Sports Update, search for and save your favorite teams. The digital assistant can give you details such as scores and upcoming schedules for NFL, NBA, MLS, MLB, NHL, WNBA, NCAA, and other American sports. Once you’ve entered your team, you simply say “Alexa, give me my sports update.”

Control your thermostat

Several smart thermostats, including the Nest Learning Thermostat, Honeywell RTH8580WF, Honeywell Lyric, Honeywell Lyric T5 and Bosch BCC100 can be connected to Alexa, so that you can change the temperature just by speaking. Going one better, the Ecobee4—our favorite smart thermostat—even has Alexa built into it, so you don’t need to talk to an Echo or Echo Dot.

Listen to a podcast

Use the Anypod skill to stream thousands of podcasts. You can search by name, subscribe to podcasts, skip ahead or back, and when you pause an episode, it’ll pick up right where you left off. includ ed in AnyPod’s 3000-plus library of podcasts are Serial, RadioLab, This American Life, S-Town, The Moth, The Daily, TED Radio Hour, and This Week In Tech.

Learn some history

The History Channel’s This Day in History skill will tell you historical facts not just on the day you ask, but any day you specify. You can either say “Alexa, launch this day in history” or “Ask this day in history what happened on February 10.” You might just learn something!

Find out what’s happening on Mars

Want to know what’s happening on the Red Planet? The NASA Mars skill will keep you up to date on the goings-on with the Curiosity rover, and also deliver answers to commonly asked questions about the planet.

Get pregnancy tips and advice

Everyday Health’s What to Expect skill for Alexa provides daily and weekly tips, guides, and advice for expectant parents, customized to your due date. The skill also provides advice for the first year of your newborn’s life, too.

Get First Aid

The Mayo Clinic released a skill that provides basic first aid answers, for everything from minor scratches to CPR instructions. However, this skill is intended for instructional purposes only; if you’re in a life-threatening or emergency situation, call for help.

Meditate

Ready your mantras! Developed by Stop, Breathe & Think, Meditation Timer will ask you how long you want to meditate for, and then will play either forest, rain, or surf sounds to help you relax.