The Life-Changing Benefits of Voice Assistants

We hope you have enjoyed reading about all of our favorite gadgets, devices, and games the past few weeks. Our writers have enjoyed sharing their passions. Once I really start to think about it, my passion may be more a service than a gadget or game. Don’t get me wrong – I’m a gadget girl. But I just can’t get past the many ways voice assistants have changed my life. How different would your life be without Alexa or Siri?

Of course, there are other voice assistants as well, such as Google Assistant. But I’m personally not tied into that. Sure, I’ve tried it, but it just didn’t seem to be able to carve out a space in my life that’s already filled with the other two voice assistants. But Google Assistant is certainly in charge of all the virtual assistant requests of many others.

In really just a matter of years, we’ve allowed these virtual assistants to enter our lives and control them. We ask them for the weather, the news of the day, sports scores, to order our favorite coffee, and play our favorite music. You can even ask Alexa to tell your children a bedtime story.

I’m so bad with it that I even ask Alexa what time it is. I’ll be busy getting ready to leave the house, and rather than take four steps to look at the clock, I just holler out to Alexa to ask the time. Of course, this is after I’ve already checked the weather for the day so that I can figure out what to wear.

I have a few Echo speakers throughout my home, with one of them a Show with a display. I have an Ecobee thermostat that utilizes Alexa and a Fire TV. I have Siri on my iPhone, iPad Pro, Apple Watch, HomePod, and have now added CarPlay to my car to have it there as well. And if you’re thinking I probably get my Siri and Alexa requests mixed up, you’d be right. Thoughtfully, though, they will tell me I want the other voice assistant.

But voice assistants can do more: they can even call help for you in an emergency. Siri, Google Assistant, and even Bixby can call 9-1-1 for you. Interestingly, this is something Alexa can’t do. However, it can call your emergency contact for you, who can hopefully make that call to 9-1-1.

Other than giving information and obtaining help, voice assistants can also control your smart home devices. They can power your smart lights on and off, control your smart thermostat, and let you know if there is someone at your front door, facing your video doorbell.

Tip: trying to find out what the colored lights mean on your Echo speaker? We have the answers.

Again, this has all happened in just a few years, really. And I have to think that with all of the even more recent advances in AI, that there is more to come from voice assistants. I would bet that they will be controlling and helping even more things in the near future.

If you’d like to dip your toe into voice assistant technology, give Alexa a try. You can pick up an Amazon Echo Show 8 (3rd Gen, 2023 release) for under $90 – that’s a 40% discount. It’s a great way to try Alexa and see if it has life-changing benefits for you as well.

Along with featuring the Alexa voice assistant, the Echo Show 8 has an 8” HD touchscreen that can handle video calls. You can also watch TV and movies on Prime Video, Netflix, and Fire TV channels, and listen to music on Amazon Music, Spotify, and Apple Music. Use the display to pull up a live feed of your video doorbell and Adaptive Content to check your calendar.

Buy it now for $89.99