A large list of Amazon Echo/Alexa voice commands

I got an Amazon Echo Dot along with a Fire TV stick for Christmas, and as I learned when I wrote SARAH, one of the hard parts about talking to an Alexa Echo is knowing what commands the Echo can understand. As a result, I just spent a little time scouring the internet for common Echo/Alexa commands, and put them here in a little bit of an organized list.

Note that in the following list of Echo/Alexa commands, I assume that you say “Alexa” before each command, so I didn’t type “Alexa” before each command. I also don’t put question marks after each question you can ask Alexa (because it’s easier to read all of these commands without a bunch of extra question marks).

Echo/Alexa Music, Books, and podcast commands

Here are some of the Echo/Alexa commands you can use to play and control music, audiobooks, and podcasts:

• Play Bruno Mars
• Play
  • dinner party music (i.e., “Play dinner party music”)
  • relaxing music
  • 70s music
  • 70s folk music
  • happy pop from Amazon
  • today’s hits on Pandora
  • music by Peter Gabriel
• Play WNYC from TuneIn
• Play ESPN radio from TuneIn
• Play “This American Life” from TuneIn
• Play sports radio from iHeartRadio
• Read my Kindle book
• Set volume to 5 (1 to 10)
• Stop
• Cancel
• Mute
• Go back
• Go back 60 seconds
• Rewind 60 seconds
• Rewind to the beginning of this song

One key to knowing how to play music on the Amazon Echo is knowing that you need to use names like TuneIn, Pandora, and iHeartRadio when talking to Alexa.

Television (Fire TV)

• Turn on Fire TV
• Turn off Fire TV (or, “Turn Fire TV off”)
• Launch Netflix (on Fire TV)
• Start Netflix (on Fire TV)
• Play Longmire
• Play Longmire on Fire TV
• Play
• Pause
• Resume
• Fast-forward five minutes
• Jump forward five minutes
• Rewind five minutes
• Next episode
• Last episode
• Start over
• Play from beginning, watch from beginning
• Search for movies with Nicolas Cage
• Show titles with Nicolas Cage

Fire TV volume-related commands:

• Set the volume to [level] on Fire TV
  • I think the levels are 1 to 10
• Turn up the volume on Fire TV
• Mute Fire TV

I currently only use Netflix and Amazon Prime Videos, but you can also use other commands with networks and channels:

• Go to [channel/network]
• Go to [channel/network] on Fire TV
• Watch [channel/network]
• Open [app]
• Launch [app]

To return to the Fire TV home screen:

• Go home

Here’s a link to Amazon’t Alexa + Fire TV page.

Amazon Echo video-related commands

If you have a video device, you can also ask the Echo/Alexa to do different things with videos:

• Show me Prime videos
• Ask The Daily Show for news
• Ask TED Talks to play latest talk

The Echo works with the Fire TV, so I’ll repeat some of the Fire TV commands here as well:

• Play Netflix
• Start Netflix
• Play Longmire

Echo News and Information commands

• What's the news
• What’s my Flash Briefing
• Ask Twitter what's happening
• Will it rain today
• What's the forecast
• What’s the weather like
• Who won the Cubs game
• What’s on at the movies

Searching and questions with Echo

• Wikipedia 'Albert Einstein'
• Define 'lexicon'
• What's 100 dollars in Euros
• How many cups are in a quart
• Play music for cooking
• How do you make chocolate chip cookies
• When is the next Broncos game

Timers, alarms, and calendars with Echo

• Set a timer for 15 minutes
• Set a laundry timer for 15 minutes
• Set an alarm for 10 am
• Snooze
• Cancel alarm/timer
• Set a repeating alarm for Mondays at 8am
• Add 'lunch with mom' to my calendar for Sunday at 1pm
• What's on my calendar today
• What timers (alarms) do I have

Managing lists with Echo

• Add milk to my shopping list
• What's on my shopping list
• Put 'do the laundry' on my to-do list
• What's on my shopping list

Shopping with Echo

• Order coffee
• Re-order paper towels
• Add hot chocolate to my (shopping) cart
• What are your deals
• Where's my stuff
• What's on my shopping list

Fun & games with Echo

• Pick a card
• Flip a coin
• Roll a 12-sided die
• Good morning
• Tell me a joke
• Rap for me
• Play Jeopardy
• Play 20 questions

Stock market quotes with Echo

• What is Apple’s stock price
• What’s the stock price for N-V-D-A
• How did the stock market do today
• How did the Dow Jones do today

Echo Sleep Sounds

The Amazon Echo has a skill known as Sleep Sounds that plays sounds and/or music that you can listen to while you fall asleep. There are a lot of sleep sounds, so I listed them here last.

• Open Sleep Sounds
• Ask Sleep Sounds to play Thunderstorm
• Sleep Sounds that are currently available:
  • Airplane
  • Babbling Brook
  • Bird
  • Brown noise
  • Cat
  • City
  • Clock
  • Clothes dryer
  • Cricket
  • Dishwasher
  • Distant thunderstorm
  • Dripping water
  • Fan
  • Fireplace
  • Forest night
  • Fountain
  • Frog
  • Hair dryer
  • Heavy rain
  • Ocean
  • Oscillating fan
  • Pink noise
  • Rain
  • Rain on a tin roof
  • Rain on a tent
  • Rainforest
  • Shower
  • Space deck
  • Thunderstorm
  • Train
  • Vacuum
  • Whale
  • White noise
  • Wind
  • Wind chimes
  • Windy leaves
  • Windy meadow
  • Windy trees
  • Washing machine
  • Waterfall

See that link for possible new Echo sleep sounds.

More from Amazon

Amazon keeps sending me lists of questions that Alexa/Echo can respond to. Here are some of the most recent “skills”:

• When’s the next blue moon
• Give me a foreign language quiz
• When is the Super Bowl
• Make a call
• What’s the word of the day
• What Audible books do I have
• When were the Dark Ages

Summary

Some of these commands come from Amazon’s Meet Alexa web page. The commands Alexa can understand will probably increase a few thousand percent over the next few years, and there are also third-party “skills” you can add to the Echo, so please see that page for more information about Alexa “skils.”