Amazon Echo and Google Home are smart speakers that can understand your commands and perform tasks for you. It short, they are voice-powered personal assistants on hand at all times. They are used by individuals of all kinds, but what many don’t know is that they offer a wide variety of benefits for families with children too. Here are a few ways that Amazon Echo and similar devices can benefit your family.

Pure Search Engine Power

This is no doubt the most useful tool that Alexa and Google Home has to offer. At any point in time, you or your child can activate the device with one word such as “Alexa” and then ask any question. This is extremely useful for studying, cooking, or anything else. Imagine your child is doing homework, and they come to a point where they have a question to ask. Normally, they come to you and you are forced to search your brain for the twenty-sixth president of the United States. Now, all you have to do is say, “Alexa, who was the twenty-sixth president of the United States?” and she will spout out an answer like, “The twenty-sixth president of the United States was Theodore Roosevelt.” She may even add some extra quick facts, such as birth, death, and famous quotes. Cooking and need a conversion, just ask her, “How many tablespoons are in a cup?” or “What’s a good substitute for sugar?”

Conversation Pieces

When everyone gets home from school, work, and practice, it’s nice to sit around the table and talk about your day. But sometimes, it’s hard to find a topic after the overviews are finished. With these devices, you can say things like, “I’m feeling lucky,” or “give me a random fact.” This is a great way to get to know each other even better. Alexa loves to get the conversation going with fun info. You can even tell the device to give you trivia questions for a fun game or solve a debate with a dice roll. Want to learn a language together? Alexa is a great teacher. Ask her to say anything in nearly any language you can imagine.

Music on Hand

Whether you like listening to music while cleaning, having a family game night, or even dancing, these systems are there for you. They can use Pandora, Spotify, or downloaded music. You can customize lullaby lists to put your baby to sleep, instrumentals for our child’s singing lessons, or a compiled list of the family’s favorite songs. The best part is that they can be played with just a short command. Not only that, but you can turn it up, down, on, or off with your voice as well. Can’t agree on a song, take turns by naming which song each person wants to play next.

Shopping Made Easy

How many times a week do you hear, “Mom, we need toothpaste!” or “We’re out of cereal again.” With these personal assistants, they can skip telling you and add it to the list with their voice no matter how small they are. It won’t be purchased this way, but Google and Alexa will add them to your phone’s shopping list. You can sync the list to your phone or send it to the kids or your spouse. If you don’t know if a said retailer or grocery store has an item in stock, you can check that too. “Does Wal-Mart have Cap’n Crunch?” There may be more than one way to find out, but none of them are as easy as asking your personal assistant who can have an answer in five seconds or less. If she doesn’t know, she can set your reservations for your favorite restaurant or order a pizza instead.

Total Control

Need to set an alarm for school or work? No problem with Alexa. What about setting a bedtime? Just tell the device that your child needs to go to bed at a set time. What’s even crazier is that you can program her to shut the garage door, turn off the kitchen lights, or even turn the coffee pot on.v

Conclusion

Devices like Amazon Echo and Google home are a complete asset for anyone, but especially families. Not only is the ease of access nice. With less time spent on grocery lists, asking questions, setting alarms, and even turning off the lights, there is more time to spend together. That is always a good thing!