Amazon has been steadily adding new skills to its voice assistant Alexa to make it more useful for its users to call an Uber or check the balance of a bank account.
With a new update on Thursday, the e-commerce giant said that Alexa can now set timers and reminders, the latter of which is a feature Amazon (AMZN) said was one of the most requested for the voice assistant.
Of course, users can set timers or reminders through their mobile phones. But increasingly, consumers are flocking towards using their voices to get information about their calendar, what the weather is, or how long a commute will be.
Alexa, which powers Amazon’s popular home automation device Echo, has gained a growing following over the past two years for its ability to answer questions, turn on lights, and order goods from Amazon.com. Users simply utter a command instructing Alexa, such as “Alexa, re-order Huggies diapers.”
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With reminders, users can ask Alexa to alert them of a saved event or task. Users can tell Alexa, “Alexa, remind me to pay rent on June 1 at 9 a.m..”, and at that exact time, a blue light ring will appear on the Echo device and Alexa will remind the user to follow through with that check.
Users can also set up timers with Alexa, which can be particularly useful in the kitchen. Users can specify a name to a timer. For example, users can ask Alexa to set a timer for pasta and a timer for tomato sauce, and Alexa will tell them which timer is going off. Users can also tell Alexa to cancel a timer or check how much time is left on a timer.
Customers can see all reminders and timers, or create new ones, within the alerts and alarms section of the Alexa mobile app.
Google’s (GOOGL) rival voice assistant, Google Assistant, also offers the ability to set timers.
