Voice Assistants – Tips to Help Make Life Easier

Sep 6, 2018

Siri, Alexa, Cortana and Google Assistant… it’s becoming more and more apparent that the technology giants are gearing up for a future of voice recognition and voice assistants. The existing technology has already advanced considerably in only a couple of years. But do we really need voice assistants? There are a lot of people who think we do, not just because they are a fun gimmick that has entertainment value, but because they can help people in their day-to-day lives. To investigate this claim, we’ve reviewed the most popular uses for voice assistants intended to help make family life that little bit easier.

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Media

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Voice assistants make it much easier to explore and control media. Whether discovering new music playlists, or managing your own collection, voice assistants allow you to play music by stating a mood or genre. This saves you time as you go about your day-to-day tasks, particularly if you need to be hands-free. For example, you could be cooking, changing a nappy or just having a rest. All you need to do to play, pause, skip, along with a whole host of other things, is to give verbal commands while you focus on the task in hand. It may not seem like much, but it’s amazing how much of a difference it makes being able to play music, listen to the radio or hear the news bulletins without having to press buttons or even walk over to the media centre.

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Cooking

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Voice assistants allow you to browse and follow a seemingly infinite number of recipes. Whilst recipe books once dominated the kitchen, superseded by laptops and tablets, voice assistants remove the mess. No longer do you need to worry about sticky fingers, and with recipes stored virtually you have more space. The assistant can also act a as a timer so you can plan and time your recipes to perfection.

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Shopping

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Whilst cooking, you may discover you’re running out of a certain ingredient. No problem, you can ask your voice assistant to save it to your shopping list. When it’s time for the shop, you have everything you need already listed so you don’t forget anything. What’s more, you can even order directly using your voice assistant so you don’t even need to add everything to your shopping basket online or head to the shops. This concept is not limited to groceries, you can order takeaways, taxis and pretty much anything else online if you’ve paired your account with the necessary merchants.

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Games

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Voice assistants are good for having fun. You deserve it, after all you work hard and sometimes it can be difficult switching off. Games range from quizzes trivia to bingo and chess. They’re ideal for a bit of mental stimulation while you carrying out mundane tasks, and can help you relax as you take well-earned time off.

So, our verdict: voice assistants take a bit of getting used to, but they’re pretty good once you know how best to use them.