Alexa get support for emails, location-based routines and reminders, and more

“This major Alexa update has started rolling out today and all compatible devices will get it over the next few days”

Starting today, Amazon will be rolling out a major update to its Alexa-enabled devices that brings a number of new capabilities to them. Location-based routines and reminders, timer enhancements, app notifications, and email support are some of the new features that are coming to the voice assistant. These were announced by the company in August but have started rolling out just today. The complete rollout process, according to Amazon, will take several weeks.

Coming to the feature set, email support is an essential one. You’ll now be able to check your latest emails by simply asking, “Alexa, do I have any emails?” Secondly, timer support is being updated with the options to add and remove time along with location support, owing to which you can now ask Alexa things like, “Where is the nearest gas station?” and Alexa will use your current location to guide you to the nearest fuel station.

Location support will further enable users to create routines and reminders that trigger based on their whereabouts. For example, you can ask Alexa to remind you to feed your pet once you reach home or mail your clients after reaching office. As your arrive at the set location, Alexa will voice the reminder to you. In case you don’t have a speaker at a given location, you’ll receive a push notification from the Alexa app on your smartphone. Coming to the new location-based routines, they can now be triggered based on your arrival or departure from a certain location. Users will be able to save set locations such as home and office via the Alexa app on their smartphones.

Apart from these routines, Alexa is adding several other functionalities including new “wait actions”, which trigger certain parts of routine after a while. Routines can now also enable Alexa’s Do Not Disturb functionality and integrate with push notifications and announcements.

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