A Beginners Guide to Alexa – Starting from scratch
by Di Steele
One of my jobs at Wealden Talking News is to visit groups to describe our service and since distribution of news recordings on memory sticks is beginning to get outdated, I always mention the possibility of listening via a smart speaker – Amazon Alexa to be precise. I speak confidently of a subject I know nothing about so decided I had better start from scratch and describe to any uninitiated listeners my journey to listening to the WTN recordings.
Before you even start, there are two essentials which I luckily already had. These are broadband wifi in your home and the ownership of a smartphone or tablet. If you don’t have a smartphone, you might have a family member who could help with this as it’s only required for the set-up. So having these myself, my first task was to buy the smart speaker. On the internet there is a vast rage of models from just over £50 to around £300 so I googled ‘best budget smart speaker’ and an Amazon 4th generation Echo Dot came up. It cost £68.69 and arrived in a box 2 days later. When you choose your model, there is a variety of competitive offers suggesting various refinements, but I planned to start at basics and work my way up.
It arrived as a charcoal-coloured ball in a box complete with charging cable and, as usual with highly technical devices, it had very few instructions. There was a plan showing the volume, microphone on/off settings, an action button and a tap detection button. With no idea what that meant, I decided to move on to the set up.
Step 1 is to download the Amazon Alexa App on your smartphone or tablet. This seemed fairly straightforward, so I typed the words in to my app store on my smart phone. I ignored the other 10 alternatives and chose the simple Alexa App. Three more alternatives came up but I ignored the music and commands options. The app turned out to be free. If you are unsure where to find your app store, you can do the same thing by typing ‘download Alexa app’ into your Google, Safari or Microsoft browser and the icon will appear - to be duly selected.
Once downloaded, I tapped on the icon and was asked if I would like to use Bluetooth. As this is required to connect with my device, I selected ‘allow’. I already have an Amazon account so signed in when required - but if you don’t have one, you will need to create an account for which there is no charge. To do that, enter your email address or mobile phone number in the text box provided, press continue, add your name, then create a password of at least 6 characters and then select: ‘create your amazon account’. You can agree to accepting notifications or not.
With my account set up, I was beginning to feel a little more confident. I was then asked if I would like to set up a device? You now need to plug in your Echo Dot and make sure Bluetooth is enabled on your smartphone or tablet in settings. Alexa will greet you in several languages and the phone /tablet screen will warn you that your Echo Dot is ready for Set Up. Select agree and continue. Next you are asked to select your own wifi network and must enter your wifi password – then select connect. You will need to enter your address in order to receive local weather & traffic news. Select continue and enter the name you choose (any name will do) to call your home address – this way Alexa will know where any commands are referring to. The next question is to name the room that your echo dot is placed in – as it’s possible to have them all over the house. Then set up voice ID. Select ‘consent’ and allow access to the microphone. You will be asked to say the sentence ‘ Alexa, what’s the temperature outside’ and then 3 other sentences so that the device can learn your voice profile. When this is done, you can create shopping lists and add alarm and music links all by selecting from the home page of your app.
I’m aware that this set up can all sound rather complicated but in fact you are always responding to questions so you are not required to remember any of this.
To sum up, the 4 stages of set up are:
- Buy your smart speaker. (consult your browser for the best budget smart speaker)
- Download the app to your smartphone or tablet.
- Use your existing Amazon account or create a free one.
- Set up your Alexa smart speaker.
Hurray - I was all ready to go. I was rather pleased with myself in managing all this on my first attempt and there is none so keen as the newly converted so why not have a go – oh and make sure to let us know how you get along.
Now follows the official instructions for accessing the Wealden Talking News publications.
Using the BWBF ‘Talking Newspapers’ on Alexa Smart Speakers
Once your Alexa device is fully set up and connected to the WiFi, you’re ready to go.
You can listen to the Wealden Talking News via the British Wireless For The Blind Fund’s (BWBF) ‘Talking Newspapers’ app.
It is easy to enable this on Alexa, simply say:
“Alexa, Enable Talking Newspapers”(This enables the app within your Amazon account, this only has to be done once)
Now you are ready to listen to the Wealden Talking News publications. Whenever you want to listen to Wealden Talking News, say:
“Alexa, open Talking Newspapers”
Alexa will then play a welcome message at the end of which you will be asked to say the name of the newspaper to which you wish to listen.
The edition options are:
WTN Message Board
WTN Heathfield & District
WTN Crowborough & Uckfield
WTN Hailsham & Polegate
WTN Seaford & Newhaven
WTN Brighton & District News
WTN Features
WTN Listeners World (this was previously Listeners’ Sussex)
WTN Peoples Friend
WTN Richards Roundup
WTN Sussex Life
Alexa will ask you to confirm that the correct option has been identified. If not, you will be asked to give the name of the edition option again. If you are part way through listening to an edition and ask for a different edition, you will be asked if you would like to resume that edition. If you say ‘No’, you will be prompted to choose which edition you would like to listen to.
Unfortunately, you are required to announce “Alexa, open Talking Newspapers” every time you move on to a different edition of news or magazine.
You can also use the Alexa commands to stop, play, skip to next / previous track (if available) by using the following commands:
“Alexa, next track”
“Alexa, previous track”
“Alexa, stop”
“Alexa, play” So that’s it – and If anyone would like to receive these instructions by email, please contact us on [email protected] or leave a message on the answerphone together with your email address and we will forward them to you.
Best of luck and do let us know how you got on.
