Many of you readers might know that I had a YouTube channel for a bit where I basically continued this blog in a more audio-visual form. However, this wasn’t a terrible excuse for me to show you my face and practice my American accent as much as it was to be convenient for you, my readers (and then, listeners + watchers).
I’ve realized that my attention span has gotten terribly short over the years, and I much rather watch or listen to something than read (which I’m certainly trying to change). So I thought “Why not YouTube? People can play the video, stay up to date on the latest in tech, and multitask!“. But frankly, this took too much time and effort and I never appreciated making videos as much as I do writing.
As of recently, you might have noticed the little audio bar on top of this post (and if you haven’t, your attention span might be even shorter than mine). I found a way to have you actually listen to this post without having to read it and you best believe I pat myself on the back for that. However, I thought “Is there a way I can take this a notch… higher?“.
The answer was yes.
Alexa Skills
The day was February the 26th, 2019. Remember it, honestly. Because it’s the day I can officially announce the addition of my very own Alexa Skill.
If you’re an avid reader, you’ll know how much I love Amazon’s Alexa. That being said, for those unaware on what a “Skill” is, think of it as Amazon’s own version of an App store, or a Google Play store, but for Alexa.
Well, now you can not only listen to I Freaking Love Smart Gadgets posts while on the post page, but you can officially ask Alexa to read them for you! (If you’re not screaming in excitement for me, then I do not need your negativity in 2019).
There’s two ways to go about this.
You can either go to the Amazon Alexa Skill store (either on the app or on your computers) and search for “smart gadgets“, “iflsg“, “i freaking love smart gadgets“, or any of its variations. I promise the skill will pop up (or just click on any of the links in this post).
Now the second, much easier way, is simply walking up to your Echo/Echo Dot/any other Amazon Alexa powered device you may have, and yelling:
ALEXA, OPEN SMART GADGETS BLOG
That’s… all, really. Just tell her to open the smart gadgets blog and she’ll automatically enable the skill for you.
This way, anytime you want to read (and by read I mean listen) to a new blog post, simply ask her to open smart gadgets and she’ll read the post for you. You can even tell her to stop, resume, next, or even shuffle!
This is truly an exciting moment in my life (which I definitely need because I’ve spent more time making sure this skill became a reality than I have dedicated to studying for my midterms). Feel free to leave feedback and those pretty 5 stars on it!
