How a Digital Assistant Can Help You Save Time (and Sanity) During the Holidays
Time is at a premium during the holiday season. With all of the shopping, planning, and preparation to do, not to mention the cooking and entertaining, digital assistants are worth their weight in gold for the convenience they add to our lives.
Timing Is Everything
Whether you have an Amazon Echo or a Google digital assistant, you can set multiple timers and name them, ensuring that your roast beast, your sides, and your potatoes are perfectly braised, seared, and sautéed. Simply say, for example, “Alexa, set a timer for potatoes.” Alexa will then ask how long the timer should be set for. You can also ask how much time is left on a particular timer and cancel timers if need be.
Bon Appetit
Your digital assistant can help you make recipes that will dazzle your friends and family. To cook with your Google digital assistant, just ask it for a recipe. Once you make your selection, simple tell it to prepare the ingredients. See this helpful page for the full range of commands to guide you through cooking with the Google assistant. If you have an Amazon Echo, you can enable Alexa skills from the Food Network, Keto Skillet, Allrecipes, and Butterball, just to name a few, and instantly access their recipes.
Save Time on Last-Minute Shopping
Place orders for those last-minute gifts with a little help from Alexa. With voice-purchasing enabled, Alexa will add an item of your choosing to your Amazon shopping cart, and you can then review the item in the Alexa app before purchasing.
You can use your Google assistant to create a gift list and add items to your to-do list. Google Shopping has the benefit of finding the best prices from thousands of stores, both local and online. Google also backs your purchases with a guarantee that brings you peace of mind in the event of returns, refunds, and incorrect orders.
The Connected (Holiday) Home
Voice commands for smart appliances are a major convenience, especially when you’re otherwise occupied (or your hands are covered in flour). Simply tell your digital assistant to preheat the oven or start the dishwasher, and that’s one less thing to worry about. The Google digital assistant interacts with the Nest Hello doorbell to tell you when someone’s at the door and let you talk with them. How’s that for hands-free convenience?
Digital assistants are also great when it comes to guiding you through the proper setting of the table or converting tablespoons to cups. The Google assistant can read children a story while you bake, and, it can give Santa a call. Alexa has holiday stories, jokes, and hacks that will add levity to the holiday bustle and help save you time.
Whichever digital assistant you have, getting to know the wide variety of things you can do with them can help save you time during the holidays and beyond, and add convenience to your everyday life, so you can focus on what really matters.
