Tag: Smart Homes

GTT Northern Ontario Summary Notes, Amazon Speakers,, February 20, 2020 with Link to CCB Podcast Episode

Get Together with Technology (GTT)

Sponsored by the Canadian Council of the Blind (CCB)

Summary Notes:

February 20, 2020

Theme: GTT Northern Ontario, Amazon Speakers, use this link to listen to the CCB Podcast Episode.

Presenter: Albert Ruel

AlbertRuel@Gmail.com

Here’s an older recording just found for your enjoyment.

List of Amazon Echo speakers:

  • Amazon Echo Speaker
  • Echo Studio, with high-fidelity
  • Echo Dot
  • Amazon Tap, with battery
  • Echo Look, with screen and camera
  • Echo Show
  • Echo Spot
  • Echo Plus, a hub for setting up compatible devices

The features of the device include: voice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, and playing audiobooks, in addition to providing weather, traffic and other real-time information. It can also control several smart devices, acting as a home automation  hub.

Setting up Alexa, use the Amazon Alexa App.

Alexa apps to download, Amazon Alexa App and Alexa Skills.

Here’s how to set up your brand-new Amazon Echo.

  1. Step 1: Download the Alexa App.
  2. Step 2: Plug in the Echo.
  3. Step 3: Connect the Echo to Wi-Fi via the app.
  4. Step 4: Start talking to Alexa.
  5. Step 5: Start using your Echo.
  6. Optional Step 6: Connect smart home devices or an external speaker.

Setting up Alexa Skills:

To enable Alexa skills in the Alexa app:

  1. From the menu, select Skills & Games.
  2. Find a skill you want to use, and then select it to open the skill detail page.
  3. Select Enable Skill, or ask Alexa to open the skill. Tip: Refer to the skill’s detail page for examples of things to say and to learn more.

Establishing Alexa Routines:

How to set up Routines in the Alexa app

  1. Launch the Alexa app on your phone or tablet.
  2. Tap the menu icon in the top left corner of the screen.
  3. Tap Routines.
  4. Tap the + icon in the top right corner of the screen. …
  5. Select When this happens.
  6. Choose Voice.
  7. Type in your desired trigger phrase.
  8. Hit Save.

Attaching email accounts for calendar, contacts and email messages:

Setting up your email account in the Alexa app.

  1. Open the Alexa app.
  2. Tap the Menu in the top left corner and select Settings.
  3. Select Email and Calendar.
  4. Tap the + button. Select your email provider. …
  5. Log in to your email account.

To Learn more about Alexa:

Listen to the Dot to Dot podcast, a series of 5 minute podcasts showing you how to access various skills, features and activities with your Echo Speaker.  The latest one was posted on February 10 and is numbered 1107.  Robin can be reached at thedottodotpodcast@gmail.com.  Here are a few I thought might be of interest.

Help me get started with Skills:

Built-in Kindle Book Reading Feature:

Reading Kindle Books Revisited:

An article that could help you get more out of your Echo Speaker:

6 essential Amazon Echo tips you’ll use daily

  1. Connect your Echo to your smart home devices
  2. Set an alarm from home or while on the go
  3. Listen to music, audiobooks and podcasts
  4. Play games with your friends or kids
  5. Ask for measurement conversions
  6. Find movies playing in theaters near you

For more information please contact your GTT Coordinators/Trainers:

Kim Kilpatrick 1-877-304-0968 Ext. 513

GTTProgram@Gmail.com

Albert Ruel 1-877-304-0968 Ext. 550

albert.GTT@CCBNational.net

David Green 1-877-304-0968 Ext. 509

AccessibilityTraining7@Gmail.com

CCB-GTT Backgrounder:

The CCB was founded in 1944 by a coalition of blind war veterans, schools of the blind and local chapters to create a national self-governing organization. The CCB was incorporated by Letters Patent on May 10, 1950 and is a registered charity under the provisions of the Income Tax Act (Canada).

The purpose of the CCB is to give people with vision loss a distinctive and unique perspective before governments.  CCB deals with the ongoing effects of vision loss by encouraging active living and rehabilitation through peer support and social and recreational activities.

CCB promotes measures to conserve sight, create a close relationship with the sighted community and provide employment opportunities.

The CCB recognizes that vision loss has no boundaries with respect to gender, income, ethnicity, culture, other disabilities or age.

The CCB understands in many instances vision loss is preventable and sometimes is symptomatic of other health issues.  For the 21st century, the CCB is committed to an integrated proactive health approach for early detection to improve the quality of life for all Canadians.

As the largest membership organization of the blind and partially sighted in Canada the CCB is the “Voice of the Blind™”.

GTT is an exciting initiative of the Canadian Council of the Blind, founded in Ottawa in 2011 by Kim Kilpatrick and Ellen Goodman.  GTT aims to help people who are blind or have low vision in their exploration of low vision and blindness related access technology.  Through involvement with GTT participants can learn from and discuss assistive technology with others walking the same path of discovery.

GTT is made up of blindness related assistive technology users, and those who have an interest in using assistive technology designed to help blind and vision impaired people level the playing field.  GTT groups interact through social media, and periodically meet in-person or by teleconference to share their passions for assistive technology and to learn what others can offer from their individual perspectives.

CCB National Office

100-20 James Street Ottawa ON  K2P 0T6

Toll Free: 1-877-304-0968 Email: info@ccbnational.net URL: www.ccbnational.net

 

Repost: Siri Shortcuts gets more useful: A shortcut guide to animating routines on your iPhone By Edward C. Baig,

Siri Shortcuts gets more useful: A shortcut guide to animating routines on your iPhone

By Edward C. Baig,

USA TODAY, 11:01 a.m. PST Feb. 28, 2019

 

The original article is found here:

 

The Siri Shortcuts feature that Apple launched last fall as part of iOS 12 has always had oodles of potential. And for some of you this feature, which lets you use your voice to automate a string of tasks or routines, may have just gotten a whole lot more useful.

On Thursday, Apple announced a fresh set of integrated Siri Shortcuts, which are just now available or coming soon, and which the company says joins the thousands of other apps that already take advantage of the feature. American Airlines and Airbnb join existing app partners such as Marriott’s Bonvoy, Pandora, Waze and The Weather Channel.

 

The basic idea behind the Shortcuts feature is that Siri can learn your app preferences and routines over a period of time to suggest shortcuts that can streamline tasks or commands on your iPhone or iPad, and in more limited instances on the Apple Watch, HomePod or AirPods. (The feature doesn’t work with Macs or on Apple TV, despite Siri’s presence on the hardware.)

 

Shortcuts work with the apps you already have on your devices. Some suggested shortcuts will appear automatically on the lock screen of your device or when you do a search, recommending, right then and there, for example, to call or message your spouse. You tap the button to activate the particular shortcut that shows up. You can initiate other shortcuts yourself by uttering a short designated phrase out loud.

What’s more, though fewer of you are likely to do so, you can also fetch the Apple Shortcuts app for free in the App Store and create your own custom shortcuts built around a personalized voice phrase you record.

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Fortnite dip: Has ‘Fortnite’ peaked? As season 8 arrives, research suggests revenue dipped in January Apple is seeking ways to make Siri more helpful, especially in light of the fact that many pundits believe that its digital assistant lags Amazon’s Alexa and the Google Assistant, both of which also let you create customized routines via voice, often through Echo or Google Home smart speakers.

Samsung has similar designs with the Quick Commands feature associated with its Bixby assistant.

Among the newly announced Siri Shortcuts is one from American Airlines that will let you summon flight updates by voice (“Hey Siri, flight update”).

Such updates are contextual: Before leaving your house, you can get the drive time to the airport along with a map. After checking in, you’ll receive an updated flight status with a map of the terminal showing the gate location, walking time to that gate and boarding time.

 

Another new shortcut, from Merriam Webster Dictionary, will let you ask Siri for the word of the day.

A third new shortcut, from the Caviar local food delivery app, responds to commands such as “Hey Siri, order my usual pizza” or “Hey Siri, Caviar order status.”

Some of the Apple shortcuts integrate with some of your connected smart home appliances  For example, shortcuts tied to the Drop and Smarter apps will let you control coffee makers by voice.

Others shortcuts are meant to work with health devices you may use in conjunction with the iPhone. The Dexcom Continuous Glucose Monitoring System, for example, launched a shortcut that enables diabetics better manage glucose levels through their app (“Hey Siri, what’s my blood glucose?”).

Coming soon is a shortcut for ReSound hearing aids that will enable a person who is hard of hearing change the device settings, depending on the environment (“Hey Siri, restaurant mode.”) Building your own shortcuts To see which of your favorite apps have shortcut integrations, on your iPhone, visit Settings > Siri & Search > All Shortcuts.

To build your own shortcut, launch the Shortcuts app, and choose actions or building blocks, which are each of the basic steps that will make up your app. Apple presents a number of suggestions inside the app. For example, if you want to add a shortcut called Log Workout in conjunction with the Health app on your phone, you’d choose the type of activity (running, swimming, etc.), the duration, the calories burned or distance. You can then record the personalized phrase that would tell Siri to run the shortcut.

Inside the app you’ll also find a Gallery of premade Shortcuts that you might take advantage of.  Among the Morning Routine options, you’ll see, are shortcuts that let you know when to leave home so you won’t be late for work, as well as a brushing teeth timer that will make you sure you’re at it for a full two minutes.

 

Since shortcuts can be shared, you might want to pass that one along to your kids.