Tech Time Silver

Easy tech tips for how to use the smart devices in our hands and our homes. Plus, you’ll see what’s new!

Amazon Alexa Setup

Amazon Alexa Echo Dot next to rose petals from Mother's Day. Why? Nature makes every picture better, imho.

Easy #TechTuesday

Amazon Alexa Echo Dot Setup 

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Recently, Cynthia asked me how to set up her own Amazon Echo Dot. Great question! I have three of them in my home and use them every day. I’ll do a future post on all the ways to safely use an Alexa Echo, but for today let’s get that Alexa out of the box and set up -in just 10 minutes!

(Some of these step-by-step directions are in the App itself, but I included them here just so you can see what's asked during setup.) 

  1. Unbox, remove all plastic covers, connect the power cord to the device
  2. On your smart phone, go to the App Store; type echo in the search bar, click on the echo word that appears, it will take you to  the “Amazon Alexa” app. Click to download.
  3. Open the Alexa app and login. You will need to know your Amazon account login and password.  
  4. Open the Alexa App, go to Settings; click New Device. Watch my iPhone video as I walk you trough the next 4 steps.
  5. Select the device you are setting up; Amazon Echo
  6. Choose the type of device you have. (The Echo Dot is the one that looks like a hockey puck. The more expensive Echo is a tall cylinder)
  7. Choose the picture of the “generation” of Echo you have. 
  8. It will tell you to turn on your Alexa device. (Turn on the Alexa by pressing the dot on top of the device. The light ring will spin for a bit as it boots us)
  9. When the light ring turns orange, ou are now ready to connect your Echo to your WiFi. If you don’t see a spinning ring of orange, unplug your device, wait a few seconds, and plug it back in again

Connecting your Echo to Wifi: 

  1. Open up the Settings app on your iPhone, click on “WiFi”
  2. The Amazon name will appear, this is your Echo device, click on that
  3. When the device connects to your WiFi, it will begin talking to you. Follow the directions that Alexa tells you do.

Return to the  Alexa App on your phone to finish the setup by following the step-by-step directions for a more personalized experience. 

Congrats! You’ve set up your device! (If all this still seems like too much, just plug in your Alexa and let her do her thing. She'll actually help you through most of this.)

Useful Hints You'll Want to Read:

*It will take a few days for your Alexa to “smarten-up” In the beginning,  the Artificial Intelligence  (ai) is learning the sounds of your speech, so you may need to repeat, or change the wording of your request until Alexa knows what you want. 

*By adding “Skills” to your Alexa app, you will find Alexa much more useful and personalized.

*It’s hard at first to remember that you need to start EVERY command with “ALEXA” That is the word that wakes it up. 

*Best time to buy an Alexa is Amazon Prime day in July, or on Black Friday/Cyber Monday in November. 

*During set up of the Alexa app it asks you to “connect your contacts” I personally DO NOT recommend doing that. Just click the “later” button. Connecting contacts shares a great deal of information to Amazon. However, if you want to make phone calls through your Alexa, you WILL need to add your contacts as this is the only way to call people using the echo. 

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What to Know Before You Update

“You Have a New Update Available for Your Phone”

Uggh. Have you ever installed an update only to discover new problems you now have to live with until the next update? Would waiting a few days have saved you time in the long run?

Rumor has it that a new update is coming for iPhone users, and those of us who have the iPhone 6, SE, or iPad mini may not be very happy about it. You can read more about it at MacWorld or by clicking here.

Here's what used to happen in my home: 

My husband would update his phone as soon as it became available because he didn’t like those “update” messages popping up every day. Then he'd get frustrated because changes were made to his phone. So I'd go into his phone's settings to try to solve the problem but sometimes I'd just have to admit, “Sorry, but you're going to have to live with it for a while.”

On the other hand, my phone’s memory was usually so full that no update could be installed until I either removed a large app like Facebook or deleted some music. So while I was waiting to clear up some memory, my husband and many others had moved on to dealing with the problems caused by their recent updates. 

Should we wait to install an update? Here’s my two cents…

It depends on the reason for the update.

If you hear that there is a major security breach and updating will keep you safer, update immediately. No question. Many updates help our phones stay safe from the latest hacks. In fact, the Federal Communications Commission has a page that tells how important it is to keep your phone's operating system up to date.

Any other time, though, I'll usually wait 5-10 days. This gives others a chance to install the update, find the bugs, and report them. The company then repairs the bugs and sends out a “fix” in a new update. Apple is pretty good about having the fix available within two weeks.

How do you know when the fixed update is available? Look for the update number with an extension. So update 12.2 becomes 12.2.1.

Another way to make sure you are updating the fixed version is to look at the date and description. It’ll usually say something like “This update fixes problems with a recent update.”

What to do in the meantime about those pesky pop-up reminders? 

I just click on “Remind me later” and figure the seconds it takes to touch my screen beats the constant frustration of having my phone bugged with problems for the next two weeks. If you don't want your phone to automatically update at night, but you accidentally clicked on “update later,” you can just shut your phone off or put it in airplane mode each night until you are ready to install.

And if you are one of the lucky owners of an iPhone 6, SE or iPad mini? You can skip the updates from here on, but you may be putting your security at risk. Instead, I'd say wait at least two or three weeks and let the dust settle before you dive in to the update. By then you will at least know what problems to expect. Maybe they won't even affect your own phone habits as much as the critics are predicting.

What if you have a phone other than an iPhone?

     To see if your Samsung Galaxy phone needs updating click here.

     For Google Pixel phone updates, click here. 

For other types, refer to the website of your brand of phone.

Let me know if you’ve got any questions or comments about updating.

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