Alexa devices have revolutionized the way we interact with one and another and with our surroundings. While the smart phones paved way to apps, Alexa devices have given us immense power with Alexa skills that could eventually influence our lifestyles in the near future. I use echo devices to wake me up early morning, manage my schedules, set reminders for meetings, shopping, conference calls, entertainment, intercoms and the list just continues to infinity. Home automation is definitely an area I’m focusing on.

Home automation with Alexa Skills is a breeze, and eases the life for many like me who are physically disabled. Recently I ventured out on learning and developing Alexa skills and its been a absolute fun. I intend to begin here with the basics unlike my earlier posts on cloud. So anyone interested to join me in this way can quickly start developing with a solid fundamental understanding. Lets begin with analysing a sample alexa invocation phrase:

The Alexa Invocation Phrase typically consists of 5 parts:

Wake Word : This triggers the alexa device voice interactions, wake words are very few as of now like Amazon, Computer, Echo apart from Alexa itself

Launch Word : is used to invoke the skills, it can be ask, get, open, start and so on

Skill / Invocation Name : Skill or Invocation name is the actual custom skill that we will develop, flash breifing and smart home skill do not require a Invocation name.

Utterance : Utterance is nothing but the actions the skills should perform as in to read, to sing, to play and so on

Slot Values : These are the values that Alexa converts them into voice interfaces, Utterances and Slot values should be related to the Skills.

With this basic understanding we will design a voice interface model in the next article. Bye For Now!!!