alexa skills

[vivienz]

Does anyone have any experience of writing new 'skills' for Amazon's virtual assitant, Alexa?

 

My father in law has completely lost his mobility in recent months and is nearly dying of boredom so I've bought him an Amazon Fire 7 tablet so that he can listen to talking books on it.  The tablet comes with the virtual assistant, Alexa, the same as on the Echo device but activated slightly differently.  Alexa can be used on the tablet to activate Kindle and Audible books, but nothing that's not propriety to Amazon such as RBDigital that is available from public libraries.

 

I've gone through the tutorial on the Amazon Web Service (and signed up for a free account there) but it doesn't seem to link in to specifying using another app on the device.

 

Although my father in law could learn the tablet screen controls, he struggles with them due to his hands which are very large and now arthritic, hence my thoughts that voice controlled would be a lot easier for him.

 

Any thoughts or hints would be much appreciated.

[Ferdinand]

You probably want to post to an online marketplace where etablished developers offer such skills - same mechanism as the ones where Caddies offer their AutoCAD skills to draw up your plans for a few 10s of £££ over a weekend.

 

Someone here will know such a marketplace. Probably.

 

Or - of you are suitably connected - smuggle it onto the Final Year Project list for your local uni Comp Sci or Med Tech course.

 

F

Edited October 16, 2017 by Ferdinand

[Lesgrandepotato]

50 minutes ago, vivienz said:

Alexa can be used on the tablet to activate Kindle and Audible books, but nothing that's not propriety to Amazon such as RBDigital that is available from public libraries.

 

I've gone through the tutorial on the Amazon Web Service (and signed up for a free account there) but it doesn't seem to link in to specifying using another app on the device.

 

Any thoughts or hints would be much appreciated.

 

For £7.99 a month I'd buy the Audible subscription and get it support for having it all working ASAP.  Its worth 6 months money just to have it switch on and work. 

 

I'm a big fan of homebrew solutions and saving a few quid, but sometimes the end goal needs to come first which has to be get dad a working audio book set up. 

Edited October 16, 2017 by Lesgrandepotato

[SteamyTea]

Not got time to research this at the moment, but is there a generic Android app that can be loaded onto the Kindle (lots of things can be).

Something like this:

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/control-android-device-entirely-voice/

[vivienz]

I have used audible for years myself and I'm a big fan but I'd like to see if I can get him set up with free unlimited audio books from the library, too. If he takes to it really well, 1 book per month may not be enough for him.