Best Alexa Skills You Should Try

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What Are Alexa Skills?

Alexa skills are voice-activated apps that add features to your Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Show, or any Alexa-enabled device. Think of them like apps on your phone, except you activate them by talking. Some skills come pre-installed (timers, weather, music), but Amazon’s skill store has thousands of third-party options covering everything from meditation guides to trivia games to recipe helpers.

Most skills are free, though some offer in-skill purchases or require a subscription to the underlying service. You can enable skills through the Alexa app on your phone, through the Amazon website, or just by asking your Echo to enable them. Once enabled, a skill stays active until you manually disable it.

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Best Alexa Skills for Productivity

Todoist

Todoist connects your task list to Alexa so you can add items, check what’s due today, and mark tasks complete using your voice. Say “Alexa, ask Todoist to add buy groceries” and it lands on your list instantly. If you already use Todoist on your phone or computer, this skill syncs everything together. Adding tasks hands-free while cooking or walking around the house is the kind of small convenience that makes voice assistants actually useful.

Any.do

Any.do works similarly to Todoist but includes a built-in calendar integration. You can ask Alexa what’s on your schedule for the day or add reminders that sync to your phone. It’s a good option if you want a single skill that handles both tasks and calendar without connecting separate services. The free tier covers basic task management, which is enough for most people.

Alexa Announcements

This is a built-in feature, not a third-party skill, but it’s worth mentioning because many people don’t know it exists. Say “Alexa, announce dinner is ready” and your message broadcasts to every Echo device in your home simultaneously. No more yelling across the house. It also works as a two-way intercom between specific rooms if you say “Alexa, drop in on the kitchen.”

Best Alexa Skills for Smart Home Control

Yonomi

Yonomi creates routines that link multiple smart home devices together across different brands. You might say “Alexa, tell Yonomi good night” and it turns off the living room lights, locks the front door, sets the thermostat to 68, and starts your white noise machine. The value here is tying together devices that don’t natively talk to each other – like a Philips Hue bulb and a Schlage smart lock – into a single voice command.

Smart Life

If you use budget smart plugs, bulbs, or switches from brands like Teckin, Gosund, or Treatlife, they almost all connect through the Smart Life app. The Alexa skill lets you control these devices by voice, set schedules, and group them into rooms. It’s the glue that makes inexpensive smart home hardware work with Alexa without needing a separate hub for each brand.

Best Alexa Skills for Entertainment

Jeopardy!

The official Jeopardy! skill delivers six new clues every weekday, mimicking the format of the TV show. Alexa reads the answer and you respond with a question. It tracks your score and streaks across sessions. The categories rotate daily, so it stays fresh. It’s one of the most polished trivia skills on the platform and a genuinely fun way to pass a few minutes while making coffee or doing dishes.

Song Quiz

Song Quiz plays a clip from a popular song and you guess either the artist, the title, or both. It covers decades from the ’60s through today, and you can select which era to play. The multiplayer mode lets two people compete on the same device, which makes it a solid party game. Song Quiz is consistently one of the highest-rated entertainment skills, and the music selection is better than you’d expect.

Escape the Room

A voice-based escape room game where Alexa describes a room and you solve puzzles by telling her what to examine, open, or combine. There are multiple rooms with different difficulty levels. It won’t replace a real escape room, but it’s surprisingly engaging – the puzzles are well-designed and the descriptions create enough atmosphere to keep you invested. Each room takes 20 to 40 minutes to complete.

Best Alexa Skills for Health and Fitness

7-Minute Workout

This skill walks you through a quick bodyweight workout with voice instructions and timing. Alexa tells you each exercise, counts down the work interval, and announces rest periods. You don’t need any equipment. It’s ideal for mornings when you want to get moving without pulling up a YouTube video or opening an app. The workout follows the scientifically-backed high-intensity circuit training format that alternates between upper body, lower body, and core exercises.

Headspace

Headspace’s Alexa skill offers guided meditations, breathing exercises, and sleep sounds. Say “Alexa, open Headspace” and choose between a one-minute breathing exercise, a short meditation, or a sleep session. The free version includes a handful of sessions, but most content requires a Headspace subscription. If you already subscribe, the Alexa integration is a smooth way to start your morning meditation without reaching for your phone.

Fitbit

If you wear a Fitbit, this skill lets you check your stats by voice. “Alexa, ask Fitbit how I slept” gives you last night’s sleep score. You can also check steps, heart rate, and exercise minutes. It doesn’t replace the Fitbit app for detailed data, but quick voice checks throughout the day are handy when you don’t want to pull out your phone or look at your wrist.

Best Alexa Skills for Cooking

Allrecipes

Say “Alexa, ask Allrecipes for a chicken dinner” and she suggests recipes based on your ingredients. Once you pick a recipe, Alexa reads the instructions step by step, waiting for you to say “next” before moving on. This is exactly the kind of task voice assistants excel at – your hands are covered in flour and you need the next step without touching a screen.

Bartender

The Bartender skill knows how to make thousands of cocktails. Ask for a specific drink (“Alexa, ask the Bartender how to make an Old Fashioned”) or describe what you’re in the mood for (“something with vodka and lime”) and it suggests options with full ingredient lists and instructions. Surprisingly useful when hosting, and a fast way to settle the “what should we drink” question.

Best Alexa Skills for Kids

Amazon Storytime

Amazon Storytime reads short stories aloud with background music and sound effects. Stories run about 5 minutes and cover age ranges from preschool through early elementary. It’s a nice supplement to bedtime reading, especially on nights when you’re too tired to read aloud yourself. The content is kid-friendly and the narration quality is better than generic text-to-speech.

Animal Sounds Quiz

Alexa plays an animal sound and kids guess which animal it is. Simple concept, but little kids love it. The skill covers common animals (dogs, cats, horses) and less obvious ones (dolphins, eagles, hyenas), so even adults get tripped up occasionally. It works well during car rides if you have an Echo Auto.

How to Enable and Manage Alexa Skills

Open the Alexa app on your phone (iOS or Android).
Tap “More” in the bottom menu and select “Skills & Games.”
Browse categories or use the search bar to find a specific skill.
Tap the skill and select “Enable to Use.”
Some skills ask you to link an account (like Todoist or Fitbit) – follow the on-screen instructions to connect.
To disable a skill, find it in your enabled skills list and tap “Disable Skill.”

You can also say “Alexa, enable [skill name]” to add skills by voice, though the app gives you more control over settings and account linking.

How many Alexa skills can I have enabled at once?

There’s no practical limit. You can enable hundreds of skills simultaneously without affecting performance. Unused skills don’t consume resources or slow down your Echo. The main reason to disable skills you don’t use is to keep your enabled list organized and to avoid conflicts where two skills respond to similar commands.

Are Alexa skills safe?

Amazon reviews skills before publishing them, and skills can only access information you explicitly grant (like your location or a linked account). They can’t access your Alexa recordings, contacts, or personal data without permission. That said, some third-party skills collect data for their own services, so check the skill’s privacy policy if you’re connecting accounts or sharing personal information.

Do Alexa skills work on all Echo devices?

Most skills work on any Echo device – Echo Dot, Echo Show, Echo Studio, Fire TV, and third-party Alexa speakers. Some skills designed for screens (like recipe skills with step-by-step photos) work best on Echo Show devices. The skill listing in the Alexa app tells you which devices are compatible before you enable it.

Sources

Amazon – Alexa Skills Store | Amazon – Alexa Developer Portal