Alexa's new Skill might just save Christmas dinner. Amazon's digital assistant is now knowledgeable of more than 60,000 recipes that users can easily access by simply asking Alexa.
Allrecipes, a popular website dealing with different recipes all over the word, is the newest company to work with Amazon. Alexa users will now have access to the vast recipe vault allowing the personal assistant to become the user's sous chef.
The new skill is available through any device that supports Alexa such as Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Amazon Tap, and Fire TV. To enable it users only need to say, "Alexa, enable the Allrecipes Skill."
Alexa can now recommend the recipe of the day, provide step-by-step instructions, and figure out meals out of a set of particular ingredients.
Users can tell Alexa to pause or repeat the instructions, proceed to the next step, and skip a step. They can even take Alexa to the grocery store to help buy what's needed to prepare a meal.
Alexa has been quite popular in the kitchen. Many users of devices supporting Alexa play music or do other skills while busy in the kitchen. That led to the idea of incorporating this new skill into Alexa.
According to Rob Pulciani, director of Amazon Alexa, "So many of our customers are using their Alexa-enabled devices in the kitchen, and with the addition of Alexa skills like Allrecipes, that experience only gets better."
Stan Pavlovsky, president of Meredith Digital which acquired Allrecipes back in 2012, has this to say about the partnership:
"Allrecipes has a long tradition of being the first to introduce innovative new experiences that make grocery shopping and home cooking more rewarding, from out beginnings as the first social media food site two decades ago to the seamless integration of our brand into connected kitchen appliances this past year. Our vision is to make Allrecipes' content and community available wherever and whenever needed, so preparing dishes is as easy as possible for our audience of busy families and passionate food enthusiasts."
Engadget recognized the importance of this new skill. The ability to just talk to Alexa and ask about a certain recipe negates the need to flip through cookbooks or to scan the smartphone with oily or flour-covered hands and fingers.
Amazon introduced the 'Voice Shopping Weekend' a few days ago which allowed users to shop online just by dictating to Alexa. Also recently, Alexa acquired the Skill of sending text messages.
