Alexa Voice Commands: Basic & Advanced (+ Philips Hue Alexa Commands)

Here’s a list of Alexa Voice Commands to use on your Echo Dot / Echo unit.  The list below starts out with a few basic Alexa commands.  Then we give you a few of the more advanced voice commands – and finally we supply you with some special Alexa commands to control smart Philips Hue light bulbs and other smart devices:

Alexa Voice Commands

Say “Alexa” before each command in this list.  You can change Alexa wake word from “Alexa” to “Amazon” or “Echo” from the Alexa app on your smartphone.  Without further ado, here is the list of Alexa voice commands:

• For keeping time, say “Alexa, What time is it?” (this uses the time zone that’s set in your Alexa app Settings)
• Music (Pandora, Spotify, and others): “Alexa, Play my <Station Name> station on Pandora“
• Lists: “Alexa, Add <Item> to my shopping list”
• Music (TuneIn, podcasts): “Alexa, Play the Roots Reggae station on TuneIn”
• Lists: “Alexa, Add <To Do Item> to my To Do list”
• Sleep: “Alexa, Play thunderstorm sounds” (this requires that you Enable the Thunderstorm Sounds Skill using the Alexa app first)
• Voice controlled lighting: “Alexa, Turn the bedroom lights off” (this requires that you set up a Philips Hue hub and Smart Bulbs – $70 total – for this Alexa voice command to work)
• Info: “Alexa, What’s the population of Arizona?”
• Thermostat: “Alexa, Set the thermostat to 75 degrees” (this requires a Nest thermostat to control your air conditioning & heating via voice)
• Tracking Amazon Packages: “Alexa, where’s my stuff?” or “Alexa, track my package”

Alexa Lighting Commands

Most smart bulbs currently available require that you have a smart hub (in addition to an Echo Dot) to control the smart bulbs.  On the other hand, some smart bulbs being sold on Amazon do not require an additional smart hub.  Whichever way you choose to go – with a no-hub-required smart bulbs, or with a hub-required smart bulb (like a Philips Hue bulb), the commands below will allow you to control lighting with Alexa:

• “Alexa, turn the bedroom lights off” (or “on”)
• “Alexa, turn the lights down to 37% brightness“
• The Echo Dot we used was the 2nd Generation Echo Dot, but these commands should work for the 1st Gen Echo Dot as well.

Alexa Pandora Commands

Below is a list of Alexa Pandora commands to control your music playback with your voice:

• “Alexa, play my <Station Name> station on Pandora”
• “Alexa, what’s the name of this song?”
• “Alexa, thumbs up this song.” and Alexa will reply with “OK, Rating saved” to thumbs up or thumbs down the song.”
• “Alexa, pause” or “Alexa stop”

Echo Dot Covers, Cases & Accessories

Check out these Echo Dot accessories to jazz up your Alexa-enabled Echo Dot.

• Echo Dot Case (Owl-shaped!)
• Echo Dot Cover (Indigo Blue)
• Travel Pouch for Echo Dot

Wrap Up

The list of Alexa Voice Commands provided here is only a piece of the huge variety of voice controls you can send to Alexa.  Keep checking back, as we plan to update this list regularly as new Skills become available for the Echo Dot and other Alexa-enabled devices.