Alexa Skills Projects

▶Book Description
Amazon Echo is a smart speaker developed by Amazon, which connects to Amazon s Alexa Voice Service and is entirely controlled by voice commands. Amazon Echo is currently being used for a variety of purposes such as home automation, asking generic queries, and even ordering a cab or pizza.

Alexa Skills Projects starts with a basic introduction to Amazon Alexa and Echo. You will then deep dive into Alexa Programming concepts such as Intents, Slots, Lambdas and maintaining your skill's state using DynamoDB. You will get a clear understanding of how some of the most popular Alexa Skills work, and gain experience of working with real-world Amazon Echo applications. In the concluding chapters, you will explore the future of voice-enabled applications and their coverage with respect to the Internet of Things.

By the end of the book, you will have learned to design Alexa Skills for specific purposes and interact with Amazon Echo to execute these skills.

▶What You Will Learn
⦁ Understand how Amazon Echo is already being used in various domains
⦁ Discover how an Alexa Skill is architected
⦁ Get a clear understanding of how some of the most popular Alexa Skills work
⦁ Design Alexa Skills for specific purposes and interact with Amazon Echo to execute them
⦁ Gain experience of programming for Amazon Echo
⦁ Explore future applications of Amazon Echo and other voice-activated devices

▶Key Features
⦁ Gain hands-on experience of working with Amazon Echo and Alexa
⦁ Build exciting IoT projects using Amazon Echo
⦁ Learn about voice-enabled smart devices

▶Who This Book Is For
This book is aimed at everyone who is interested in learning about the underlying voice computing technology on which Amazon Echo and Alexa are based, and also learning how we can leverage that technology to create skills for Alexa oriented towards home automation, the Internet of Things, and various other domains.

▶What this book covers
⦁ Chapter 1, What Is Alexa?, is an introductory chapter that does not require any coding skills. We discuss how intelligent voice-activated personal assistants are evolving from just being passively present in mobile phones to becoming a permanent fixture in common households in the form of dedicated hardware devices.

⦁ Chapter 2, Hello World, Alexa!, will introduce the reader to the process of creating skills for Alexa and will explain how to create a basic Hello World Alexa skill.

⦁ Chapter 3, Hands-Free Experience with Alexa, will introduce a new way of sending messages using Alexa, that is, the hands-free way.

⦁ Chapter 4, Let’s Play Factly with Alexa, will create a game called Factly as an Alexa skill. We will also add persistence to it using DynamoDB.

⦁ Chapter 5, Making Alexa Talk about CryptoCurrencies, will demonstrate how Alexa can provide the latest cryptocurrency updates. The user will create an Alexa skill that can fetch the current prices of the latest cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

⦁ Chapter 6, Home Automation with Alexa, will demonstrate how Alexa can integrate with other IoT devices and create the foundation of a smart home. The user will create a Weather Monitor Alexa skill that can inform the user about the climate (temperature/humidity/light) in the home.

⦁ Chapter 7, Future of Voice-Based Personal Assistants, will talk about the future of the intelligent voice-based personal assistants.