Did You Know Alexa Can Read Kindle Books?

A few months ago, I installed several Amazon Alexa devices to make our home “smart”. We have Google Pixel phones, so maybe I should have installed Google Nest devices, but Amazon offered a good deal on some Alexa Echo Dot and Echo Show devices, so I bought those. We are now a mixed media home.

My primary purpose in adding any “smart” devices was to be able to communicate with my husband between floors and across the house without climbing stairs or running from room to room.

But I discovered several other uses for Alexa as well. “She” can tell me the current time, give me a weather forecast, set kitchen and exercise timers, turn lights on and off by either voice command or a set schedule, play music of whatever genre I’m in the mood for, “sound Retreat” for my husband at bedtime (though she hasn’t mastered “Taps”), and tell jokes (not very good ones).

In addition, I learned she can read Kindle ebooks as if they were audiobooks. Her reading voice is about what you’d expect—not much expression, but clear and easy to understand. I don’t usually “read” audiobooks, and when I do, I’m usually not in one place in the house near an Alexa device. However, I have found her reading skill convenient sometimes when I’m folding laundry or occupied in the kitchen.

I could let Alexa read to me while I’m on our rowing machine, but that machine is so loud I have to use headphones when I listen to podcasts on my phone. I haven’t yet mastered getting Alexa to play through headphones.

I get most of my reading material as ebooks from public libraries, and I usually download the book to the Libby app. But I have downloaded some books to the Kindle app, and then Alexa can read them to me. I can get her to read books to me on my phone, so it would seem reasonable that to hear the book through headphones, I would merely need to plug them into my phone. (I’m not on wireless headphones yet.)

Amazon has instructions for how to get Alexa to read Kindle ebooks. The book you want Alexa to read has to be in your Kindle library, then you just tell Alexa to “read my book” and name the book. The ebook does have to have “text to speech” enabled by the publisher.

What uses have you discovered for Alexa or other smart-home apps?

P.S. Today would have been my Nanny Winnie‘s 115th birthday. She made it just past her 95th birthday, which was doing pretty well. I hope to do the same.