Amazon's Alexa now knows over 3000 skills
Amazon's voice assistant continues to gain skills, including new ones for the Food Network and GE appliances.
"Alexa, tell Geneva to preheat the oven to 350 degrees."
That's just one of Alexa's new skills. Amazon on Tuesday said its voice assistant has over 3000 "skills," with more on the way. That number has increased by 300 percent in the three months since June 2016, Amazon said in a release.
The Alexa Skills Kit and the Alexa Voice Service were released in June 2015 and were designed to enable home control and voice commands via the Amazon Echo. Amazon has since added the Echo Dot and the Echo Tap.
One of the most surprising companies to add voice support, given that the Echo is primarily a music device, is Sonos. The two companies said they would be working together to enable voice control of Sonos music systems in 2017.
On Tuesday, new Alexa skills for the Food Network and GE Appliances are available, Amazon said, with Yahoo Sports Fantasy Football, Bloomberg and What to Expect When Expecting coming by the end of September.
Amazon's Alexa assistant is one of several products vying to be the center of the connected home alongside the Apple HomeKit, Samsung SmartThings and Google Home.