Amazon Echo Push Notifications Coming Soon
Amazon Echo push notifications will be added shortly in an update from Amazon. The announcement came yesterday over at the Amazon Echo blog. According to Amazon, this will be a feature that can be added to third party skills through Alexa Voice Service (AVS) and Alexa Skills Kit (ASK). You can sign up for updates on any changes to AVS or ASK on Amazon’s website.
When the feature is added, users will need to turn on the functionality, very similar to how you would authorize Push Notifications on your iPhone or Android device. Unlike your phone though, the Echo will simply pulse a green light, exactly like the light when you have a message through their messaging services. You will then ask, “Alexa, what did I miss?” and any notifications waiting will be read to you. This will work with the scheduled Do Not Disturb function which can be set from the Alexa app on your phone or at alexa.amazon.com.
This feature can be used by all sorts of skills in the skill store today. You could sign up for breaking news alerts from the Washington Post. Or maybe you want to be notified anytime a storm is rolling into the area. What about package delivery notifications? We are sure that IFTTT will be adding additional skills to their Amazon Echo skill to support these push notifications which will make this extremely easy to integrate with all sorts of equipment in your house.
What the feature won’t do is just blurt out the notification. This is some ways is a little disappointing because, lets say in the case of a storm, we would love to see a notification without asking for it. It would be even better if you as a user could pick which notifications could ignore the Do Not Disturb function.
What sort of skills would you like to see support the new Amazon Echo push notifications? Any concerns you have with the feature or the limitations? Tell us what you think in the comments below!
