Two best friends play tips

If you'd rather save yourself the trip to Starbucks, you can have Alexa start your coffee maker for you. Not only can the Behmor Connected Brewer be controlled by Alexa, it integrates with Amazon's Dash buttons to automatically reorder coffee when it starts to get low. The Mr. Coffee Smart Optimal Brew coffee maker also integrates with Alexa through IFTTT. However, all you really need to make coffee using your voice is a compatible smart switch and a very basic drip coffee brewer.

Alexa now lets you create reminders so you can remember to check the oven or that you should go to the grocery store at a certain time. To create a reminder, just say something like, "Alexa, remind me to stop by the post office tomorrow at 10 a.m." At 10 a.m. the next day, Alexa will sound an alarm, reminding you to go to the post office. You can also say things like:

• "Alexa, reminder."
• "Alexa, remind me to check the oven in 15 minutes."
• "Alexa, remind me to call Mom four days from now."
• "Alexa, what are my reminders this weekend?"
• "Alexa, what reminders do I have tomorrow?"

You don't need one of Amazon's speakers or even a third-party Alexa speaker to take the assistant for a spin. All you need is a desktop web browser. From the web, you can navigate to Echosim.io and log in to your Amazon account. To interact with Alexa, click and hold on the microphone button and speak a command or ask a question. Alexa will respond just as she would from official hardware. Almost all Alexa features can be accessed through Echosim.io, as well. You can enable skills, control smart home devices and so on. However, you cannot stream audio, and while you can set a timer or alarm, there will be no sound when the timer has elapsed or the alarm is set to go off.

Amazon likes to show its appreciation for its most loyal customers, particularly those who've spent cold, hard cash on an Amazon device. From time to time, Amazon will run special deals that are reserved exclusively for Alexa speaker owners. For instance, the Echo Dot and Tap were initially only available for purchase for those who owned an Amazon Echo. More recently, Amazon offered Alexa-only Prime Day deals, where a number of deals were reserved for official Amazon Alexa devices only -- third-party Alexa devices and services were excluded from those deals.

With calling and messaging on Alexa came notifications for missed calls and unheard messages. The natural progression was to be able to receive other notifications from important skills or other updates. For now, the only notifications available are the package delivery status for your Amazon Prime orders. When your order is out for delivery, your Echo speakers will let you know with a yellow light ring. To enable these delivery notifications, open the Alexa app and go to Settings > Accounts > Notifications > Shopping Notifications and toggle it on. Third-party skills will soon be able to send users notifications. To check your notifications, just say, "Alexa, who did I miss?" or, "Alexa, what are my notifications?"

If you do happen to order something from Amazon with your Echo, Echo Dot or Tap, you can also track those packages by asking, "Alexa, where's my stuff?" or saying, "Alexa, track my order." The information Alexa will give you about a package isn't too detailed, but it will tell you the day the packages are expected to arrive. The hope now is for an update that will at least tell you which carrier the item was shipped with so you can better anticipate the time it should arrive.