Alexa+ is better at a lot of things, but it still has some struggles

I’ve had access to Alexa+ for a few days now, so not enough for a full review, but enough time to start getting a sense of what the new smart assistant is capable of. While I sort out the final review, here’s what I’ve learned so far.

Gone is Alexa Speak, replaced by the ability to phrase questions and requests more naturally, putting words in the order I see fit.

Alexa+ generally picks up the right context and remembers enough that it’s easy to add follow-up questions. If Alexa+ doesn’t understand, I can just rephrase the question or add a bit more information to try to get the result I want. 

It’s a big improvement over the old Alexa+, which felt a lot more transactional, able only to deal with specific requests.

Smart home control is better, with the odd caveat

Go beyond the basic of asking Alexa+ to turn on a light, and the system is surprisingly powerful. Take the little cold spell that we’ve just had. Rather than asking Alexa+ what the temperature currently is in the office, and then asking to set the heating to some level above that, I could just say, “Alexa, it’s cold in here.”

My heating turned on, above the target temperature and my office was given a little boost. 

I can also make a command temporary, asking Alexa+ to turn a device off after a specific period. I did find that this required a bit of specific wording: “Alexa, turn the heating off after 10 minutes” didn’t work, but, “Alexa, turn the heating off in ten minutes’ time”, did.

Alexa+ then created a temporary Routine that did what I wanted. It’s possible even to string together something more complicated: “Alexa, turn the heating on. Set the temperature to 21°C and turn the heating off in 30 minutes’ time.”. 

Impressively, that mostly worked, although Alexa did decide to set the Bathroom thermostat to 21°C, which was a bit odd. Small issues aside, it’s actually very easy to achieve something quite complex without going anywhere near the app.

The local business search is sub-par

“Alexa, what’s the nearest French restaurant?” I asked. The answer was Le Marmiton, Wanstead. Not only is that restaurant an eight-minute walk from my house, but, the main issue is that Le Marmiton shut down in 2023. 

Amazon has said that it’s looking to improve the real-time information, and it needs to do this urgently. This is just one example, but being almost three years out of date isn’t great.

Booking restaurants is good, even if it’s a bit limited

If a restaurant is on OpenTable, then you can get Alexa+ to book the table for you. It’s a neat way of interacting and getting Alexa+ to do the hard work of finding when there’s space free on the date and time you want.

There are some limitations, outside of only supporting OpenTable, with the main one that Alexa+ can’t currently reserve a table at a restaurant that requires a credit card for the booking. It’s a known issue, and Amazon is looking to fix this.

Alexa+ is great at disseminating data

One thing that AI is good at is making sense of data, and that applies with Alexa+, which can scan photos, documents and emails, and can then summarise the information and look for to-do items and calendar dates.

The information can be emailed to Amazon ([email protected]), provided you’re sending from a linked email address. At least, in my experience, that’s in theory. Despite my personal email address being linked, I’ve not had any success when emailing data over.

I can use the app, and that’s impressive. Adding a document for my daughter’s upcoming dance competition, Alexa+ added some checklist items for things that need to be done (costume, etc), and then found the date of the competition and added it to my calendar.

I also took a photo of the school’s term dates page (a hideous, messy table), and Alexa+ found all of the term dates and the inset dates, letting me add them to my calendar.

There’s no support for work calendars

If you’ve got a work Gmail or Exchange account, then you can’t link this to Alexa+. Amazon is working on it, but for now it’s a bit frustrating. I pay for email hosting for my personal account, but I can’t add this to Alexa+. Instead, I’ve had to find a third-party tool that synchronises a free Gmail calendar with my paid-for Exchange one. Amazon needs to fix this one fast.

Alexa+ is the best voice assistant

It’s early days, but my initial impressions are that Alexa+ is the best voice assistant: it understands more, is easier to talk to, and can do more complicated things than its rivals.