We all love the commercial of Alec Baldwin telling his Amazon Echo to order him some socks, right? And while having a digital assistant around to help you order from mega-giant Amazon sounds handy, we also found some not-so-handy skills Alexa can learn.
Here are our top useless Alexa skills:
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I Pooped
About the Skill: Tell Alexa whether you evacuated your bowels today. She will encourage you for doing so.
We could see this being somewhat entertaining for small children learning to use the toilet, but having to announce your bathroom activities as an adult seems very sad.
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Chicken Nugget
About the Skill: Not sure how many chicken nuggets to order? This skill will let you know how many you should order.
If you need help from an Amazon Echo to figure out how many nuggets you want, we recommend disconnecting from the digital world for a while and resetting your own human instincts. And besides, what if it says seven? McDonald’s doesn’t even offer a 7-piece meal. So there.
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Dunkirk
About the Skill: In war, every decision matters. What will you do to survive? In this adventure game set during the early days of World War II, you play a British soldier holding back the German invasion of France. Your only hope: to make it to the seaside town of Dunkirk for evacuation by ship back to England. You direct the action, making life-or-death decisions with moral consequences, all against the terrifying backdrop of Hitler’s menacing blitzkrieg.
Okay, so this one is the official Dunkirk movie skill. It's a choose-your-own-adventure game based on the movie. It’s actually pretty cool, and fans of the movie will probably really enjoy it. But can you really picture a person sitting on a stool in their kitchen playing this game with Alexa for hours? Nope, we can’t either.
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BOSCH: A Detective's Case
About the Skill: Think you have what it takes to step into the shoes of an LAPD detective? Join Harry Bosch and members of the cast of Bosch, Season 3 in an interactive mystery. A young woman has disappeared and Bosch has given you one day to find her. Avoid false leads and missteps by making the right “detective’s choice” at each fork in the road.
It's another choose-your-own-adventure type game. Do Bosch fans really want to act out their own episodes? Hit or miss here.
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Kangaroo Facts
About the Skill: Skill that tells you random kangaroo facts. Picks from a list randomly and tells you a fact about kangaroos.
This whole animal-facts genre is huge on Alexa. You can also find eel facts, mantis shrimp trivia, and facts about pretty much any other animal on the planet. We wonder how truly bored you have to be to sit and ask Alexa about eel facts…
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Kimberly Facts
About the Skill: This app provides facts about the Village of Kimberly located in Wisconsin.
Facts about the town of Kimberly, Wisconsin. There are tons of these for small towns, as if at some mayors' conference they all decided they needed this hot new technology. Weird or useful?
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Parrot
About the Skill: Parrot repeats back what you say to it.
A skill that just repeats what you say, although reading the review it looks like the parrot is still learning and can only repeat one line. We’d recommend skipping this one for obvious reasons.
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Date Ideas
About the Skill: This Alexa skill is loaded with over 75 date amazing ideas. Just ask Alexa for a date and she'll give you one! The majority of dates provided are free to relatively inexpensive.
This one is open to interpretation. If you aren’t a big sports person, for example, and it suggests going out to snowboard, then you won’t be a happy camper. But who knows? Maybe you’ll stumble across some really valuable ideas!
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Fidget Spinner
About the Skill: Alexa can do pretty much anything. Of course, this includes spinning a fidget spinner. Watch your boredom vanish at speeds of 1,000 miles per hour as you ask Fidget Spinner to spin your fidget spinner. Although you may not be able to see the actual fidget spinner, believe her, it's there.
It tells you that an imaginary fidget spinner is spinning. Really.
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Fart Sound Jokes
About the Skill: These are some fart jokes and sounds. We hope you enjoy them!
Come on guys. Be old fashioned and just use your armpit, okay? We don’t need a digital version of fart sounds.
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Cow Translator
About the Skill: The skill will take a few short phrases and return the response in cow! The phrase could be simple, like "Moo moo," or 'What does the cow say?" Disclaimer: Results may vary. All cows may not understand each phrase.
It just repeats back "moo moo moo" to whatever you say. Props to the witty disclaimer, though. Bravo, Cow Translator team!
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Hunter’s Party
About the Skill: Coming to Hunter's first birthday party and need more info? Ask Alexa what you need to know and get answers right away!
A skill just for information about a baby named Hunter's first birthday party. Useful if you know Hunter. But we’ll assume you do not.
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Jurassic Bark
About the Skill: Alexa, humanity's best digital assistant can now sound like humanity's best friend, just ask! The dog featured in this skill is Cali, a Maltese poodle from Seattle.
It's just a recording of some random dog that barks when you open the skill. That's all. Just dog bark sounds.
