You can now order a takeaway meal from Amazon Restaurants using nothing other than Alexa and your own voice. This is the latest skill Amazon has given Alexa, and it makes it much easier for Amazon Prime members to order dinner when they can't be bothered to cook.
To order your next meal using Alexa you'll need to a) be in one of the U.S. cities where Amazon Restaurants is available, b) be an Amazon Prime member, and c) have an Alexa-enabled device such as the Echo, Dot, or Tap. You can also use the Amazon or Prime Now apps or the Amazon Restaurants website, but where's the fun in that?
In you can tick all of those boxes and are feeling a little peckish, simply say, "Alexa, order from Amazon Restaurants". Amazon's smart home assistant will then list any meals you have previously ordered through Amazon Restaurants. Or you can specify the name of a restaurant or a cuisine type in order to narrow the field.
Amazon Restaurants was launched in 2014, and is currently available in Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Brooklyn, Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Portland, Manhattan, Miami, Minneapolis, Northern Virginia, Orlando, San Diego, the San Francisco Bay area, Seattle, and Tampa.
Jumping Through Hoops for Alexa
Letting people order food using Alexa is a great idea. OK, so there are currently some hoops to jump through, and your options are limited to meals you have previously ordered, but if you tend to order the same meals from the same restaurants time after time this shouldn't be an issue.
Gus Lopez, general manager of Amazon Restaurants at Amazon, said:
"Customers now have a hands-free, hassle-free way to reorder any meal from Amazon Restaurants using their voice to get dinner on the table."
"We are excited to leverage the innovative Alexa technology and give Prime members another easy way for Amazon Restaurants to take care of dinnertime with no menu markups and free delivery in one hour or less."
7,000 Skills and Counting
Despite one of my fellow writers claiming Alexa is dumb, Amazon's smart home assistant now boasts over 7,000 skills built by third-party developers. So while Alexa may indeed be a work-in-progress (aren't we all?!), she's growing more intelligent by the day.
Do you order takeout from Amazon Restaurants? Will you be ordering food using Alexa from now on? Do you think Alexa is a bit stupid at the moment? Or do you think she's already extremely capable as a smart home assistant? Please let us know in the comments below!
Image Credit: Guilhem Vellut via Flickr