Alexa Buttons - if you can't say: "Alexa"

"Alexa, ask Pikachu to talk"

"Alexa, sing a song"

"Alexa, open animal sounds"

"Alexa, beat box"

"Alexa, who lives in a pineapple?"

"Alexa, do a fart"

These are just some of the silly things that we ask Alexa on a daily basis.  I say we, but I really mean our eldest Ioan.  While he's messing with Alexa,  Macsen, our youngest son with a rare genetic condition, is hysterically laughing.  So when Macsen's birthday came along, finding a way for him to interact with Alexa was top of our list.

Turns out Amazon has already thought about this with their Echo Buttons:  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amazon-Echo-Buttons-Alexa-Echo-Gadget-Alexa/dp/B072C4KCQH

These buttons are just like the Adaptive Switches that Macsen uses at school, but they're designed to work with Alexa via Bluetooth and can light up in any cololur combination.  The instructions for registering the buttons comes in the box and it's very simple to set up.  Once conmected you can create a new Routine from your Alexa phone app with lots of action types to choose from.  We set our buttons to either tell a joke or play a song:

Here are some examples of the available actions that you can add to an Alexa Routine or button:

There are also a number of Alexa Skills and Games that already work with Alexa buttons.  Including:

• "Alexa do a fart" will keep making different fart noises along with descriptions of the bodily functions every time you hit your echo button
• "Alexa ask Pikachu to talk" will make slightly different Pikachu (Pokémon) sounds with each button press
• "Alexa Yes No Buttons" will run an Alexa Skill that I've written, which helps children like Macsen to answer questions with yes and no responses.

Here's Macsen trying Yes No Buttons for the first time:

If you would like to use Yes No Buttons, please search the Alexa Skill store or follow this link:

https://skills-store.amazon.co.uk/deeplink/dp/B07TK9R1Z6

Please try Alexa Echo buttons and our Skill and let us know how you get on in the comments.