Amazon Alexa September Round-up: Telus Optik TV Skill and More

September 2020 has been quite an eventful month for Amazon as the company announced a handful of new Alexa devices, including next-generation Echo devices, all-new Fire TV Stick and Fire TV Stick Lite, as well as the new WiFi 6-compatible eero Pro 6 and eero 6 mesh systems.

In addition to these key hardware releases, Amazon also rolled out some interesting new skills for Alexa, including a Telus Optik TV integration skill. Below are some of the top Alexa updates you should know for the month of September.

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Telus Optik TV Integration

On September 9th, Telus launched an Alexa integration including Video Skill Kit (VSK) and a smart home skill, allowing customers to control their Telus Optik TV by voice via their Echo device. Connected with Telus Home Assistant, users can now use Alexa to seamlessly search for shows, control their TV volume, and change channels.

Amazon Music HD

On September 10th, Amazon launched Amazon Music HD for Canada, a new tier of premium quality music with millions of songs in High Definition. Starting at just $12.99/month, or an additional $5/month for current Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers, Amazon Music HD makes high quality, lossless audio accessible to all music fans.

Chef Alexa

You can now directly ask “Alexa, show me some chicken recipes” or “Alexa, what are the best cookies recipes?” From there, Alexa will offer you several recipes to choose from, so you can find the perfect one for tonight’s dinner.

Certified for Humans

Certified for Humans is a new user-friendly program that allows you to set up any Alexa-compatible smart home device all with the Alexa app or any Alexa-enabled device like the Echo or Echo Dot. Smart home devices that are labeled as “Certified for Humans” meet Amazon’s high bar for delightful, not demanding devices.

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