31 Amazon Echo tips, tricks and features

Virtual assistants are becoming more common: there's Siri on Apple iPhones and HomePod, Google Assistant on Android smartphones and Google Home, Microsoft's Cortana on Harman Kardon's Invoke speaker, and Bixby on Samsung smartphones.

But by far the most popular is Amazon's Alexa. Since appearing on the first-gen Echo in 2016, it has since spread to a new Echo speaker, a tiny Echo Dot, the larger Echo Plus - and even found its way into smart-clocks and smart-displays like the Echo Spot and Echo Show, plus hi-fi kit like the Echo Link Amp.

If you're one of the many to have picked up an Amazon Echo speaker (or the Dot or the Spot or the Plus), but don't know if you're making the most of its functionality or are wondering what to ask Alexa next (or have just purchased one and need to set it up), here's everything you'll want to try on your new Echo speaker.