Smart speaker timer tricks
In defense of the glorified kitchen timer
Plus: Gmail’s Snooze shortcut, ChatGPT for Mac, and Sonos speaker deals
Jared Newman | 
Hey there! I’m Jared Newman, a veteran tech journalist, and this is the free edition of Advisorator, my weekly tech advice newsletter. If someone shared this newsletter with you, consider signing up to get it every Tuesday. Thanks for reading!
Smart speakers such as Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Nest were supposed to represent the future of computing.
By offering frictionless access to omniscient voice assistants, these devices were meant to help us manage our homes, buy our groceries, and decide what content to consume. Amazon even sold Echo speakers at a loss—and I’m guessing Google did too—figuring it would eventually profit from those ambitions at scale.
Instead, people don’t use smart speakers for much beyond setting timers, checking the weather, and listening to music. Alexa and Google Assistant aren’t reliable enough for much else, so by the metrics of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, they’re failures. Amazon and Google are now racing to rebuild their virtual assistants around generative AI, hoping they’ll finally deliver on their original promise. (Amazon even hopes you’ll pay for an upgraded Alexa.)
I have doubts about whether those revamped assistants will succeed. From what we’ve seen so far, generative AI is worse at some tasks than Alexa and Google Assistant are today, and the overall hype around tools such as ChatGPT seems overblown relative to they actual utility that they provide.
But more importantly, I like that my smart speakers are glorified kitchen timers, and they don’t get enough credit for being just that. The ability to set timers by voice may not generate ongoing profit for Amazon and Google, but it’s a bigger part of my daily life than almost any other tech innovation from the past decade.
Not every gadget needs to change the world. Sometimes it just needs to keep you on task and prevent you from forgetting important things. To that end, smart speakers are the one thing that keep me from overcooking my stovetop oats in the morning, that tell me when it’s time to flip a steak in the evening, and which serve as irrefutable proof that, yes kids, your five more minutes are in fact up and it’s time for bed now.
Of course, smart speakers aren’t the only way to set a timer. I could always just ask my phone, poke around on my smartwatch, buy an actual kitchen timer, or grapple with my oven timer’s clunky interface. None are as frictionless as speaking out the command and knowing, without looking, that the nearest smart speaker will do the job. That lack of friction can be the difference between actually setting a timer and deciding to rely on my internal one—sometimes with disastrous results.
Amazon Echoes, Google Nests, and other smart speakers were supposed to do so much more, but instead they’ve succeeded at doing one thing exceedingly well. That’s a precious quality worth celebrating, even if no money is made when it happens.
Now, I shall fulfill my weekly service journalism obligations with some smart speaker timer tips:
(These tips should work on Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple HomePod speakers unless otherwise specified.)
- Set multiple timers: No need to cancel one timer before setting another. You can have several going at the same time.
- Name your timers: For instance, say “set a steak timer for four minutes.” If you’re setting multiple timers, you can then modify or check on them by name.
- Modify a timer: After setting a timer, you can reset the clock with a voice command. (Google Assistant and HomePod speakers only.)
- Add more time: Instead of resetting the timer, try asking for an extra minute or two. (Alexa and Google Assistant speakers only.)
- Set a remote timer: If you have more than one smart speaker, you can ask one speaker to set a timer on the other. (Alexa and Google Assistant speakers only.)
- Dismiss timers remotely: When you hear a timer going off in the other room, say “stop all timers” on whatever speaker is nearest you. (With HomePods, you can also ask Siri on your iPhone to stop the timers.)
- Set a recurring alarm: Ask to set an alarm every day, just on weekdays, or just weekends. (On Alexa speakers, you can also ask to skip just the next day’s alarm while leaving the schedule intact.)
- Set a music alarm: For instance, say “Wake me up with (genre) at (time),” and and you’ll get music instead of the regular alarm sound. (Alexa speakers only.)
- Manage Alexa alarms and swap sounds: In the Alexa mobile app, head to More > Alarms & Timers to see a list of all alarms and active timers. Hit the “Settings” button in either menu and select your Echo to change the alarm or timer sounds.
- Get a missed timer reminder: Using the Alexa mobile app, head to More > Alarms & Timers, select the Timers tab, then hit the Settings button. From here you’ll see options to ring all speakers or get an alert on your phone if you don’t dismiss a timer after several minutes.
- Manage HomePod alarms: Select your speaker in the Home app, then swipe up from the now playing screen. You can also set up music alarms through this menu.
- Consider a smart display: Devices like the Echo Show and Google Nest Hub make for great digital picture frames, but they also give you a glanceable countdown for any timers you’ve set.
- Just say “stop”: On Google Assistant speakers only, you can dismiss a timer without saying “Hey Google” first.