The latest update for retail giant Amazon's digital assistant Alexa can now satisfy your midnight cravings without dialing your phone. You just have to allow Alexa to order your meals through the online food delivery service Amazon Restaurants, which first operated in 2014. You can use the voice-activated smart home speaker, Echo.
"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," says Gus Lopez who is the general manager of Amazon Restaurants. Gus specifies 'reorder', which means you are only allowed to order meals you've had before. This is all because the voice commands are still terrible for ordering the takeaway.
Prime members need only to say, "Alexa, order sushi from Amazon Restaurants." Then it immediately browses the member's order history and provides a list of available meal options for the reorder. Just specify the name of a restaurant or the type of cuisine you are looking for. The chosen meal will be at your doorstep in an hour. What's even better is that the delivery is free! You will also get $10 off on your first order when you place an order that's worth $20 or above. Alternatively, you can place your meal orders and track the delivery in real time through the Amazon Restaurant website or app.
For now, the service is only available in 20 cities. The current list includes Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Los Angeles, Orange County, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Miami, Northern Virginia, Orlando, Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle, and Tampa.
In related news, a 6-year-old girl named Brooke Neitzel had a dollhouse and cookies delivered to their home through its interaction with Alexa. The little girl apparently asked Alexa, "Can you play dollhouse with me and get me a dollhouse?"
The parents were surprised to suddenly get expensive charges plus a delivery of the $160 KidKraft Sparkle Mansion dollhouse and 4 pounds of sugar cookies. The Nietzels then opted to donate the dollhouse to charity and activate a passcode for purchases.
