Alexa can now set reminders for you

Amazon is rolling out an update to Alexa today that will bring a couple of critical new features that probably should’ve been included when it launched two years ago. Reminders and named timers are both rolling out today, helping to improve Alexa’s usefulness in your daily routine.

You can now say “Alexa, remind me to take out the trash at 6PM,” and it will notify you at the proper time. Alexa still lacks context for AM / PM reminders and alarms (unlike Siri and Google Assistant), which is actively annoying, so don’t forget the abbreviation.

Just like alarms, reminders are tied to the device you set them on, so don’t expect to set a reminder in your office and hear it on the Echo in your kitchen just yet. And there isn’t a way to sync reminders with third party services like Todoist, so if you already have a list of reminders, you’ll have to manually add them to your Alexa.

Alexa now supports named timers as well, which will definitely come in handy in the event that you’re cooking multiple dishes. You can also check how much time is left on a certain timer by saying “Alexa, how much time is left on my lasagna timer,” and it will let you know.

The new features are rolling out today in the US, and will be available in the UK and Germany in the coming weeks.