How to Set Up and Enable the Alexa Stopwatch Skill
Either way, the stopwatch becomes immediately available on all your connected Echo devices. Once enabled, the skill is easy to use. However, there are some tricks to the commands that you should know; the skill is not terribly intuitive and can be a little bit picky if you don’t apply it exactly as Alexa expects. The commands below have been tested to help you use the stopwatch in the easiest possible way.
How to Start the Stopwatch
To start the stopwatch, you have three command options:
“Alexa, start stopwatch.““Alexa, open stopwatch.” “Alexa, ask stopwatch.”
Use one of these and the stopwatch launches. You’ll know it’s running because Alexa advises you that it’s starting a new stopwatch and that you can launch it anytime to get the status. Starting the skill when no watch is running automatically launches a new stopwatch. If a stopwatch is already running, the start request just returns the timed status. If Alexa asks you, “Alarm for what time?” it didn’t understand the stopwatch command. If it responds with a question, answer the question or tell it to cancel. Alexa confirms the cancellation of the misunderstood request and the timer continues without interruption.
How to Cancel the Stopwatch
Closing the stopwatch function or stopping a timer you’ve set is not intuitive at all. If you simply tell Alexa to cancel or delete the stopwatch, it tells you there are no notifications to delete, that it can’t understand you, or some other frustrating response. Instead, use this specific command: “Alexa, ask the stopwatch to delete.” It should respond with an answer like, “Stopwatch ended at 5 minutes, 15 seconds.” The specific time depends upon how long your stopwatch was running. Once Alexa tells you the stopwatch has ended, you can launch a new one.
How to Check the Stopwatch While It’s Running
If you want to check the time on a running stopwatch, open the stopwatch using one of the three starting command options:
“Alexa, start stopwatch.““Alexa, open stopwatch.““Alexa, ask stopwatch.”
Alexa responds with an answer based on the length of time your stopwatch has been running, such as, “Stopwatch is running at 2 minutes, 14 seconds.” If you try to ask Alexa a more conversational question, such as “Alexa, how much time is on the stopwatch?” it tells you that you don’t have any notifications or provides another nonsensical response.
How to Pause the Stopwatch
If you need to pause the stopwatch, you can give the command “Alexa, ask stopwatch to pause.” Alexa remains in the paused state indefinitely or until 24 hours has elapsed, when it resets the stopwatch to zero.
How to Resume the Stopwatch
If you have paused the stopwatch, you can resume it with the command, “Alexa, ask stopwatch to resume.”
