Amazon customers can now share their Alexa Routines with friends and family

What you need to know

• Amazon has made it easy to share Alexa Routines with friends and family.
• The company has also made several examples readily available on its Day One Blog.
• Alexa Routines can be shared directly from the Alexa app.

Today Amazon announced that it had enabled a feature allowing customers to share Alexa Routines that they've developed with friends, family, or anyone on the web. In a post on the company's Day One Blog, Amazon explains that customers can share Alexa Routines with others through the Alexa app via text, email, or on social media.

Amazon's Alexa voice assistant is one of the most prominent voice assistants on the market and in the public consciousness, particularly when it comes to the smart home. Early on, the company added useful features like Alexa Skills (which are analogous to apps), Alexa Blueprints (which are ways to make custom Skills), and Alexa Routines (which are smart home automations).

Alexa Routines allow you to create shortcuts to everyday smart home activities by stringing together multiple actions and triggers to achieve the desired outcome more quickly. For example, you can create an Alexa Routine for bedtime that turns off all of your smart lights, sets the alarm for the next morning, and puts you to sleep with white noise. Alternatively, you might want an Alexa Routine that triggers your smart home alarm to arm, your smart locks to lock, and your Ring cameras to record once you've left the house. Amazon makes this process relatively easy to achieve in the Alexa app, but not everyone knows about it or has taken advantage of the feature.

If you've never created an Alexa Routine before, the Day One Blog entry offers several examples that you can enable by clicking on a link or scanning a QR code. Here are a few screenshots of our favorites. Alternatively, you can go into your Alexa app and click on the Featured Routines section undef the "More" tab at the bottom of the screen.

Be sure to follow our Amazon Prime Day 2020 coverage to look for the best deals on Echo speakers and Alexa-enabled devices so that you can start running your own Alexa Routines at home.