Here’s the Windows Task Manager from my laptop, which had been left running on battery power for about 30 minutes, during which I made frequent Alexa requests. How big is that effect? Not very big at all. To be able to respond to your “Alexa” calls, the computer has to leave the microphone open permanently, which has a knock-on effect for battery life.
One disadvantage of having Alexa running on a laptop is the potential impact on battery life.
What effect will Alexa have on my laptop battery life? In my case, the computer issues the response and the Echo speaker stays quiet. One more observation: if you have another Alexa device in the same room as your computer, you don’t get two responses to your voice commands. It can take a second or two to appear and, if you speak too quickly, it will likely miss the first part of your command. One tip: make sure you wait for the Alexa pop-up to appear in the bottom right of the screen after yelping “Alexa”. You can play music from Amazon’s own music service, but the PC app doesn’t work with third-party music services such as Spotify, which is a bit annoying. You can check your calendar, set timers and alarms, check the traffic on the way to work, and switch your smart devices on and off. Alexa on your PC – what can she do?Īlexa for the PC has most of the features you would expect from a standalone device. If you don’t switch this on, you’ll have to use an in-app button to summon Alexa, which isn’t very practical.
