When you setup and customize Alexa speakers Flash Briefing, you will get tailored news updates, traffic and weather information on your Echo devices (if you are too lethargic to hold your phone or tablet to read news). Once your alarm goes off and you wake up, you can get flash briefing from your Alexa. Apart from setting music as alarm, tracking Santa, and enabling multi-room audio music, your Alexa can do a lot of other wonderful tasks and one of the fantastic features of Amazon Echo devices is to customize Alexa Flash Briefing.
Some channels like NPR, BBC or The Associated Press offer Alexa Flash Briefing option by default. You just speak your command: “Alexa, what is in the news?” or “Alexa, play my Flash Briefing”; these are just two ways you can invoke Flash Briefing on your Amazon Echo devices. Before you customize Flash Briefing on Alexa, you have to add and remove some feeds.
How to Setup and Customize Alexa Flash Briefing
How to Add News Feeds for Alexa Flash Briefing
You can add feeds to your Flash Briefing in two ways: either from Amazon page or from Amazon Alexa app on your Android or iOS device. Next, follow the steps:
Step #1: Open Settings and go to Flash Briefing.
Step #2: Now open Get more Flash Briefing content.
Step #3: Here, you can scroll or search the feed you want to add. Use relevance, average rating, or date added to narrow down your search.
Step #4: Click/tap the link for the feed and click/tap on Enable Skill to add it to your Flash Briefing.
Alternatively…
Step #1: Go to Alexa Skills.
Step #2: Here, click on Categories button from the left of the search bar and choose News.
Instead, you can search for ‘flash briefing’ in the search bar.
Remember, not all news skills are Flash Briefing feeds, however many of them are.
Just check the “Alexa, what is my Flash Briefing” invocation, which will be given below the name of the skill.
Step #3: Next, click on the name of a skill and choose Enable Skill to trigger the same.
How to Add Weather Predictions to Alexa Flash Briefing
When you speak, “Alexa, what is the weather?” it will quickly give you current weather and forecast.
What if you want to get weather update along with your news? You can do this by adding this information to Flash Briefing.
Simply go to the Skills section in Alexa settings page or open Alexa app on your iPhone or Android phone and look for ‘weather’. Then, select it to launch the skills page and click Enable to add that skill to your Flash Briefing.
The skill uses your location details from the speaker configuration; this means, you need to set up your address properly under Settings → (device name)→ Device location; otherwise, weather details will be inaccurate.
How to Disable or Remove unnecessary feeds from Alexa Flash Briefing
In case you have added a feed earlier, and now you think it is useless; you can remove such unnecessary feeds from your Flash Briefing. Remember, you can toggle the feed off for time being or remove it completely.
Step #1: First off, click on Settings from the navigation panel in the left.
Step #2: Choose Flash Briefing.
Step #3: Next, click the toggle button to the right of each feed you want to remove or disable.
These disabled feeds will be moved to the bottom of your Flash Briefing settings page under Off section. You can re-enable this removed content by clicking that toggle button.
If any channel offers multiple feeds, you have to click the down arrow to expand all feeds and enable each feed you want to add back to your Flash Briefing.
Note that those removed/disabled feeds will stay added to your account. You have two choices: either leave those feeds there in Off section or you can remove them completely from Flash Briefing settings page. For your second choice (remove completely), you have to click Get more Flash Briefing content; next look for the name of the feed, choose it to launch the skills page and finally, click Disable Skill.
How to Reorder Alexa Flash Briefing Feeds or Sources
Whenever you add new feeds, they will jump to the top of the existing feeds in your Flash Briefing settings page. You may want to put your new feeds on other place to play in the queue.
You can shuffle or rearrange this order from Amazon Alexa app or from the browser.
Open Settings → Flash Briefing and then click on Edit Order from the top right corner.
Next, you need to click the hamburger button to the right of a feed; then, drag that feed to the position you wish it to play in your Flash Briefing and drop it there. Once you have done this task of rearranging feeds, click Done from the top right corner.
That’s it!
Also Read:
- Best Alexa Skills for kids
- Best Alexa Skills for Business
- Best Alexa Skills for Christmas
- Alexa Commands
- Best Amazon Echo Compatible Devices
- How to Enable Alexa Drop In
- Amazon Echo Disconnecting from WiFi
This is how you can customize Alexa speaker’s Flash Briefing. Have something to say? Share your feedback with us on Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter.