Click to Skip Ad
Closing in...

Forget Siri – you can run Amazon’s Alexa on your Apple Watch right now

Published Jun 9th, 2018 4:34PM EDT
BGR

If you buy through a BGR link, we may earn an affiliate commission, helping support our expert product labs.

Apple is bringing several new features to Siri in iOS 12, but that doesn’t mean Siri will become the most popular voice assistant in town. It’s Amazon’s Alexa that’s winning that battle for the time being, largely thanks to Amazon’s booming smart speaker business.

But as it turns out, you can run Alexa on the iPhone is you so desire. And it turns out you can also get it on the Apple Watch, although it’s a little more complicated.

Found by The Verge, Voice in a Can is a $1.99 third-party app that lets you talk to Alexa from your wrist.

The Apple Watch can’t officially run any other assistant, and that’s probably why Amazon did not make an Apple Watch app for Alexa — or maybe Apple never approved one.

Voice in a Can, meanwhile, runs directly on the Apple Watch and uses a watch complication so that you can launch it from the watchface. Once Voice in a Can syncs to your Amazon Alexa account, you’ll be ready to issue commands to Alexa.

But because this is a third-party Alexa app, you won’t be able to enjoy certain features, including making calls, playing music, or Echo announcements. 

That said, Voice in a Can will help you control all the Alexa-enabled devices that you might have at home directly from the watch.

The overall experience, however, might not be great, The Verge warns, and you can expect Alexa to be slow to respond. You can download the Voice in a Can app at this link.

Chris Smith Senior Writer

Chris Smith has been covering consumer electronics ever since the iPhone revolutionized the industry in 2008. When he’s not writing about the most recent tech news for BGR, he brings his entertainment expertise to Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and other blockbuster franchises.

Outside of work, you’ll catch him streaming almost every new movie and TV show release as soon as it's available.