The Amazon Echo is pretty great at understanding your voice out of the box, but Alexa could always use a little help. If she gets a command wrong - or even if she gets it right - open up your Alexa app to give some feedback.

Google Home is finally available in Australia. If you've exhausted what it can do out of the box, you're going to need some third-party services that add new features to the smart home speaker. Here are the best ones that you should try out.

Last week, Google finally released Google Home in Australia, a voice-controlled smart appliance that can answer questions, remind you of your schedule, play music and even control your house lights. But how does it fare against the similar Amazon Echo? Let's find out.

Android: It's a good idea to check on your Google security and privacy settings every once in a while. Google makes it even easier with a few handy voice commands that can jump right to the important parts of your account.

Android/Chrome: When you're at your desk, you don't want to constantly fiddle with your phone. Join helps you control your phone without picking it up, and now you can even use voice commands to do so.

Google's new Google Assistant appeared in every part of the company's hardware event yesterday. Google was less clear about how Assistant differs from Google Now, or Now On Tap, or Google's voice commands. To clear things up, here are some of Assistant's best new features, and how it fits into your Google life.

Mac: Siri is the big new feature in macOS Sierra and while you can ask it just about anything you can ask it on iOS, it does have a few tricks of its own. OS X Daily put together a list of some of those.

Android: Google's voice commands are incredibly powerful. However, you might not have noticed that you can use them while watching videos on YouTube. Simply say "OK, Google" and you can send a bunch of commands directly to the app.

Google Now offers a wide range of voice commands designed to work with your natural language, but it can help to know exactly what the virtual assistant is capable of understanding. That's where OK Google comes in -- it's a growing, searchable list of every known Google Now command.

The music discovery app SoundHound has gone hands-free, letting you search music, look up information and add songs directly to your Spotify playlist with "OK Hound..." voice commands.

Google Keep is one of Google's quieter successes. The notes and to-do app has a ton of awesome, buried features. For example, you can add items to your shopping list without ever opening the app.

Being able to make your smartphone do things by just giving it a verbal command can be exceptionally useful when your hands are busy or when you're simply too lazy to type. Here are some ways you can use Google App voice commands for your phone.

Google's voice commands are excellent at making texting easier. Recently, Google made this even better, adding an answering machine-style command that allows you to read your last five messages.

Google has several options for intelligently locking your home screen already, including trusted places or devices. Now, it's adding a new option: trusted voice. If you say "OK, Google", your phone can unlock, but someone else's voice won't unlock it.