If you have a device at home Amazon Echo, surely you have seen hundreds of tutorials to get the most out of it and exploit all its possibilities. Now, I assure you that it is never enough.
In my case, I have had Alexa at home for many years now and I thought I knew everything about Amazon’s intelligent assistant.
However, this has not been the case—even more so after the update of the mobile application a few weeks ago—and I have detected 6 mistakes that I have been making for years with Alexa that prevented me from using 100% of the device.
I’m not talking about classics like “Super Alexa”, but about small bad habits and customs that stick to you like gum and that are not easy to get rid of.
A lot of attention.
I didn’t pay enough attention to skills and routines: there are thousands and it makes everything much simpler and more agile.
Surely you know classics like Akinatorhe I see I see or the Pass word and you have used them thousands of times with Alexa to have a good time with your friends or the little ones in the house.
As you know, All this is found in the skills section of the mobile application that you use to configure the device for the first time. Now, these 3 examples, as well as some others that you use daily, remain on the surface of everything that the Amazon assistant is capable of.
Now that I have an increasingly smarter home, I have been able to take advantage of Alexa even more with the possibility of turning on the light in the living room or changing color, activating the air fryer or even starting the robot vacuum cleaner without having to enter. in the application.
And these, as you can imagine, are just a few examples. I strongly recommend that you take a closer look, as you will surely be pleasantly surprised.
Beyond this, It is also important that you dedicate some attention to routines.
The usual thing is to have the classic “Alexa, start my day”, but by searching inside the application, you can find many others that will allow you to save on your electricity bill, give you a hand with the most small ones in the house or even turn on the radio automatically when it detects water from the shower.
It is not necessary for him to respond by voice to all your commands…
Whenever you ask something, the assistant responds by voice something that, depending on the moment, can be annoying.
For example, when I go to bed at night, and everyone is asleep, I ask Alexa to turn off the light in the living room, to which she responds with a resounding: “Sure, Carlos.”
Has it happened to you? Well, you can make Alexa not have to respond to all your requests by voice, but with a small audible warning or even with silence itself.
You just have to go to More > Settings > Voice responses in the Alexa app. Activate the switch for ‘Brief Mode’ (Brief Mode), so it just plays a quick ring sound the next time you issue a request.
…and you can also do it in different tones of voice.
If you still find it annoying, It is possible to make Alexa answer you with light whispers.
This does not even need to be configured in the application. Simply say “Alexa, speak to me much more quietly.” From then on, the assistant will use a much softer voice until you ask it to increase the volume again.
As you can imagine, you can do it the other way around and ask the assistant to speak much louder or even faster or slower if you don’t get the rhythm.
For each request, I needed to say “Alexa” to activate the assistant, something you can easily avoid.
Surely it has happened to you more than once. You ask Alexa for something and seconds later you want to ask her for something else. Solution? Say the activation word again to give it a new command.
It’s not that it requires a lot of effort to have to say “Alexa” every time you want to activate it, but if you have a queue of actions that you want it to complete, it does take away from the agility of the process.
If it has happened to you, You should know that Alexa can perform several actions at the same time without you having to ask it again after another.
As? Simple: Say “Alexa, turn on Tracking Mode.”
Now, as long as you see the blue light, it means that Alexa is still listening and you can continue issuing commands or asking questions without having to summon the assistant each time. The good thing is that, if you are silent for a long time, the light will turn off and this mode will be deactivated automatically.
Not only is it capable of responding to your requests with “Alexa”. Yes: you can change the name.
Having a friend Alejando is a pain in the ass. Obviously, I don’t say it by his name, but by his diminutive: Alex.
As you can imagine, if you have someone at home who answers to that name, your beloved Echo will turn on to see what you want to tell them this time. A great nuisance that, as you can imagine, you can put an end to.
Yes, you can change the name by following this route: Devices > Echo & Alexa and select the name of your Echo device. Here you can ask it to respond to the name Amazon, Computer, Echo or Ziggy.
Insufficient sound? Connect it to an external device.
If you don’t find the sound of your Echo device enough, but you don’t want to give up its smart abilities, you can always connect it to an external device.
You can use a Bluetooth connection or a minijack cable connection and have it paired to that powerful sound bar you have at home to enjoy much better sound without having to give up anything at all.
