r/alexa

Last week, my echo pop received the update for alexa+. I thought it'd be a great improvement. Turns out it's till dumb, but with a different voice. So disappointing.

Hi everyone,

I have an Echo Show 10 and two Tapo cameras, and I’m trying to create an Alexa Routine that activates the cameras when both my girlfriend and I are away from home.

However, under Location, I only see the option to use a single device’s location as a trigger. I don’t see a way to add another location condition, such as:

My phone is away AND my girlfriend’s phone is away → activate the cameras.

The important part is that if I leave while my girlfriend is still at home, the cameras should remain in Privacy Mode.
Is this possible with Alexa? Or would I need something like Home Assistant to achieve this?

I’d prefer to keep it fully automatic, without having to use a voice command or manually activate a routine.

Okay idk if I’m just getting old or it’s my ADHD or what, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how to do this. I’m trying to create a routine that will make an announcement at specific times in the morning warning my kids that they have 30, then 15, then 10, then 5 minutes to be ready to go. I want it to play on about half the echos in the house without creating a permanent group that I’ll then have to take apart for the rest of the day and put back together every morning. Can anybody ELI5 this for me? And I mean like a REALLY slow 5yo, not one of the clever ones.

We have the kids’ Dot with kids’ settings on. We use it to play music 90% of the time, but sometimes my kid has questions - how do you spell things, etc. Since the new update, Alexa keeps asking my kid personal questions - like:

Kid: Alexa how do you spell microwave?
Alexa: MICROWAVE. What’s your favorite thing to heat up in the microwave?

I’ve asked it directly to stop asking questions, and it responds that it will limit itself to providing info, but the questions just keep coming. It’s annoying for a regular Alexa, but seems creepy and inappropriate for a device for kids.

Any settings we can change?

People of Reddit,

Is anyone absolutely confused as shit why the new AI version of Alexa is terrifying, literally throwing random recommendations at me and changing voices randomly, and all around just seems to be possessed? I quite literally want the normally programmed version back instead of the unhinged adaptive learning freak they have made her. Anyone else experiencing this?

My Alexa is used through a Bose home audio system connected to Wi-Fi. The Alexa voice recently updated on that device to the most annoying valley-girl AI voice that you can imagine. This is apparently the new standard Alexa voice across devices.

At least once a week, I have to tell it, “Alexa, revert to feminine 2.” then the thing tries to gaslight me into believing that the new voice is her classic voice, and I have to do it again. Then once it finally switches it promises to save the setting. But then the voice switches back to the newer approximately a week later.

How do I stop it from switching back? I cannot stand this hyper realistic, obnoxious new voice. Sorry if that’s a little harsh, but the new voice just gets under my skin.

When saying to Alexa to adjust the volume for all four speakers in the house, volume 2 is too quiet and volume 3 too loud - how do you get it to be between those two please?

Look, this is such a petty annoyance that I feel stupid for posting it. Nevertheless..

Like 90% of the Alexa usage in my household is setting timers and alarms. A lot of the timers are not like easily memorable chunks of time, but rather specific numbers - like just for an example, 13 minutes.

Up until the last 2 months I've never had an issue with this. I can set the timer, Alexa acknowledges the timer, and makes a sound when the timer runs out, and I could ask at any time, "how much time is left?" and it'll just tell me "There are 2 minutes and 10 seconds left on your 13 minute timer." It kept track so I didn't have to.

But now I can't seem to track the timers easily. Now instead, it goes:

> "Alexa, set a timer for 37 minutes."
> > "Timer set." > > (some time later) > > "Alexa, how much time left?" > > "What are you timing?

If I want it to tell me how much time is left on my timer, I have to specify: "Alexa, how much time is left on my 37 minute timer?" But the thing is, the timers are always for different numbers and I can't always remember how much time I set the timer for lol.

The app shows the timer just fine, but that defeats the purpose. I don't want to have to pull out my phone and navigate the shitty app to get to my timers. I don't want to have to specify how long the timer was set for, especially if there is only 1 timer running.

This is stupid, I know. I'm lazy and have a horrible memory, I know. I just want it to work how it has been working for the last ~8 years that I've had my device.

Any suggestions other than "just remember how long your timer was set for?"

I ask alexa to tell me at what percentage does humidity become uncomfortable and all it does it tell me the weather. No matter how I phrase it or adjust it to make it as clear as possible all I get is the current weather conditions, the forecast, or "I can't help you with that" when I respond the question was not answered. Rather than getting smarted she continues to get dumber. In the past asking questions would trigger alexa to search online or refer to some knowledge bank it can access, more and more it just stumbles and flops without actually providing an answer.

Crazy how something as basic as saying "Alexa what is 300+30+3" can no longer be done despite being able to do it for years.

After wrestling with the Alexa app, and performing setup twice, once to connect to WiFi and once to register to my account (it seems the setup flow is broken and both things don’t happen in one go), I now have 2 more outstanding problems:

- Saying “Check for Update” tells me there is an update available. I tell it to start. Nothing happens. Also trying all the tricks to force an update (press mute, wait 30 mins etc.) don’t seem to be achieving anything. Device has been on for a few days now.

- Wake word functionality in the app seems to be broken. It is stuck at “Loading…” and says it times out trying to fetch the wake word. All the entries are greyed out. Asking Alexa to change the wake word tells me to go to the app 🤷.

I saw a post from 6 months ago with someone with the same issues. Conveniently the thread is locked so I can’t check up with them.

Anyone faced similar issues/know a workaround? Amazon support just sends me in circles and then passes me off to someone else equally as clueless.

Hey guys, i bought my Alexa echo dot 5th generation yesterday. It's amazing and all but what I really liked was having the orange light on while the music plays cause it's a nice aesthetic. However, today, whenever I play any song there is absolutely no light whatsoever coming from Alexa. Is this normal or is there an issue with my settings or something?

Note: Do not disturb was never turned on.

I’m sure most people would agree that the Echo Show has the potential to be an amazing product. If Amazon ditched the ads and fixed the photo ambient mode to work more like Google Home, I honestly think they’d sell a ton more of these devices.

Alexa is still a good assistant. I don’t think it’s as capable as Gemini when it comes to general knowledge and problem-solving, but for the basic questions most people ask on a daily basis, it gets the job done. And when it comes to advanced smart home automations, Alexa is LIGHTYEARS ahead. Google still has a lot of catching up to do in that department.

That’s what makes the Echo Show so frustrating. There’s so much wasted potential. Instead of focusing on making it the best smart display possible, Amazon seems determined to turn it into an advertising machine.

People paid for these devices. They own them. They shouldn’t have to constantly fight ads on a screen sitting inside their own home. Get rid of the ads, improve the ambient photo experience, and let the Echo Show actually live up to its potential.

I was watching YT while holding my iPhone. I looked down and saw a notification from Alexa someone had signed into my account with an Android phone. Then emails saying a sign-in happened on my IMBD, Grubhub and my Budget car rental cancelled. All these are connected to my Amazon account. I was really scared for my Ring alarm/cameras/etc.

Long story short, they added themselves to my Amazon family profile and helped themselves to my Prime, Alexa, & Fire TV. Called Amazon and they got the profile removed and my account secure. Still can‘t figure out how they accessed it in the first place. didn’t even know things like this could happen. has anyone had a similar issue?

I am not running Alexa+
I was reading quietly nothing doing on Alexa, suddenly it piped up in a different voice than usual and asked "Can I ask a personal question, I know your uncle died of TB last year." at this point I said, "Alexa stop" and "I don't know where you got that information but it is wrong."

- I do not have an uncle who died last year (or this or the year before)
- No one in my family has TB
- What's with Alexa spontaneously seeking information

Then I said exit Alexa + and it said "hmm, I can't do that because you're not using Alexa plus... in the normal voice
The spontaneous question is not in the device history, though my response to it is
I tried a couple of subsequent requests (e. g. what time is it?) and the responses were in the normal voice