80 AUGUST 2019|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE 378
T
hereare plenty of Amazon Alexa
devices out there, but the core
services areall run in the cloud.
As such, the hardwaredefines the sound
quality (orpicturequality,insome cases),
but the main features arethe same across
all devices, with afew exceptions for
third-party smart speakers (see box,
opposite).For that reason, our group test
of Echo devices on page 88 will help you
buy the righthardware, but here, we’ll show
youwhat Alexa is capable of.
Agood starting pointiswith the features
that arebuilt into Alexa.These arethe
commands and options youcan start with.
ANSWERME
At its most basic, Alexa is theretoanswer
anyquestions youmighthave. Want to know
howtospell aword? AskAlexa.Wantto
knowthe answertoamaths problem?Ask
Alexa.Likewise, youcan find out which day
Christmas or your birthday will fall on. You
canask about IMDB ratings forTVshows
and find out who playscertain characters.
In short, if you’vegot aquestion, you
throw it at Alexa.She’ll quiteoften reply
that she doesn’t knowthe answer, but
the morequestions youask, the more
you’ll gettounderstand her limitations,
and what youcan and can’tdo.
Weather is one of the big reasons to use
Alexa:just ask what the weather’slikeand
you’ll getanupdatefor your local area. You
canalso try things like‘Alexa,will it rain?’ to
getmorespecific information. If youwant
weather updates foradifferentpart of the
world, just ask and say the name of the city
or location youwantinformation for.
Alexa canalso be your best kitchen
assistant. Youcan setasimple or multiple
timers, naming them. Forexample, ‘Alexa,
setpizzatimer 15 minutes. Alexa,set chips
timer 12 minutes’ will settwo timers for
differentthings you’recooking. If youhave
an Alexa deviceinyour bedroom, youcan
also setanalarm just by asking.
TAKECONTROL
Youdon’t havetostick with the default Alexa
settings, and youcan makesome changes
that may makethe systemeasier to deal
with. If youfind that Alexa goes offbyherself
all toooften, youcan change the wake word.
Go to the Alexa app and tapDevices, then
tapEcho &Alexa foralist of your smart
speakers. Tapthe speaker youwanttoedit,
tapWakeWord, and youcan choose from
the list of options: Alexa,Echo, Computer
and Amazon. Each Echo devicehas to have
its wake word changed individually.
By default, after Alexa has answereda
question or completedacommand, she
shuts down and youhavetoask her a
newquestion, starting with ‘Alexa’(or the
wake word youset). With Follow-Up Mode,
Alexa waits foryou to ask another question
forafewseconds. As Follow-Up mode is
enabled individually on each smart speaker,
followthe instructions above to go to your
Echo’s Settings page, select Follow-Up
mode and toggle it on.
EVERYTHINGYOUNEED
TOKNOWABOUTALEXA
Onceyou’ve gotyour Echo hooked up to your Amazon account, you can
do alot straight away.Here’severything you need to knowabout Alexa
There have been concerns thatAlexa is listening in to
everything we sayand spying on us. This is only
partiallytrue. Amazon onlylistens in when it thinks it
hears the wake word (usuallyAlexa), althoughthis can
be triggered by mistake. Onceheard, Amazon then
records and stores the requests.
Bloomberg discovered thatAmazon had employed
staff to listen to these recordings in order to help train
Alexa to better understand what’s being asked.
Fortunately, you can control whatinformation is
stored, and even delete past recordings.
First, the more shocking bit: seeing howmuch data
Amazon has recorded about you. Open the Alexa app
and go to Settings, Alexa Account, Alexa Privacy. Tap
ReviewVoiceHistoryand you’ll see alist of phrases
thatAlexa has heard today. Youcan select individual ones and delete
them, or use the option to delete all recorded conversations fortoday.
Using the drop-down menu, you can view
recordings fordifferentperiods, including
Yesterday, This Week,This Month and All History.
For each option, you can delete individual
recordings or delete everything.
From the Alexa Privacy menu, you can also
delete (but notsee) information on howyou’ve
used Alexa to control your smarthome devices.
To preventAlexa from recording information
in future, select the Manage HowYour Data
Improves Alexa option. Youcan then turn off the
options to Help Develop NewFeatures (Amazon
warns thatnew features maynot work well for
you if you do this, althoughwecan’t see how),
and you can turn off Use Messages to Improve
Transcriptions to stop anymessages you send using Alexa from
being read.
Therehave beenconcernsthatAlexais listening in to Usingthe drop-downmen
IsAlexa listeningtoeverythingIsay?
