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Here's how Amazon makes sure people named 'Alexa' won't be constantly annoyed by their Echo

amazon echo
amazon echo

Amazon

It must be pretty annoying for someone named Alexa being called by their name only to have an Amazon Echo chime in ahead of them.

The constantly-listening Echo is a smart hardware device that only responds to its wake word of "Alexa." When it hears that followed by a command, like "play me some music," it gives the user something good to listen to on Amazon Prime or Spotify.

But that may not be so great for someone trying to call their cat Alexa to come eat dinner.

Fortunately, Amazon has a solution to this problem — which I had wondered about since purchasing one of the devices recently. Google with its "ok Google" and Microsoft with "hey Cortana" don't really have this problem, though "hey Siri" could be one in the future.

In an interview with Fortune last week, the company's senior vice president who oversees Echo and other devices talked about what users can use just in case they (or a pet) share that name.

"Yes, we have a lot of examples of that, and dogs and cats. So we do give two other choices for wake words," Amazon's Dave Limp said. "It’s not the primary ones, but the customer can go into settings and change it to either Amazon or Echo, and those work just equally as well."

If users don't want to talk to Alexa, they can instead call out to the two other options through a change in the device's settings. The wake word can quickly be swapped out through the Alexa smartphone app by going into Settings, choosing your Echo, and tapping on "Wake Word."

After the settings are saved, it takes a few minutes for the Echo to recognize its new name, according to the app.

Limp also said the inspiration behind the device was in replicating the talking computer in Star Trek, and their choice of Alexa as a wake word came about due to its unique sound and hard X, that ensures it doesn't respond when it's not supposed to.

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