Scroll to the Echo device you'd like to make a kids's edition and tap its name.ģ. Open the Alexa app and tap Devices in the lower menu bar, then tap Echo & Alexa at the top.Ģ. The only way to really know if you can cope with the limitations applied to younger customers is to try it. Communication is also hobbled a bit - kids'-edition Echos can Drop-In (aka, call or video call) with other devices in the home, but calls with Echos outside the home, even those belonging to friends and family, are totally disabled.īut most of the things most people use smart speakers for - smart home control, asking the time or the weather, answering random questions - those all work the same.
![when ispeak to alexa on my echo dot i get no respond when ispeak to alexa on my echo dot i get no respond](https://i.imgur.com/dsC0sEt.jpg)
In kids' mode, for example, music defaults to playing only nonexplicit versions, which might be a deal breaker for some music fans. That means no more interruptions, but it limits some other functions too.Įcho Dot Kids are obviously designed for younger people, but any Amazon Echo can be turned into a kids' edition in settings. Every Amazon Echo device, however, has a setting that can turn it into a kids' edition, at least in terms of how it operates. The extreme method: Become a kid againĪmazon makes a couple of kids' edition devices - the Echo Kids speaker and the Echo Show Kids, which has a display. If killing off Alexa interruptions is as much of an obsession for you as it was for me, I did find one pretty extreme option that works better than all others combined - but it comes with some pretty steep compromises you may not be willing to make. Those are great (unless you think they're creepy, in which case, here's a bunch of other stuff you might want to turn off, too). To be clear, I'm not talking about Alexa Hunches - when Alexa notices you, say, turned off the front porch light but forgot to lock the door, so your speaker lets you know. Just because you ask for a recipe while cooking in the kitchen doesn't mean you need help hosting a dinner party. Those annoying suggestions don't disappear completely, so know going in that this is more of a treatment than a cure.
![when ispeak to alexa on my echo dot i get no respond when ispeak to alexa on my echo dot i get no respond](https://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/b.png)
Basically, if you turn off absolutely everything you don't want or need, you can reduce the number and severity of interruptions. The only thing I found that worked at all was to take a patchwork approach. Turns out, however, there's no one single toggle that would let me turn "By the way" suggestions on or off systemwide.