Teach Your Old Amazon Echo New Tricks and 3 Other New Alexa Features You Must Know About

Amazon announced some quite large Alexa voice assistant updates at their event on September 24th last week. To add more privacy settings to reduce the number of times you have to say wake up word, these features promise to make your Amazon Echo smoother experience from start to finish.

Here’s how to use the new Alexa features that Amazon announced. Please note that some of them will not be available until the end of this year.

Interact with Alexa without saying the wake word every time

Alexa hasn’t always been known as a conversationalist. When you have to constantly say “Alexa” for every task, even seconds apart, it can be frustrating. Fortunately, the voice assistant is getting an update called natural turn that allows you to interact with Alexa without saying the wake word every five seconds.

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You can activate the Alexa conversation mode by saying “Alexa, join our conversation.” Multiple people will be able to interact with the voice assistant without saying the wake-up word. You can even interrupt. Amazon showed an example of two people ordering a pizza, both talking to Alexa about the size of pizza to order.

Teach Alexa New Tricks

Soon you will be able to teach Alexa with a new feature called interactive teaching. If Alexa isn’t sure what you’re asking her to do, she will start asking you questions to find out what you want her to do.

For example, if you tell Alexa to set the light in the living room to relaxation mode, it will say, “I don’t know what reduction mode is. Can you teach me?” Then you can tell the voice assistant that sleep mode means to dim the lights. The next time you ask Alexa to do the task, it will remember what to do.

Alexa can delete all voice interactions

Last year, Amazon added a setting that allowed it to erase everything you just said. This year, Amazon announced that you can now remove all interactions you’ve had with Alexa with a single command. To do this, just say “Alexa, delete everything I said.”

Previously, you would have to delete all conversations with the voice assistant by going into the privacy settings of the Alexa app.

Alexa can help you review your privacy settings

Not sure where to find your Alexa privacy settings? Alexa can now help. Just ask, “Alexa, how do I check my privacy settings?” Alexa will then send a link to the Alexa app that says Check your privacy settings.

When you tap on the link, it takes you to the Alexa privacy page, where you can make changes to your voice history, detected sounds, smart home devices, skill permissions, and Alexa data.

Along with these new Alexa features, the company also showed a preview of its new line of spherical echo speakers, a flying drone for the interior of your house and Echo kids speakers with animal designs.

For more tips from Alexa, see the The six best Amazon Echo features and how to use them, Five best ways to use the Amazon Echo in the kitchen Y creative ways to do your Alexa routines.

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