Alexa Whisper Mode, Celebrity Alarms, and Alarm Routines, oh my!

09/10/19 • 11 min

In this episode, Teri will talk about the newest Alexa features that are now available in Canada.

Enjoy!

One feature in particular, Whisper Mode, is very new and Teri will update us on a couple of the other features. Some of them are really cool, some of them to add some nice functionality to Alexa, and some of them are more gimmicky, but people really enjoy them.

Alarms

Alexa is often used for alarms. It can be an alarm in the morning, during the day, or any other time of the day.
There is a feature that enables a user to choose a customized sound for their alarm, and the new feature now includes the option to choose celebrity sounds which are mostly excerpts from movies.

Routines

When a user is starting a new routine, they can now choose, “when this happens” where they can choose to use their voice to start a routine, schedule it, or have a smart device action trigger the routine.
The new option in routines is, “alarm” which works by triggering a routine when an alarm is dismissed.

Privacy

Privacy with Alexa has been a concern for some people.
There is a new feature in the Alexa settings that will now enable a user to delete their voice recordings by voice by simply saying, “Alexa, delete everything I said today” or “Alexa, what I just said.” Users can give Alexa different time ranges to do that.

Whisper Mode

Whisper Mode is the ability of Alexa to understand when a user is whispering so that she can then respond to the user in a whisper. This is great when someone doesn’t want to say things loudly.
To enable it, you go into the app, then to the menu icon, click on settings, click on Alexa account, and then you will see Alexa voice responses. Click on that, and then you will see two options, whisper mode and brief mode. You just turn on whisper mode.

List of resources mentioned in this episode:

The Comprehensive Flash Briefing Formula Course

Other useful resources:

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Teri will talk about the newest Alexa features that are now available in Canada.

Enjoy!

Alarms

Alexa is often used for alarms. It can be an alarm in the morning, during the day, or any other time of the day.
There is a feature that enables a user to choose a customized sound for their alarm, and the new feature now includes the option to choose celebrity sounds which are mostly excerpts from movies.

Routines

When a user is starting a new routine, they can now choose, “when this happens” where they can choose to use their voice to start a routine, schedule it, or have a smart device action trigger the routine.
The new option in routines is, “alarm” which works by triggering a routine when an alarm is dismissed.

Privacy

Privacy with Alexa has been a concern for some people.
There is a new feature in the Alexa settings that will now enable a user to delete their voice recordings by voice by simply saying, “Alexa, delete everything I said today” or “Alexa, what I just said.” Users can give Alexa different time ranges to do that.

Whisper Mode

Whisper Mode is the ability of Alexa to understand when a user is whispering so that she can then respond to the user in a whisper. This is great when someone doesn’t want to say things loudly.
To enable it, you go into the app, then to the menu icon, click on settings, click on Alexa account, and then you will see Alexa voice responses. Click on that, and then you will see two options, whisper mode and brief mode. You just turn on whisper mode.

List of resources mentioned in this episode:

The Comprehensive Flash Briefing Formula Course

Other useful resources:

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

Alexa Dev Chat with Dave Isbitski and Teri Fisher

In this episode, Teri is welcomed on the Alexa Dev Chat Podcast by the host, Dave Isbitski, to talk about flash briefings and what else he is doing in the voice first space.

Enjoy the Conversation!

Teri is a family physician by profession and works at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Three quarters of his practice is sports medicine and the rest is general family practice. Before medical school he had done an education degree which formed the basis for his interest in education technology.

Getting into Voice Technology

He had always been interested in technology from a young age.
The first time Teri was exposed to voice technology was through Gary Vaynerchuk.
Gary Vee was talking about voice technology and flash briefings, and Teri found them as an interesting way to get a message across to a population.
He started searching online for information on voice technology, but couldn’t find anything on the technology’s presence in Canada, so he thought he should combine his passion for technology, healthcare, and education, and create a resource for people to learn about the technology.
He had done podcasting in the past so it was easy for him to set up the Alexa in Canada blog and podcast. He started them before the announcement of Alexa coming to Canada was made.

Alexa in Canada

Teri has a lot of content on the Alexa in Canada blog and podcast website.
For those who are new Alexa users, he has a page on the site with hundreds of commands for the users to try out.
He has other pages that highlight blog posts, the podcast, and some devices that are compatible with Alexa.
He also has tutorials and the flash briefing page that highlights his flash briefings.
He gets a lot of organic traffic on the website. When people type in the search terms "Alexa and Canada" his site is the number one that comes up after Amazon’s.
He gets a lot of questions from Canadians about what they can do with Alexa.

Flash Briefings 101

Teri thinks they are an incredible opportunity for people to get out a message. They are going to become more popular in time.
Just like how TV went to Netflix, and there is now personalized on-demand TV, with audio too, people can now get personalized on-demand audio. Amazon has positioned flash briefings to facilitate that.

How to Start a Flash Briefing

Teri suggests visiting CreateaFlashBriefing.com where he goes through the main steps in creating a flash briefing.
He also offers his premium course in flash briefing creation for free at FlashBriefingFormula.com. He covers everything about creating a flash briefing, marketing it, and growing it.
In terms of the costs of creating a flash briefing, the developer APIs are free. One gets AWS credits that can cover hosting.
The preferred length for a flash briefing is two minutes.
There could be potential in producing video content for flash briefings.

Flash Briefings for Increased Customer Acquisition and Engagement

Teri tested this out by carrying out an experiment.
To do something special for his 500th flash briefing, to thank the guests that had been on his podcasts, and promote his flash briefing, he created a gamified flash briefing which included an Alexa skill called "Crack the Code"
In his daily flash briefings, he would give some type of puzzle that the listeners had to solve. The listeners would then have to go to the Alexa in Canada website to search for answers to the puzzles.
They would then go to the Alexa skill, enable it, open it, and then start talking with it to try and guess what the answer to the riddle was.
If they got it correct, the skill would tell them a secret piece of the final code. Every day for two weeks, they would do the same thing.
At the end of the two weeks, if a listener had all the 14 pieces, they could speak to the skill, say the answer to the final code, and would be told they’d cracked the code, and then get a text from the skill which would direct them to the Alexa in Canada website where they could enter to win prizes.
There were extra entries for sharing the contest on social media.
The growth and activations of the flash briefings from that were huge and the feedback Teri got was overwhelming. The number of times the flash briefing was played during those two weeks went up 20% and the number of activations went up 180%. The website traffic went up 100% and the number of times the flash briefing was played on the website went up 200%.
His followers on Twitter went up 20% in those two weeks and the number of times that people were clicking on his links went up 430%. His stuff was retweeted 65% more th...

Next Episode

The Echo Ring Light Rainbow of Colours

In this episode, Teri will talk about the ring light on Echo devices, why it’s there, and what type of information we can get from it.

Enjoy!

The previous episode that Teri did on the interesting features that recently came to Canada got some very great feedback. Alexa in Canada listeners were very appreciative of being made aware of the features, tips and tricks. That prompted Teri to enlighten Alexa users about the ring light.

What is the Ring Light?

It’s a light that is formed like a ring which sits on top of the cylindrical shaped Amazon Echo devices.
On the Echo Spot, there is a round light around the display. On the other visual display Echo devices, like the Echo Show and Echo Show 5, there is a band of light along the bottom, not a ring light.

The Importance of the Ring Light

Amazon put a lot of thought into developing the ring light because if a user is looking at their device, it is a way for them to get some feedback about what’s going on, and it also has some security implications.
One of the things that people are concerned about is when the device is listening to them. By glancing at the light that is displaying on top of the device, a user gets a hint as to what is going on with the device at any particular moment in time.

Different Colors of Lights

Solid Blue Light/Dark Blue Light: One might see a spinning Cyan within this color. This is the color that comes up when the device is starting up.
When one doesn’t see any color at all, it means that it is working (assuming it’s plugged in and everything has been set up properly) and Alexa is just waiting to hear the wake up so that she can receive a command.
Once a user wakes Alexa up, they see a solid darker blue color with a small area of Cyan pointing in the direction of where the sound is coming from. Alexa has the ability to figure out in space where a person is speaking from, which has a lot of implications, including that when you have multiple devices, that is how Alexa knows which device should be responding to a user.
Once a user has given their command, they see a solid blue and Cyan as Alexa responds.
Other colors that provide useful information include an orange spinning light which spins clockwise to indicate that the device is connecting to the WiFi network.
When there is a solid red light, it means that the user has muted the device, and so Alexa is not listening.
A pulsing yellow light means that Alexa has a message or a notification for the user, in which case, the user will need to say, “Alexa, play my messages” or “Alexa, what are my notifications?”
People can be on a phone call or drop in on other users using their devices, and this is where a pulsing green light comes up as a sign that there is an incoming call or someone is dropping in on the device.
A green light spinning counter clockwise means that the user is on an active call or drop in.
A white light indicates how high or low the volume is. When a user adjusts the volume level, they should see the ring of white light get bigger or smaller corresponding with the percentage of volume.
A spinning white light can also indicate that Alexa Guard is on. Alexa Guard is a way for Alexa to listen to sounds such as glass breaking when you are away. This feature is currently only in the US.
The purple light tells us a couple of things. A pulsing purple (or violet light) is an indication that an error occurred during your WiFi set up. A single flash of purple light after an interaction with Alexa means that “Do not Disturb” is turned on.

List of resources mentioned in this episode: