How to Stop Others from Using Your Alexa Echo Device?

How to Stop Others from Using Your Alexa Echo Device?
Photo by Anete Lusina from Pexels

From day one and even before the launch of Alexa Echo devices, people have been asking questions such as How can Alexa only respond to my voice, Can Alexa block certain voices, How to stop others from using my Alexa echo dot and other Alexa devices? With an aim to help you get the right answers to these and other common questions regarding Amazon Echo's voice recognition errors, we are here with a few solutions that can help you prevent others from using Alexa echo devices and make your device safe for you.

Since Amazon is advertising Alexa Echo as a personal assistant for performing multiple tasks in home and office via IoT devices. It is still not perfect and lacks many important security features. One of those missing security features is "No Way Of Differentiating Your Voice" and it means, Amazon Alexa Echo Speakers can't work only on your voice, it works on voice commands of anyone who can say, Alexa. So, it sounds like a public device rather than a personal voice assistant. Imagine how you will feel when you installed Amazon Alexa Echo for your own comfort and your relatives, neighbors even your dog is able to put the Alexa on work? just by say, Alexa, do this and do that? it will be a painful moment. So, we are giving you a few methods to make the Alexa Echo your personal assistant in real.

#1. Change Alexa Echo's Wake Word

If you are really fed up with others accessing your Amazon Echo Smart Speakers, you can easily change the Wake Word of Alexa Echo Speaker, Alexa Echo Dot, and other Alexa-powered devices (if you know). It will help you to change the default Wake Word from Alexa to just Computer, Amazon, Echo or you can try any other word that is easily detectable by Alexa Echo.

Here's how to do it:

  1. Open your Alexa app on your iPhone or Android smartphone.
  2. From the Alexa app, go to the Devices option.
  3. You will see a few options, tap on Echo & Alexa > Echo device.
  4. From the top-right corner, tap on the Settings icon.
  5. Scroll a little bit down, see the Wake Word, and tap on it.
  6. Change it to your desired word (from Computer, Echo, or Amazon).
That's all. Now your Alexa Echo device will wake when you say your new Wake Word and it will be hard for others to wake your Alexa Echo device as they will try it by saying Alexa that will not work.

This is still a common trick and not all of your relatives or friends will stay away from your Echo device. They will quickly learn that you just changed the wake word and they can speak that word to wake the Alexa easily. So, in this case, you can follow the second method.

2. Put Alexa Echo on Mute

If your loved ones or the people who have access to your home, bedroom, or your office are making you go nuts with accessing your Alexa Echo by saying some ugly commands, you can simply put Alexa Speaker on mute and get rid of all such people at once. This will stop others from using Alexa Echo that is your own personal voice assistant.

What does Alexa mute mode mean?

It is a helpful way of not letting others access the device by switching the mic off. This is by far the best way to prevent others from using a personal Alexa Echo device.

This is a manual way of controlling who can use your Alexa device.

Can Alexa Work Only on My Voice and Ignore Others?

As there's no such way of making Alexa Echo wake only on your voice and ignore other voices saying Alexa or Echo loudly to wake the device and command it according to them. You can still create a voice profile on Alexa by saying "Alexa, learn my voice." and following the simple instructions.

It will start recognizing you from your voice and it will welcome you by your name too.

However, it will still work on anyone's voice command as there's no official feature of Alexa Echo to recognize only one voice and ignore others.

So? how you will stop Alexa from recognizing other voices? let us know in the comments section.

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