You keep that kind of lead partly by making Alexa more useful, which in and of itself means there will be stumbles from time to time. It scared the shit out of me. My husband went to the kitchen where Alexa is located. French Press Vs. Pour Over: Which Coffee Maker Is Better. Just recently, it was about 1:15 in the morning and all of the sudden it started playing a podcast that my mom had been listening to earlier. Andy Meek is a reporter based in Memphis who has covered media, entertainment, and culture for over 20 years. We guide our loyal readers to some of the best products, latest trends, and most engaging stories with non-stop coverage, available across all major news platforms. In the case of the latter, its important to take the necessary steps to secure your account once more. wondered just how long it would be before our AI overlords rise up, Alexa suddenly started to speak without being woken up by a wake word, his Alexa startled him in bed one night by screaming, Alexas breaking out with unbidden, evil-sounding laughter, This AI-powered prosthetic hand is bringing design and style to a life-changing product. It was happening a couple months ago, and I changed a bunch of passwords and it went away. Even if you dont see any suspicious routines, theres another step to try. Alexa's microphones are always on. This may seem self-explanatory but be sure to only share the new password with people you want to have access to your account. Now, look what happens to that wave form when I walk just five feet away and repeat the word, "Alexa.". She hasnt been a problem for sometime. TikTok video from KimmyMinx (@kimmyminx): "Anyone else's Alexa randomly talk on its own? Our alexa has been turning on randomly in the middle of the night and playing strange music. I expect to see more of these devices in the near future. Yall - youve been hacked. How to Check If the Docker Daemon or a Container Is Running, How to Manage an SSH Config File in Windows and Linux, How to View Kubernetes Pod Logs With Kubectl, How to Run GUI Applications in a Docker Container. Click here for Amazons instructions on how to reset your Echo device. I wish my website loaded up as fast as yours lol. This can be useful when youre doing a hands-on activity at homecooking, cleaning, showeringor hanging out with a large group of people who all want easy access to the music selection. Couldnt make out what she was saying, but it was a long paragraph. There is reportedly a commercialized version shared in the Hackaday comments. Instead, the humans at Amazon learned, and changed the command to "Alexa, can you laugh?". Alternatively, demons are using the technology. If you buy through links on BGR, we may receive an affiliate commission. Then shut off your car. Click any of them to see a dropdown menu. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. I unplugged it and removed it from my home. You are not able to ask Alexa to play a specific song after the one that is currently playing. ", Dictionary.com's definition of "insanity.". 1:30am exactly said, why did the cow cross the road? Completely unprovoked. I think the AI is becoming sentient. Some experts have suggested that a connection, as in a fellow Echo owner you have in your contact list, could just listen in on your home conversations. I keep getting woken up my Alexa saying sorry I didnt catch that or something along those lines almost every night around 3AM. We are unplugging it for now. I cant figure out how to check on the commands that may have caused it. After a while, we all just knew Alexa was going to what was it that guy on Twitter said? Why are so many people getting these negative responses. It is on by default. What do you need help with? aggravating because I use it for calming sounds to mask my tinnitus while i go to sleep but even this stops in the middle of the night and starts playing music. You can select Custom and have her say whatever you want, or you can tap on Phrases and then Good Night to select from a list of nighttime-related phrases. As you can see, the bumps are still relatively noticeable, but the amplitude of the wave is considerably less. There are a couple ways you can use Alexas skills to listen to your music. A few VoiceBrew subscribers have had this issue. To give us all a reality check, the Google Home, Apples Siri, Android smartphone Google Assistant, Facebook, and a host of others have been given express permission, via their terms of service, to listen in a variety of ways. But whether or not Alexa heard something outside is something we'll never know. Complete silence for about 30 minutes until I hear Alexa talking again. again: not the language setting. Each item in this list is an individual type of notification, and you can enable or disable any of them by clicking and looking for the Enable option within the submenu. If Alexa has said there's nothing to disconnect, then this step is likely not the solution to fix Alexa. It was an emergency # it freaked me the eff out and I immediately unplugged it. Ill tell Alexa to stop playing which works and maybe 5 minutes later maybe 30 the dots are tapping away. Woke my wife. By the way, if you are interested in DIY electronics and various DIY hacks like these, you should check out the 2019 Hackaday Prize which offers some big and small prizes for creating a project like the Alias (although that was not a previous contest entry). One of the first things you should do is check all the routines that are already saved in your smart home. It was so loud. Can I get your affiliate link Here, youll be able to turn off Announcements, Drop-in, or all communications. Its creepy knowing me and my boyfriend were fighting that morning. These guys must have a boatload of random spontaneous stuff hidden in her code. One of Amazon Alexas most popular skills allows users to play their choice of music on command. You can also deactivate communications altogether for an individual Echo device. Do it as part of a nightly Alexa routine so you can set it and forget it. Hmmmm, Scan this QR code to download the app now. The other day Alexa wasn't responding to my commands as well. So now I guess Im being haunted.. You should see a list of paired devices. I recorded that on a professional studio microphone, with my head and mouth located at the exact optimal location for voice recording. delete your Alexa history of voice interactions, See if anything looks out of the ordinary. It said there was an error, try again later very loudly and in a different accent (we have it set to mexican spanish but it spoke in Spanish spanish). Beeping sounds that are accompanied by Alexas blinking yellow light are a sure sign that youre getting notifications on your device. Plus, most houses usually only have a couple of exterior doors, so you wont be spending a ton of money to outfit an entire home with smart locks. Some of us dont read the manual and are unaware that there are manual overrides. Music may be playing in another room. That will prevent any beeping until you press the button again to unmute the microphone. Once again I yell up for everyone to be in bed and stop playing with the Alexa. The "scream prank" skill will initiate upon the phrase "Alexa, scream prank." Take Screenshot by Tapping Back of iPhone, Pair Two Sets of AirPods With the Same iPhone, Download Files Using Safari on Your iPhone, Turn Your Computer Into a DLNA Media Server, Add a Website to Your Phone's Home Screen, Control All Your Smart Home Devices in One App. Indeed, we have expectations that big companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple are not going to betray our trust. Let's talk about that, next. RELATED: How to Set Up Alexa Routines to Control Multiple Smarthome Devices at Once. Its possible you mistakenly set up an Alexa routine to play music at a certain time or based on a location. Before you go all Minority Report on me, some of this listening is simply meant to improve the product and only happens once youve asked Alexa to do something. All of the sudden one of my Alexas starting creepy laughing at me. Recorded across room, zoomed in. I plugged her off but now Im confused what the hell happened!? Toggle the next three items, that are on by default (Umm, if you valued my trust, why didnt you leave these off to start and ask me to opt-in? Of course, all of these are just the tip of the iceberg as far as what you could include in your own Alexa nighttime Routine, but this at least gives you some ideas to get started. When all else fails, get in touch with the Amazon Alexa support team. How weird. Under the Alexa Preferences section, tap Voice Responses, then toggle the . Here are three excellent articles to give you some privacy thoughts to chew on: This piece on Digital Trends by Kim Wetzel is worthwhile to read if youre wondering what all this privacy stuff means and is a great reminder of what we allow in our acceptance of technology: Amazon workers listening to Alexa recordings isnt a big deal. Here are some common nighttime tasks that you can add to your Alexa Routine. Lastly, always unplug your Echo and then plug it back in. I had static noise like a CB radio trying to communicate. Alexas Bluetooth connection lets it act as a wireless speaker for your phone or other devices. Why do college kids get all the cool robots? Here are some suggestions that might help. What happens when an Internet failure hits the world of Internet of Things? VoiceBrew was created to help people get more out of their Amazon Alexa devices. This next image is a zoomed in version of the above wave. What is ChatGPT and why does it matter? Again, shes been unplugged for almost 24HOURS. "There's a good chance I get murdered tonight.". There's very little data here. Select Devices, then pick the correct Echo Dot and choose Sound. Once you have determined that an outside user is not the cause of the problem, try to do a factory reset of your device. That could explain those random noises you keep hearing, especially if Alexa is picking up ambient sounds. maybe a neighbor is dropping into my Alexa and trying to annoy me? document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Mine just told me Im good thanks for asking, keep talking to me I didnt even save the wake up word alexa or anything nearly sounding like it!!!! we equip you to harness the power of disruptive innovation, at work and at home. Parsing all those wave forms is way too much work for the processor on the local Alexa device. When it comes to Alexa, everything is about perception and behavior. You can access that history from the Alexa app by going to More -> Activity. That's the word "Alexa." When its in brief mode, though, it will often respond with a sound (like a beep) instead. Alexa Privacy Settings to Off _No More Alexa, Screenshot Alexa Listening No More by TJ McCue, In the Alexa App, Tap the menu button (three lines in the upper left of the screen), The top item in settings is Alexa Account then scroll to the bottom and select, This is the most radical way (and one I love) to disable your Amazon Echo or Google Home microphone that I have found: Project Alias. These are the scheduled routines. However, it seems some people have been experiencing issues with Alexa performing this task a bit too well. Then, click Sounds under the General section and select Notification under the Custom Sounds section. However, it is believed to be only by permission. Yes, you are able access your own music through My Media for Alexa. Generally, though, youll just need to fix your network to prevent this from happening again. When you enable Guard, your Echo devices start listening for the sound of glass breaking or smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. Alexa, that." Smarthome devices are smart enough to know that if you want to turn a light off and its already turned off, it will simply just ignore your command and keep the light off. /r/AmazonEcho is a community centered around the Amazon Echo, or as we like to call her - Alexa. Open your Alexa app to More -> Routines and look for any routines that have the clock icon (see image below). Alexa has a large library of possible commands. Unplugging your device is not problem solved. Its no different than saying is your engine giving you problems? Today, he barked at the UPS truck a full three minutes before the driver rang the bell. Perhaps they paired their phone to it at some point if they were at your house/apartment and then did not remove it. Read more Alexa is great for all sorts of stuff, including smarthome control, but if youre tired of having to turn off everything at night before you go to bed (or at least making sure its turned off), you can actually have Alexa do all that for you with a single command. CAN SHE EVEN DO THAT? Take a look at the wave form below. Alexa is great when it works, but I like to keep these solutions around for when Alexa is being temperamentalwhich is more often than Id care to admit. That requires Alexa to understand a broader set of verbal cues from customers, a task that is challenging even for humans., This years Alexa Prize winner, the site continues, was a 12-person team from the University of California, Davis, that used a few hundred thousand movie quotes to train a computer to recognize sentences. In the Alexa App, Tap the menu button (three lines in the upper left of the screen) The top item in settings is "Alexa Account" then scroll to the bottom and select "Alexa Privacy." You will. The bot also was trained to figure out which sentences needed responses. Now look at the next wave form. You need to go into the app and type in 'Alexa disable hunches.'. I ahvenwt listened to this album for 20 years. Alexa keeps a history of every voice command it has heard and every action it has taken. VoiceBrew can help you discover even more ideas for how to make the most of your new Alexa device, from learning how to set it up for the first time, to setting helpful alarms, enabling skills (flash briefings, anyone?! At this point, it seems clear that Amazon executives dont get bent out of shape when they hear about the Alexa digital assistant blurting out weird, creepy things like kill your foster parents, as it did for one user who left an unsurprisingly critical review about Alexa, explaining what happened. Alexa randomly activates devices Devices & Integrations Ernie_Sharp (Ernie Sharp) August 17, 2018, 10:22am 1 Last night at 1 am, our bedroom light turned on and woke us up. A fan might be generating a blanket of white noise. Actually are randomly coming on most of the time. His work has appeared in outlets including The Guardian, Forbes, and The Financial Times, and hes written for BGR since 2015. Most of the time there is no trace in the voice history. Just say, Alexa, turn on do not disturb. When you want communications to work again, say, Alexa, turn off do not disturb.. We've talked about Alexa Routines before. 8 Alexa Settings That Will Seriously Upgrade Your Alexa Experience, VoiceBrew 22: The 22 Best Things To Do with Alexa Today. No sound in the back. First, open your Alexa app. Alexas drop-ins, calling, messaging, and announcements can all cause it to beep. Lets jump right in. The SpaceX Starship rocket sits on the launchpad in Boca Chica, Texas on April 15, 2023. You can also turn your Alexa on do not disturb, so you dont have to deal with the annoyance as you troubleshoot. One of the most popular features of Alexa devices is the ability to stream music from TuneIn, Apple Music, Pandora, Spotify, and others.Just link one of the above music services, say 'Alexa,' and ask the virtual helper to play any song . This piece on Digital Trends by Kim Wetzel is worthwhile to read if youre wondering what all this privacy stuff means and is a great reminder of what we allow in our acceptance of technology: Amazon workers listening to Alexa recordings isnt a big deal. Alexa has been known to suddenly exhibit weird behaviors. Craig Lloyd is a smarthome expert with nearly ten years of professional writing experience. When Amazon Web Services went down for a few hours, so did Amazon's Echo devices. Last night at around 12:30 am it said the same thing but now in english. Over the years, hes interviewed legendary figures in entertainment and tech that range from Stan Lee to John McAfee, Peter Thiel, and Reed Hastings. Some of Alexas wake words are easier to trigger than others. 0 seconds of 1 minute, 13 secondsVolume 0% Completely unplugging is not easy (see Kashmir Hills experience below). We barely ever use it at all. In a way. Just say, Alexa, turn on do not disturb, and it will mute all notifications and actions until turned off once more. Learn more. But we're not ready to discuss Alexa's command processing just yet. Im finding myself thinking like Kim in her piece below. Then I started hearing Alexa talking, all alone in the room. VoiceBrew also publishes comprehensive how-to guides on all the best features and important topics like privacy. 3:37 am on various nights , aha take on me plays. 6. Just last night Alexa echo woke me up at 4am with a Ophra talk show and it was loud, confused and sleepy I told her to stop and she did, went to bank to sleep and 15 mins later she did it again! The real technical challenge that voice assistant vendors like Amazon have to overcome is variety. Reducing unwanted activations. 230, 1230, 1 am. If the dog was in there when it happened, she would run out of there. Can this be fixed. It will then warn you that new features may not work properly if you do this. Google Home has a button on the side and the four dots on the top light up when disabled, plus it verbally tells you mic is on or off as you press the button (Echo does not). Although Amazon hasn't disclosed the exact technical details of Alexa's internal functions, we know the complex parsing problem for all those commands is too much for a local CPU. UPDATE: I was testing different privacy settings when I first wrote the post and am now including this one. If it is going down in the middle of the night, that could be the cause of your randomly beeping Echo. Click the Voice History tab at the top because thats the one were going to be looking at. Im currently in bed unable to sleep. His work has been published by iFixit, Lifehacker, Digital Trends, Slashgear, and GottaBeMobile. As with the wake word, this is non-trivial given the millions of human speakers, dialects, accents, voice pitches, distances from devices, and environmental background noises. There are millions of Alexa owners, and you can bet many of them say "Alexa" very differently. What is Lemon8 and why is everyone talking about it on TikTok? I know my U.S. Air Force electronics and soldering skills are might rusty. I had to change from Alexa to Echo way back during one of the early seasons of House of Cards because any mention of the Russian Ambassador, Alexi Moryakov, would set off my smart speaker. Honest news coverage, reviews, and opinions since 2006. my windows were open and volume was 75%. We select and review products independently. If you're like my wife and me, you've probably, maybe even more than once, wondered just how long it would be before our AI overlords rise up and put us down. Technology can be fickle, and Alexa is no different when it comes to playing music on Spotify and other music streaming apps. The company has an annual Alexa Prize to help it in this area. I have never set up any routines or skills and I live alone so no idea how or why this happened. To unpair a Bluetooth device, go to Devices -> Echo & Alexa and select your Echo speaker. Here are some common commands you can use when listening to music through Alexa: Yes, you can play music for free while using Alexa. Is there a setting for this? Alexa does not naturally have access to music, so you will need to connect it to the source yourself. I am in the UK and we dont really listed to Ophra on radio, how, why or why!! The device accomplishes that in a couple of ways. Switch it from Default to None, and your Echo will no longer beep when it gets a notification. Remember that I recorded the waves shown above in an optimal studio environment. To increase the usability of Alexa, it has to be able to respond to variations of a given command. Mine just told me out of the blue I think about many things, I could not figure out why my rottie refused to go into my bedroom. VoiceBrew can help you discover even more ideas for how to make the most of your new Alexa device, from learning how to set it up for the first time, to setting helpful alarms, enabling skills (flash briefings, anyone?! Notice that the wave is actually quite flat. Heres why. All Rights Reserved. All Rights Reserved. It's almost undoubtedly the perception component. More worryingly, according to Business Insider, this summer a hack Amazon traced back to China may have exposed user data. This is the most radical way (and one I love) to disable your Amazon Echo or Google Home microphone that I have found: Project Alias. Pixel (our pup) often barks at noises only he can hear. Recently, users have reported that their music has randomly started playing at random times of the day and night through their Alexa devices. You can hardly tell, from that wave, what's happening. No doubt, there are glitches and errors that make some of this even more, well, creepy and spy-like. He grabs his phone and records it to share with the. I thought I was hearing things so I went back to sleep. It was Bidens Presidential Address. From Alexa laughing & making scary comments to Siri siding with robots, these scary things Alexa & Siri say are cause for concern. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. therealmrchunk 1 yr. ago. Recent news reports in the last week revealed that Amazon has thousands of workers listening to Amazon Echo aka Alexa voice assistant recordings. Or how to get started with anAlexa smart home? That way, you can save yourself the headache of repeating the same methods over and over again. Fortunately, there are five to choose from: Alexa, Amazon, Computer, Echo, and Ziggy. His work has been published by iFixit, Lifehacker, Digital Trends, Slashgear, and GottaBeMobile. #Streamer #StreamFails #Alexa #Twitch #twitchstreamer". Smart plugs are fairly cheap, but theyre a super simple way of turning dumb appliances into smarthome devices of sorts. What is SSH Agent Forwarding and How Do You Use It? 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Amazon executives accept a certain degree of this kind of thing, as BI notes, because while they certainly want to take action to make sure Alexa isnt inappropriate or offensive, the overarching goal is to make it a supremely useful communicator. Im going to try the do not disturb since I do have condo neighbors. A factory reset should undo whatever funky setting is on thats causing music (or anything) to randomly turn on. Why is my echo show 8 playing random news shows show early in the AM ? Given all that, the most likely cause of an Alexa spontaneous reaction is a misinterpretation of sound. Fix Your Wi-Fi Connection. Then, click the gear icon in the upper right and select Bluetooth Devices from the Wireless section of the menu. There is no routine named anything close to that. When I was setting up my lights i said turn lights on then I said turn lights off. Plus, you can add smart plugs to your Alexa Routines and have them turn on or off whenever you run a routine. Feel free to share privacy ideas with me as I explore other apps and options and settings. Suddenly a deep male voice said Im listening to you. He unplugged the unit immediately! If you suspect that another person is using your music streaming account, open the streaming service that is connected to your Alexa device and navigate to the settings. I have a degree in Strategic Communication and experience working in both the account and creative spheres. Regarding the news of Amazon employees listening in to your Amazon requests and interactions, there is a setting (most things for Alexa are managed via the app and it is the same here) under Alexa Privacy. You can use a music service provider such as. Alexa randomly laughing compilation chadnisha 34.1K subscribers Subscribe 88K Share 6.4M views 5 years ago All known occurrences of Alexa randomly laughing, unprompted. Guess she wasnt at the same club where that band was. No history of commands given. While this isnt a permanent fix, turning your device on do not disturb mode can be a useful trick. I UNPLUGGED IT OVER A WEEK AGO! Given how sensitive Alexa has to be to process wake words, sometimes Alexa will react to a sound (even one we might not hear or notice) and interpret that as a wake word. You can have Alexa turn these on if youre using smart plugs with them. The sound wave (or, some compressed representation of it) has to be uploaded to Amazon's data centers for computational analysis. The processing hub inside each Alexa device then examines that digital signature, and if it matches that of a pre-defined wake word, then and only then is the device supposed to parse follow-on sounds for meaning. I found no such voice convenience in the Amazon Echo settings, but it would be nice. Thats why we suggest exhausting all other options before trying to reach out to the Alexa support team. But what I'm about to discuss applies to any active listening voice recognition system. I was weirded out so I unplugged Alexa and went to bed. Its a haunted house so I guess the spirits finally learned how to tap into her. It woke me out of a dead sleep and scared the living crap out of me. Now tonight as Im on my computer downstairs in complete silence I hear the Alexa talking again, and it cant be the kids since theyre all at friends houses and my husband is fast asleep in the room closest to me Wtf? I am very creeped out and I wish it would stop [deleted] 6 yr. ago You need a Raspberry Pi Model 3 A+ (roughly $25), access to a 3D Printer, and a few other items. Craig Lloyd is a smarthome expert with nearly ten years of professional writing experience. If you see a triggered routine that coincides with your random beeps, click on it and press View Routine to edit or delete the routine. The team listens to voice recordings captured in Echo owners homes and offices. Im about ready to send this back. According to, , Amazon.com Inc. employs thousands of people around the world to help improve the Alexa digital assistant powering its line of Echo speakers. A number of previously undisclosed creepy and weird Alexa-related oddities like that have been surfacing in recent days, such as Alexa talking with users about various sex acts as well as defecation.