Following the footsteps of rival offering Google Home, Amazon’s Alexa smart speaker can now differentiate voices and offer back a personalised response.
In April, Google Home rolled out the same feature, which enabled the device to recognise different people’s voices and tailor a response for each person in the household.
The new feature means both Amazon Alexa and Google Home can cater to the needs of different people within a household – e.g. when one person asks for their calendar to be amended, the device will recognise the specific voice and go to their specific calendar, ensuring mix-ups are minimised. The feature is also useful when making calls to each specific person’s contact list.
From today, users can set up voice recognition on Amazon’s Echo, Echo Dot, or Echo Show.
Set up will require an individual reciting a variety of phrases, which Alexa will utilse to create a voice profile.
Following set up, custom voice profiles should work across other Amazon Echo devices, plus “most” third-party Alexa supported devices.
An Amazon spokesperson states of the new feature:
“Today the feature is available for calling/messaging, flash briefing, shopping, and the Amazon Music Unlimited Family Plan, and it’ll be rolling out to additional Alexa features in the future.”
