How To Change My Amazon Alexa Voice

Amazon Alexa, also known simply as Alexa, is a virtual assistant technology largely based on a Polish speech synthesizer named Ivona, bought by Amazon in 2013.

It was first used in the Amazon Echo smart speaker and the Echo Dot, Echo Studio, and Amazon Tap speakers developed by Amazon Lab126.

It is capable of voice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, and providing weather, traffic, sports, and other real-time information, such as news.

Alexa can also control several smart devices using itself as a home automation system. Users are able to extend the Alexa capabilities by installing “skills” (additional functionality developed by third-party vendors, in other settings more commonly called apps) such as weather programs and audio features.

It uses automatic speech recognition, natural language processing, and other forms of weak AI to perform these tasks.

In addition to language and dialect switch-ups, Alexa users can now choose between female- and male-speaking voices.

The new masculine assistant was introduced in mid-2021, along with a brand new wake word — Ziggy.

While you can change between female and male assistants using the Alexa app by selecting an Echo device and tapping Device Settings > Alexa’s Voice and selecting either Original (female) or New (male), you can also change these preferences by speaking to your Echo speaker or display.

1. Change Your Voice

Get within earshot of the Echo speaker or display you want to change the spoken voice of and say “Alexa, change your voice.”

For homes running more than one Echo device on the same network, Alexa will ask you to specify which Echo. When you’re done trying to Change My Amazon Alexa Voice, then follow the next step;

2. Confirm Your Changes

Once you’ve clarified the Echo device, Alexa will respond (from the indicated device) in her/his new voice. If the device was originally set to the default female voice, it will now be male and vice versa. You can actually check to verify if you’ve been able to change My Amazon Alexa Voice.

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The Guide to Amazon Alexa

Most devices with Alexa allow users to activate the device using a wake-word (such as Alexa or Amazon); other devices (such as the Amazon mobile app on iOS or Android and Amazon Dash Wand) require the user to click a button to activate Alexa’s listening mode, although, some phones also allow a user to say a command, such as “Alexa” or “Alexa wake“.

Alexa’s pleasant, feminine voice has filled the homes of millions over the past few years, but now Amazon has finally released a masculine counterpart for it.

Amazon is late to this — both Apple and Google have offered different voices, both feminine and masculine, in their virtual assistants for years. But late or not, it’s nice that Amazon is finally giving some choice for Alexa.

In addition to the two main Alexa voices, Amazon also has celebrity voices (right now you can choose between Samuel L. Jackson, Shaquille O’Neal, and Melissa McCarthy).

These are programmed to work with certain phrases and answer select questions — mostly alarms and timers, jokes, or weather reports.

They also cost $5 each. Any query to an Echo device that’s not supported by the chosen celebrity voice will get a response from the native Alexa voice.

There are two ways you can change the voice of Alexa on your Echo devices: through the device itself or through the Alexa app. Note that changing the voice through the device was less reliable for us — the surest way to do it is through the app.

Changing the voice-only applies to the Echo device you’re currently using — if you want to switch to the masculine voice on multiple Echo speakers or displays in your home, you’ll have to do it one at a time.

It’s also not possible to change the Alexa voice used by the smartphone app itself; that remains the original, feminine voice. Hopefully, in the future Amazon will add a way to change it globally for all the Echo devices on an account.

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ON AN ECHO OR ECHO SHOW:

Say the command “Alexa change your voice.”

If you have more than one Echo, Alexa will ask you to specify the device.

Say the name of the device you want to change the voice on.

If it is successful, Alexa will respond with the new voice and confirm that is how it will sound going forward.

If it doesn’t work, Alexa will say something to the effect of “Sorry, [name of your device] doesn’t support that.”

IN THE ALEXA APP FOR IOS OR ANDROID:

Tap on the Devices tab at the bottom.

Tap on the Echo & Alexa button in the top left.

Tap on the device you want to change Alexa’s voice on.

Tap the Settings cogwheel button in the upper right.

Scroll down to the option for Alexa’s Voice and tap on it.

Choose either Original (the feminine voice) or New (the masculine voice).

HOW TO USE A CELEBRITY VOICE ON ALEXA:

Say “Alexa introduce me to [name of celebrity].”

Alexa will switch over to the celeb voice you’ve selected and explain the things you can do with it. If you want to purchase the voice, you will be asked to confirm the charge to your Amazon account.

Once enabled, you can say “Hey [celeb name]” to wake the Echo device. You can also enable the voice on each Echo you want to use it on. The standard Alexa voice is still available if you use the Alexa wake word.

SOURCES

Retrieved from: (Wikipedia: Amazon Alexa) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Alexa

Dan Seifert. (2021, July 22) How to change Alexa’s voice. https://www.theverge.com/22588961/alexa-voice-echo-male-female-celebrity-how-to-change