Amazon Alexa News

Amazon's Echo line of devices gets a new feature in

the form of "follow-up" mode, which lets users spit out

command after command without repeating the wake

word each time. Alexa won't nest one request into

another, but it will accommodate multiple requests back

to back.’

That means it's still not possible to perform two commands

in the same sentence. So, users can't say something like,

"Alexa, dim the lights and search for romantic comedies on

Netflix." They still have to divide those into two, but now

without needing to say "Alexa" each time.

The new feature works because Alexa now continues to

listen five seconds after a command, indicated by the blue

ring on the hardware staying lit. Once that fades, it means

Alexa has returned to sleep mode and will only be accessed

again via the wake word.

There are potential problems here, though. There's the

fact that for it to determine a command is indeed a follow-

up, Alexa must first be "confident" that the second

command isn't just background noise from people

chattering or a dialog from a TV program.

Amazon didn't provide a lot of details on how Alexa

determines follow-up commands, but there's reason to

believe this won't work 100 percent of the time initially.

After all, until they received an update, Echo units were

shown to be prone to following commands from the TV.

Interestingly, Amazon says that users can now

deliberately prevent Alexa from listening to commands

by saying "stop" or "thank you."