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Originally Posted by ApK
....Weirdest annoyance lately: We recently had to mute the mic on our living room Dot, because it would respond when we talked to the Kitchen Echo, no matter that I'd be three feet from the Kitchen Echo, facing it, talking in a near whisper, and the living room Dot is 25 feet behind me, with a running fan and A/C unit between us, the Living room would routinely respond instead.
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And,
Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
The exact thing happened to me, also - well, close enough. I changed the living room Echo’s name to “Echo” so I can still use the voice feature when I actually am in the living room.
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My 6 month old Echo Show 5 is very deaf. I have it in my living room and I assigned "Alexa" as the wakeup voice since it is too deaf to hear whatever the TV blurts out. I mostly use it as an annoying "Tips" clock and to see the lyrics of songs that I play. The latter works fairly well when there are lyrics for that song in her database, but the clock constantly wants to show me more tips, even though I’ve set it to NEVER show any, EVER! She dims her backlight every few minutes to attempt to go to the Tips screen, but since it is not set up to allow that she brightens the screen again. Occasionally she goes to Tips anyway, @#$%^. I just don’t understand why Amazon wants to force Tips on us. WTH. Advertisements I could understand, but Tips? BTW, the constant Tips dimming of screen ritual goes on all night too, making it a really crappy bedside clock, hence why it is in the living room.
Since the Show 5 is so deaf, I left my Echo Plus 2 in my living room and assigned her the "Echo" wakeup word. She hears very well, as do all three of my Dots. Yesterday I put my face within a foot of the Show 5 and repeatedly yelled "Alexa" so I could get her to play a song. She repeatedly ignored me. I have cats for that, I don’t need her doing it too! I finally yelled out for her to play a certain song. My Dot 2 which is two rooms over and in the bathroom for light control purposes heard the command, and since she also uses the "Alexa" wakeup word she started playing the requested song. So Show 5 is deaf one foot away, but Dot 2 can hear from around two corners and 30 feet away.
BTW, I’ve spent much time with Amazon CS trying to get the Show 5 to hear, but to no avail. CS is stuck on reading a transcript and being oblivious to anything else useful. I’ve read lots of complaints from other Show 5 owners of deafness, so I suspect they used a bad batch of microphones. Plus I think I read that she only has one microphone, so that probably isn’t enough. When she works, she is great, hence why I kept her. But she needs a lot of improving for the next generation.
As far as the Alexa voice capability, I realize Google voice is likely much better. But I’m very averse to inviting anything related to Google into my home. I simply don’t trust that company, and for a very good reasons.
My major complaint with Alexa is she constantly screws up commands/questions, and she has a nasty habit of forcing her preferred song versions on us. I can ask for a song title and before I even have a chance to tell her the artist name she is announcing that song by the worst artist imaginable. Trying to get her to stop and play the correct one is a major PITA. And once she starts talking, good bleeping luck getting a word in edgewise! If she doesn't have that song, she goes into a very long winded push to listen to some crap I could care less about. They really need to add a Listen and Keep Your Mouth Shut menu option for her.