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ApK · 05-10-2021, 02:05 PM

Some time ago, Amazon announced a feature to prevent the wrong device from responding to voice commands. It was supposed to acoustically determine the nearest of the devices on that account, and only have that one respond. My thought at the time was "That should have been there from the beginning! But, better late than never." It didn't seem to work all that well, for a time I resorted to the unacceptable work-around of changing the wake word on one of my devices. But I figured, well, it's non-trivial tech, so give them time. Eventually it seemed to work better! Then a short while later Alexa started occasionally following up her responses with something like "By the way, I'm trying to get better. Did the correct device respond?" Wow, I thought, that was very cool! Actual work on improvement! Maybe even machine learning! Kudos!
Now, for the last few weeks, I'm back to facing right at my Dot 4, speaking in a quiet conversational voice standing 3 feet from it in my kitchen, and 6 out 10 times, the blue light won't even react, but the Dot 2 in the living room 15 feet behind me, and hidden by a couch cushion answers immediately. IT'S STARTING TO DRIVE ME BATTY!
I take back every defense I thought of when OtinG insulted Amazon firmware devs!
Amazon forums are replete with similar complaints, and bursting with no help at all from Amazon.
ApK

05-10-2021, 02:05 PM	#4459
ApK Award-Winning Participant Posts: 7,393 Karma: 68715774 Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: NJ, USA Device: Kindle	Some time ago, Amazon announced a feature to prevent the wrong device from responding to voice commands. It was supposed to acoustically determine the nearest of the devices on that account, and only have that one respond. My thought at the time was "That should have been there from the beginning! But, better late than never." It didn't seem to work all that well, for a time I resorted to the unacceptable work-around of changing the wake word on one of my devices. But I figured, well, it's non-trivial tech, so give them time. Eventually it seemed to work better! Then a short while later Alexa started occasionally following up her responses with something like "By the way, I'm trying to get better. Did the correct device respond?" Wow, I thought, that was very cool! Actual work on improvement! Maybe even machine learning! Kudos! Now, for the last few weeks, I'm back to facing right at my Dot 4, speaking in a quiet conversational voice standing 3 feet from it in my kitchen, and 6 out 10 times, the blue light won't even react, but the Dot 2 in the living room 15 feet behind me, and hidden by a couch cushion answers immediately. IT'S STARTING TO DRIVE ME BATTY! I take back every defense I thought of when OtinG insulted Amazon firmware devs! Amazon forums are replete with similar complaints, and bursting with no help at all from Amazon. ApK Last edited by ApK; 05-12-2021 at 11:49 AM.