For the first time since Alexa’s introduction in 2013, Amazon has added a new male voice option. It is now finally available in Ireland.
Just Say “Alexa, change your voice”. Alexa will respond by saying “OK you’re all set I will be the voice you hear when you wake me up”. It will be interesting to hear which voice people prefer. Note, the new voice will not read aloud your Kindle books, it will still use the feminine sounding voice for this.
The ability to change the voice adds to other great features like Whisper Mode and Brief Mode.
Whisper Mode
To enable Whisper Mode just say “Alexa, enable whisper mode” or whisper to the device and it will recognise you are whispering, and it will whisper back to you. Whisper Mode might be useful if you are trying to keep the noise down for any reason for example there might be a sleeping baby in the room.
Brief Mode
Just say “Alexa, enable brief mode” and Alexa will reduce its verbosity for some responses. For example, if you ask Alexa to turn off the sitting room light, instead of telling you its off it will respond with a discreet audible tone.