Voice In Canada Flash Briefing #217

Hey there. So, it’s Sunday and on Sundays I like to answer questions from our community and here’s a question that I’ve got a number of times over the past couple of weeks, probably a couple of months to be honest. And I can’t remember exactly who it was, because I’ve answered this question a number of times, individually, but the question is, “Why do I refer to Alexa as Lexy”

Well, here’s the answer. If I were to keep saying that word, Alexa, every time that I say it in the flash briefing, it’s going to trigger your device and it’s going to cause the flash briefing to pause and for the device to listen to your command. You see, the thing is, when there is an audio, a recorded audio file such as this, this is a recorded audio file.

When Alexa hears a recorded audio file from the ambient noise, even if she puts it out herself, so she puts out that sound, that sounds in the environment, and then she hears that sound, there’s no difference between that sound coming from the speaker itself and then her hearing that in the microphone compared to me just saying it in real time.

And then she responds to it. So, that’s a challenge with technology and when I interviewed Dave Isbitski on the podcast a little while back from Amazon, he said that they’re aware of that challenge.

The thing is when it is a text to speech comment, so when Alexa in her voice actually says her name as part of a programmed skill, then she won’t respond to that because then that’s sort of within the skill and it’s not actually looking for the wake word at that time.

There’s no difference between that sound coming from the speaker itself and then her hearing that in the microphone compared to me just saying it in real time.

Why Lexy?

So it’s interesting. It’s a little differentiation, but the bottom line is, if you hear people, myself or other people that do podcasts about voice technology, if it’s an audio file that’s been recorded, we either have to say the word Alexa and realize that there’s a good chance she’s going to pause and listen for a command or we change the name, which is what I’ve been doing.

So, there you go. That’s the reason. That’s why she is known as Lexi here on the on the Voice in Canada flash briefing and as much as possible, I try to use the word Lexi as well in the Alexa in Canada podcast, but sometimes it’s harder. And that’s also of course why I spell it out when I do want to say go check out the Alexa in Canada website. That’s why I’m spelling it out.

And speaking of that, this is a big week. We have a meetup happening tomorrow for people in the Vancouver area. And, I did interview Sean Griffin on the podcast recently. If you go back and look at the website, you will see that, but also if you just search for “Meetup or Vancouver or Alexa skills”, you will find an event that is happening tomorrow night, Monday night.

And I would love to meet you there. I’m privileged to be the speaker there. And, can’t wait to see all of you there. Talk to you later.

Useful Resources

Listen on your Echo Device! Easy as 1-2-3!

Voice in Canada Skill Logo1. Open your Alexa app and click on the Menu button > Settings > Flash Briefing.
2. Click on “Add Content” and search for “Voice in Canada”.
3. Click on “Voice in Canada” and the Enable button.

Alexa, what are my flash briefings?

Alexa, what’s in the news?

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