Amazon’s Echo line where the mysterious smart assistant Alexa resides has been growing in the last few years. The living room speaker became part of a brotherhood made up of spheres called Dots and others with displays, called Echo Show. Alexa was also improved as months passed to the point where, today, you can replace the feminine voice of the lovely assistant with a masculine one and even with the voice of a celebrity! Interested in finding out how it works? Here’s how to change Alexa’s voice, language, speed and more.
How to Change Alexa Voice to A Celebrity Voice
For a long time, Alexa held tight to its feminine voice, despite various other assistants (cough, cough – Apple and Google’s) offering diverse options and thus, catering to all users. Now, Alexa is finally Alexander, as you can opt for a masculine voice.
Of course, even more exciting is the speaker’s ability to turn Morgan Freeman, Samuel L. Jackson, Gordon Ramsey and other celebrities into your personal assistant. But before we show you how you can access that, let’s find out how you can opt for a different tonality.
To trigger Alexa’s masculine counterpart, you simply have to change your speaker’s settings. By the way, you can have the feminine voice on one speaker, and the masculine on another – the change of voice doesn’t apply to all Amazon speakers you own unless you play with each device’s settings.
So, go to the app’s Device Settings. From there, scroll until you find Alexa’s Voice with the default option, Original. Tap the option and choose New.
Another way is to ask Alexa directly through your device to “Change voice”.
The new wake word associated with this change is “Ziggy” although you can stick to your “Alexa,” “Computer,” “Echo,” and “Amazon” options.
Change Alexa to Morgan Freeman, Samuel L. Jackson, Gordon Ramsey… Billie Eilish?
Now, if you want to do one better, then you can switch Alexa for a celebrity’s voice. Right now, there are several options available as skins. Each celebrity/icon voice costs $5.
To help Alexa understand you want to make the switch, you have to say “Alexa, introduce me to [icon voice]”.
Then,
- Alexa will guide you through the features this voice supports before you decide to purchase it (or not). If you like the result, you’ll be asked to confirm that payment.
- once Morgan Freeman, Samuel L. Jackson’s or another celebrity’s voice is enabled, you can adress them directly. Simply say “Hey [celebrity name]”. From then on, Jackson will “tell you jokes, let you know if it’s raining, set timers and alarms, play music and more – all with a bit of his own personality,” explained Amazon. You can also choose if you’d like the explicit version or the children-appropriate one.
- tired of hearing the smooth, low voice of Freeman all day long? You can go back to your standard Alexa voice by using the default Alexa wake word.
Another way to do it is from the Alexa app. Open it and,
- go to More > Skills & Games.
- tap the magnifying glass and type the celebrity name of your choosing into the text box.
Can you change Alexa voice to Billie Eilish? Not… yet. This feature may come soon though, as Amazon just launched their first Echo Studio featuring Eilish and their first in partnership with a celebrity.
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How to Change Alexa Voice to Another Language and Accent
Alexa’s Skills make her more versatile than you might think. If you actually like the assistant’s voice and don’t want to change it to a masculine one or a celebrity one, maybe a shift in accent is what you’re looking for.
Either to make Alexa more relatable or simply because you love a certain accent, you can play with her voice in the Alexa app’s Settings. From there, you can also opt for an entirely different language if you or your family doesn’t speak the default language on the daily.
How to do it?
- Open the Alexa app that you can find on both App Store and Play Store.
- Look at the bottom right of your screen. There, you should find a More button, under three lines. Go on and tap it.
- Then, tap Settings and Device Settings.
- Once you’re here, choose the Amazon device whose Alexa voice you you wish to change.
- Scroll down until you find Language. Here, tap again and you’ll see a list of languages and accents.
- Choose the one you’re most comfortable with.
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How to Change Alexa Voice: Speed
Perhaps your problem with Alexa doesn’t concern the tone of her voice, or the language she speaks in, or her accent. Maybe Alexa speaks too fast or too slowly for your taste.
How can you fix that? Easy!
Unlike the previous settings, this one can be changed only through the speaker, not from the app. So, ask Alexa to “talk faster” or “talk slower”. And, if you find out her default pace was actually better, you can always return to the start by asking Alexa to “return to your default speed”.
Oh, and here are two more tricks!
How to Change Alexa Voice: Whispering Instead of Talking
Want to scare your roommate next time they come in late? Or simply prefer a low tone once the sun sets?
Again, there are two ways to achieve that.
One: ask “Alexa, please enter Whisper Mode.” Or, two, change this setting in the app.
Here’s how:
- Go to Menu, tap Settings.
- Then, scroll until you see Alexa Preferences > Voice Responses.
- There, toggle Whisper Mode.
How to Change Alexa Voice: Talk Less
When all’s said and done, maybe Alexa is simply too much of a chatterbox. Maybe you want to silence her for a while.
Before you do anything dangerous :), know you can make her talk less from the Alexa app. Brief Mode will simplify her responses until they communicate the essential. On some occasions, it will even replace some replies with a neutral ping.
To enable Brief Mode,
- open your Alexa app and select Menu > Settings.
- look for Alexa Preferences > Voice Responses
- toggle Brief Mode on – for ALL your devices
I hope this article saved you some time looking how to customize Alexa to your liking. Stay tuned for more Amazon and Alexa news in the days to come!
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