How to Change the Voice on Alexa
Earlier this year, Amazon introduced Ziggy to the public - the masculine voice assistant of Amazon Echo. Alexa was the main voice behind Amazon’s voice assistant ever since 2014, although other voice assistants, the ones from Apple and Google, had already implemented a masculine voice in their assistants, Amazon took their time before launching Ziggy into the world.
Besides Amazon Alexa's masculine counterpart, Amazon is offering your voice assistant to change its voice to Samuel L. Jackson, Shaquille O’Neal or Melissa McCarthy. However, the celebrity voiceover does not cover everything your device offers, it only covers things as alarms, weather reports, jokes and timers.
Therefore, it would be reasonable if you got tired of listening to Alexa’s voice for the past 7 years, or simply wish to hear a more masculine one, and here’s how you can change the voice on your Amazon Echo device.
Bonus: How to Set up Alexa to Turn Off Other Smart Devices.
How to change the voice on Amazon Echo
To change Alexa’s voice, you can simply give commands using your own voice. All you need to do is say ‘Alexa, change your voice.’ In case you have multiple devices, you’ll need to repeat the process with each individual one, and Alexa will ask you which one you want to change the voice on.
After you’ve done this, Alexa’s voice will switch to Ziggy. If you want to keep the masculine voice, just confirm with your voice and you’ll be all set.
How to change the voice on Amazon Echo using the app (iOS and Android)
- Open the Alexa app on your phone. If you don’t have it, you can download it from the App Store or Google Play Store.
- Go to the ‘Devices’ section.
- Select ‘Echo & Alexa’ in the upper-left corner.
- Click on the device you want to change the voice to.
- In the upper-right corner, tap on ‘Settings’.
- Click on the ‘Alexa’s Voice’ section, and click on the ‘New’ to switch the voice.
Changing Alexa’s wake word to Ziggy
When you change the voice of your assistant, you can also change the wake word to no longer be Alexa. Along with the masculine voice assistant, Amazon released a new wake word for you to activate your device - Ziggy.
This too can be done using your voice commands. Just tell your device ‘Change the wake word’. There will be a couple of options for you to choose from, Ziggy being one of them.
Changing Alexa’s wake word to Ziggy from the app
- Open the Alexa app on your phone. If you don’t have it, you can download it from the App Store or Google Play Store.
- Go to the ‘Devices’ section.
- Select ‘Echo & Alexa’ in the upper-left corner.
- Click on the device you want to change the voice to.
- In the upper-right corner, tap on ‘Settings’.
- Under ‘Settings’, click on ‘Wake Word’ and select the one you want to use from the list.
How to change Alexa’s voice to a celebrity voice
To change Alexa’s voice to one of the three celebrity voices the device is offering, you just need to say ‘Alexa, introduce me to Samuel L. Jackson.’
Alexa will respond using the celebrity voice, and will list the things the voice covers from the device settings. However, since celebrity voices are not free, you’ll be asked if you want to purchase the voice. If you confirm, you’ll be asked to confirm the purchase using your Amazon account.
After this, you can talk to the assistant using ‘Hey, Samuel’ or ‘Hey, Melissa’. If you want the old voice to switch back, just use ‘Hey, Alexa’ or ‘Hey, Ziggy.
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