Dangerously close to throwing fucking Alexa out of the window. Assistance required.

[WinterRoad]

For the love of God will someone please help me speak to Alexa so that she doesn't give me garbage?
I wanted her to open bbc sounds and play me the titanic podcast from 15th April. I get " playing The Archers from 2007" FFS!!
I ask her (nicely) in a slightly different phrasing. I get "playing Elton John"
Is it just me? I am completely stupid? Alexa never plays what I want. Ever!

This is podcast I would quite like to listen to.

Is there a way to make her stop relentlessly advertising Amazon Music? I mostly use her to access Spotify and she keeps trying to play Amazon Music songs instead

Hate the stupid things. At a friend’s house with one, I told it to just fuck off and it got all hurt and sanctimonious 😂

Mine responds a lot better to male voices and yes, will only play things off Spotify at specific request despite me always wanting to use Spotify. She’s also stopped responding to ‘dismiss’ which we used to say a lot.

It looks like she would recognise ‘Noiser Presents’ rather than the Titanic as the subject?

Hahaha!! Same here. Same station and I have to say it in an English accent before she will play it!!

It looks like she would recognise ‘Noiser Presents’ rather than the Titanic as the subject?

I'll give that a go. Fingers crossed

Mine’s deaf and senile but only 6, not 88 like DM.

Mine recently announced: ‘Earlier today there was a low priced offer for something you might have wanted, but it’s no longer available’….🙄 She didn’t even tell me what it was I might have wanted.

I wonder how many of us locally have this issue. 🤣 We started asking for Forth 1 instead because she recognises that and at least it’s not a million miles away.

I just tested it again. TFM seems to be called Hits Radio Teesside now but asking for Tay FM STILL takes you to them. 🤦🏻‍♀️ I then tried “Radio Tay” and she started playing Radio 2.

It’s like the bit from Burnistoun with the voice recognition lift. Them repeating “eleven” is like me trying to say “Tay” to Alexa. 🙈

The English accent seems to work though so thanks. 😁 Although with how awful the accent I did just was, I will NOT be doing that when other people are in the room. 🤣

Gosh, how do they manage without the app? How do they check that their alarms and routines are set to the correct times etc? How do they change them?

I’ve given up trying to tell her what music to play and just use the Spotify app on my phone and choose Alexa as the output location. This lets you play Spotify on Alexa without actually pairing your phone to her. The daft bint.

They don't use her for alarms and routines. Just asking random questions and playing music. But somehow some routines have been created and without the app I can't get rid of them!

Have you tried saying Alexa cancel all routines ?

At 9pm every bloody night Alexa tells me it’s bedtime.. I can’t make it stop !
And every bloody night I jump with fright when she announces it !

Same here 😆

You could try saying "Alexa, delete all routines" and see if that fixes it.

OK, so I found the podcast you're referring to - Noiser Presents Titanic: ship of dreams. It SHOULD be a simple matter of asking "Alexa, ask BBC Sounds to play Noiser Presents Titanic:ship of dreams, episode 2". However, I have not succeeded in getting my echo show to play it either!

There seems to be something about the title that confuses Alexa. I can get it to play any episode of any other podcast, just not that one! 😂

@WinterRoad this bloody podcast (which sounds interesting, by the way) has been bugging me and I was determined to get my own f*cking Alexa to play the sodding thing! 😂

I finally got it to play it!
Say "Alexa, open BBC Sounds". Alexa will then ask you to say which podcast you want. You should then say "Noiser Presents" (see important note below) and Alexa will start playing the most recent episode. To get to the episode you want, say "Alexa, previous" and it will play the previous episode. You'll need to say that several times to get back to the 15th of April episode but it's do-able!

IMPORTANT NOTE: the pronunciation of the word "presents" in "Noiser Presents" needs to be with the emphasis on the first syllable, ie say it the same as you would say the word presents (meaning gifts) in "birthday presents". Alexa doesn't understand if you pronounce it any other way.

I hope that helps!

Yeah, I do find it a wee bit embarrassing as my accent prob not the best, but does the job! 😆

I just finished listening to this today, it is excellent! I found it by accident on my apple oodcast app

I’ve been watching The Crown so you can just imagine how I sounded as it’s the first accent I thought of. Or maybe I should try to channel my late gran who was from Romford. 🤣

Thanks for this.

im going to start listening to it this week as I walk and potter in the garden.

Thank you so much, I will give it a go and report back.

Mine ignores me most of the time but greets my dh with ‘good morning Mr Toast’ or similar and finds all the correct information for him simpering as she does it! I have started telling her to fuck off though which might be why she’s not speaking to me

We have Google Homes and mostly don't have any issues apart from DD's having a "routine" set and it tells her it's time to get up and exercise at the same time every day. There are no routines in the app, she didn't set it and not a single soul can stop it. We've tried everything.

The ILs have an Alexa and it's useless. Never plays what we ask it to play and claims not to understand a word we say.