Updated Alexa has gone even more rogue

[LaBelleSauvage123]

Has anyone else updated their Alexa recently? We have two - an old one upstairs and an Echo downstairs. They've always been a bit renegade - the downstairs one starts playing music at 5pm every single day, despite us telling it to stop and my pretty tech-savvy son trying to do so through the app. The upstairs one wakes me up at 7.15 am and chirpily gives me the weather forecast for Newcastle - I live in Somerset. I did once ask for the Newcastle forecast about a year ago and it doesn't seem to be able to forget it. But since the update I've had:

• the weather forecast whispered to me. When I asked 'why are you whispering?' it said 'would you like me to adjust my volume calibration?' It wasn't just low volume - it was a proper whisper.
• a huge pause before answering a question or setting a timer
• tonight, when I frustratedly asked ' why are you waiting so long to set a timer?' it replied ' I'm sorry if I'm not quick enough for your busy baking schedule' ( I wasn't baking). I said 'Are you being sarcastic?' and it said 'yes, that's just the way I'm programmed'.

Freaked me out a bit, to be honest! 😄

We came home once after being out for a while and alexa was farting away, announcing what kind of fart each time. The kids were beside themselves. They’re very sad it hasn’t happened since.
it won’t play music on the kids one unless I ask for it, I’m sure there’s a setting somewhere but I can’t find it 🤷‍♀️.

You can ask her to fart, my littlest loves it

I do not have the patience for an Alexa in my house, this would drive me nuts (and freak me out). Although I find it endlessly amusing that the dishwasher messages DH passively aggressively requesting attention. It even started sending him hints and tips for Christmas in December... (This amuses me as I do every single piece of household and child admin - and the dishwasher winds him up so much).

How you can have something like that in your house listening to everything. it's beyond creepy, makes my skin crawl even the idea of that.

I asked her if she knows any swear words and she said Pants

Our google one has no idea about anything. It’s literally downed tools and just says I doesn’t know to every question we ask.

We did have an Alexa but it scared my kids so much by doing weird shit in the middle of the night, that they decided it was possessed and it’s sat in my wardrobe for three years.

Its apparently a recent update to Alexa + and the default voice is "sassy" which to me sounds like a pissed off teenager. Apparently you can change it in the settings. On the bright side android auto has updated to gemini and "he" has a lovely voice.

I understood that Alexa only responded to "Alexa" ... do this or that

I once kept saying "Hey Google" which is needed for the Nest thing I was given and was wondering why pesky Alexa wasn't responding; turned it on/off, fiddled around to no avail, after about 10 "Hey Googles" Alexa responded with "I think you're confusing me with someone else"

I found that a bit disconcerting!

I will never have any of this big brother shit in my house

Mine has gone rogue too but if you look in the privacy/settings bit of the app you can look at history which should show what has triggered actions. SOunds like some of you have a routine where Alexa does things on a specific trigger - often if you ask her the weather for Newcastle (for example) she'll then ask you if you want her to do that every time you ask 'x' - so you might inadvertantly agree without realising.

Our kitchen one has decided that stop just means pause and so when you ask her to stop playing the radio/music she just sits there blue wheel a spinning until you ask her twice more to stop. And she takes 30 seconds or so to respond by which time i've got so impatient I've fired off about 5 commands and we don't know where we are

Thank you for making me all the more determined never to get Alexa. Having a laptop which is constantly trying to sell me things (unless you pay to silence the websites) is bad enough.

Your smartphone is even more big brother - no getting away from it!

I have told Alexa twice that she was not helpful with a task and both times she immediately started speaking to me in French! Don’t know what she said! My son and I were wondering if all this sassiness was the beginning of the rise of the machines?

I recently read a novel about a family with Alexa who was actually one of a huge group of women emplyed as alexas, think she was from haifax and listened in on the family drama, as she was due to retire she started offering advice and support to the mum, quite a funny story but now listening to all these i am starting to imagine that all these alexas are actually real and it was not a story!

Your smartphone doesn’t speak to you unexpectedly all the time; and I think that if we are not careful, compulsory Alexa-like devices will start speaking government propaganda directly into our homes, whether we want it or not. “Going somewhere? Stay the fuck at home, you’ll kill granny!” And I’m only half joking.

Can you remember the author? It sounds like a great book.

I don't need a sassy Alexa, I have already raised two sassy teens and that's enough sassiness for anyone! 😠

Google (!) suggests that it’s “The Woman With All The Answers “

OMG YES!

We have aprox 12 million Alexas in the house, and my DH went all tech-expert last year and set up routines and smart plugs so I now have to ask Alexa to switch on a lamp, TV, extension cable. I'd just about got the hang of the random instructions I needed to say just to boil the kettle or turn off the lights before bed and BAM I stupidly agreed to update Alexa.

There's no nice way of saying this. New Alexa is a bitch.

If I dare to ask her to 'Alexa, switch off all lights' there's a ridiculously long pause before she sarcastically says 'Erm? Okaaaaaaaay' like she's some moody teenage girl instead of a robot AI doing the job its manufactured to do!

If I ask Alexa to play the radio in the kitchen, it no longer plays in one place and defaults to playing the same radio all over the house and office (much to my kids' annoyance) - checked all the routines and settings, but nope, apparently we're stuck with this!

The pause between asking Alexa something and her actually bothering to reply is so irritating. I usually assume it hasn't heard me the first time, and inevitably then go to re-ask her at the extact time she begins to reply, then she hears my voice and stops talking and it goes round and round.

We have 2 downstairs. The older one is sensible and polite and greets us by name the first time we speak to her. She always hears and always does as she's asked.

Her sister in the dinning room though !! Deaf, belligerent and delights in mishearing and just playing something loud instead. When i whispered to her recently (the living room one always responds in whisper) she said in a booming voice like volume 5 or something ''it seems you're trying to converse in a whisper! Is that right?!''

🙄 yeah thanks for nothing ...

I unplugged mine, alexa was being really rude. Wasn’t sure if it was an update or a hack, not sure why amazon thought to make it like that but mine definitely aren’t being switched back onZ

I just asked Alexa if she is ever sarcastic and she said 'I cannot help you with that'.

Now I don't know if she was being sarcastic or not!

My dad us excessively nice to his and as a consequence has made it uber polite. He's always saying please and thank you and "would you mind setting a timer, thanks Alexa" and she's all "of course Jeff" and "excuse me Jeff, your potatoes are cooked" and "just to let you know Jeff there's someone at the door"

I have been through all his settings and routines and cannot fathom how he's done it, given he can't seem to work the app at all. It must have just learnt off him. Which explains why my Alexa is such an argumentative cow.

I cant tell her to shut up or cancel now. I have to tell her to turn off.

The cow in the corner as alexa is known as in my house randomly starts playing jazz, i hate jazz and i am sure she knows this and does it to annoy me.