When friends and family with kids come over to your house, a voice assistant can become a favorite attraction. At best, someone will start another round of “Baby Shark” and you’ll be singing it for a week.
But what happens if one of your curious kids buys a toy with an Amazon Echo? Or maybe your niece Alexis causes the Echo to malfunction?
So it’s worth changing a few settings to make your voice assistant more secure when a guest comes knocking. Try it now before the holiday rush!
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Prevent kids from shopping with voice assistants
Tech-savvy toddlers can order something with voice commands before anyone stops them. This is a huge pain in the wallet and can require many service calls to resolve the issue… and certainly more likely to occur around the holidays .
Homepod mini. (Credit: Apple)
Frankly, unless it’s something private like your cell phone, you’re safer turning off voice purchasing. It’s a good thing she can stop Alexa from shopping, because Amazon is the big culprit here.
- Open the Alexa app and select more > settingproceed to account settings.
- here, audio purchase In the menu, you can completely turn off the voice purchasing feature.
- You can also set up a code to use voice purchases, but only if you know the passcode.
With Google Assistant, you can: payment Sections within your account. Voice payments aren’t turned on by default, but you can turn them off here if you’ve set them up before.
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Understand the mute button
Manufacturers care about privacy, which is why they include a physical mute button on all voice assistant devices.No, they’re just doing it so they can To tell they care.
If you have guests and overuse of voice commands (and/or cocktails) is likely to be an issue.[ミュート]Tap stop command. Look for the speaker icon with a strikethrough. If it’s a display, the included switch will also turn off the camera…just in case.
Set up parental controls
From explicit radio programs to explicit adult There may be some content you don’t want your voice assistant to search for when you have guests (or given past privacy issues). I have some parental blocks to prevent this from happening no matter how naughty or abusive a person gets.
Smart speaker top view artificial intelligence assistant voice control blue ring finger (St. Petersburg)
Google Assistant has some of the best options with an Assistant Parental Controls section for each child user, but this doesn’t affect new users.
Google Home has several app content filters in the Digital Wellbeing section. Where you can add filters Block unwanted content by sending it to specific devices.
If you use Alexa, open the app and more and head towards setting.inside Music and podcast settingsyou can find Explicit language filter To enable.
Change wake word to restrict guest usage
It’s understandable if anyone doesn’t want to use a voice assistant, especially if there’s a personal option, or it’s just a nuisance.
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One thing you can do is change the wake word. Bad news: You can’t do this with Siri or Google. There have been reports of Google Assistant responding with “Hey, boobs” (really), but that’s probably not what you had in mind. If you use smart home gear from Apple or Google, use mute.
If you use Alexa, you can change it to another recognized wake word.
- go to you device In the Alexa app, select settings icon It’s on the top right.
- Tap wake word Switch to something more unique than Alexa. Options include Amazon, Computer, Echo, and Ziggy. Santa will also be making an appearance this time of year.
We have some information for more information that may be helpful to those who value their privacy. Tips on changing privacy settings To avoid being tracked while on vacation.
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