It’s easy enough to summon Alexa on one of Amazon’s speakers, but when you’ve got a million things to ask the voice assistant, it can be a pain having to say “Hey, Alexa” over and over again. Now, Amazon has rolled out a new feature, which gives its Echo speakers the ability to listen to back-to-back commands for the assistant. When you switch on Alexa’s Follow-up Mode, your Echo speaker will continue listening for a second command for a few seconds after you issue the first one — no need to wake it up again by saying “Hey, Alexa.” You’ll know for sure if the device is listening if its blue indicator is on.
Take note, though, that your speaker won’t wait for a follow-up if it’s in the middle of playing music or audiobooks. Also, Alexa won’t respond until it’s “confident you’re speaking to” it. You’d have to talk clearly and audibly, otherwise it won’t be able to separate what you’re saying from background noise. You can also ensure that Alexa won’t think that you’re issuing follow-up commands when you’re talking to someone else by ending the conversation: simply say “stop,” “thank you,” “cancel” or “go to sleep.”
If this sounds useful, because you pepper Alexa with questions and tasks, just fire up the voice assistant’s app and head to Settings. Select the device you want, scroll down, toggle on the mode and you’re good to go.
