If you’ve been dreaming of the day when you can make Alexa sound like your very own British butler, you’re in luck: Amazon is now making Alexa’s English vocals region-free.
“We’ve added more voice options for English-speaking customers in the US, UK, Canada and Australia by giving them the option to choose from Alexa’s US, Australian, UK, Canadian or Indian voice options,” Amazon PR representative Kaley Heuschkel said. The edge in an email.
Previously, if you tried to change Alexa’s voice, Amazon would force you to do so also make a region changewhich would disrupt products and services that are only available in your country of residence. By comparison, Apple already lets US customers change Siri’s accent to British without affecting services like Apple Music.
In total, Alexa has nine English accents for you to choose from, including two versions each of American, Australian, British, and Indian, plus one Canadian option. The easiest way to select one is to say the command, “Alexa, change your voice.” The assistant will then cycle through different accents one by one and ask if you want to play with them. Once you verbally accept, Alexa will complete the change and you can also change your wake word.
If you’d rather not verbally ask Alexa to change your voice, you can also switch accents through the Alexa app. With the app open, tap Devices on the bottom bar and then tap the Echo and Alexa icon. From there, select the device for which you want to change the voice (this setting is per device). Then tap the settings gear icon in the top right corner and scroll down and search for and select Alexa’s voice. Now you can select any accent you want without getting a warning message that you are about to change your region.
If you have an Echo Show, you can change the voice directly on the screen without having to check or talk to the app on your phone. Do that by opening Settingsgoing to Device optionsto tap Alexa voiceand then select the desired accent.
It’s a minor update to Alexa, a product that has just been subject to a “vast majority” of more than $3 billion in budget cuts Amazon is making within the company.
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