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Change these 5 settings to make your Echo Show less annoying
I love my Echo Show The one in my kitchen keeps my wife and me engaged while we're cooking. But sometimes my Echo Show does things that are just downright annoying.
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If you've ever found your Echo Show distracting, presumptuous, pushy, or even triggering, you're in the right place. Want to learn how to turn off those decadent pictures of gastronomic delights or Amazon's never-ending shopping recommendations?
Let's break down the Echo Show's five most annoying behaviors and how you can fix them.
How to get to your Echo Show's Settings
You'll initiate all these modifications from the Echo Show's Settings screen. To get to Settings, swipe down from the top of the screen. You'll see the menu below -- tap the gear icon.
1. Turn off Echo Show's 'Food Inspiration' images
Food can be a triggering topic. For those on restrictive diets, images of tempting foods can range from merely annoying to deeply disturbing. Because I no longer consume any sugar or flour, images like this one just piss me off.
To prevent your Echo Show from showing you these images, go to Settings and tap Home Content.
Scroll down to Food Inspiration and flip the toggle to off. This is how you modify any of the Home Content choices. Toggle on to show them, toggle off to turn them off.
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To avoid all food images, other content you might want to switch off includes Explore Local Places and Popular Recipes. If you still see food images, dig through the Home Content menu and try switching off other topics until you like what you don't see.
2. Stop your Echo Show from answering when you're talking to another Alexa device
If you have two Alexa devices close to each other, sometimes the wrong device -- or both devices -- might respond to your "Alexa" prompt. To solve this, change the wake word.
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From Settings, scroll down and tap Device Options. From there, tap Wake Word.
You can choose from five wake words: Alexa, Amazon, Computer, Echo, or Ziggy. The Echo Show I'm demonstrating this on is in our kitchen, and it responds to the wake word Echo.
Also: Do you talk to Alexa in your sleep? Here's how to check
As a long-time Quantum Leap aficionado, however, I gave the Alexa device in my Fab Lab the wake word Ziggy. It's so much fun to go in there and ask Ziggy to do things for me.
3. Stop your Echo Show from pitching shopping recommendations
Amazon is the world's biggest e-commerce site, so it's no surprise that its Echo Show products make regular shopping recommendations. You can reduce the constant push to get you to buy (and buy, and buy...) by making a few changes to your Home Content settings.
Also: 5 ways Amazon can make an AI-powered Alexa subscription worth the cost
Once again, go to Settings, then Home Content. Scroll down and turn off Shop and Shopping Recommendations.
I'd recommend leaving Shopping List on so that when you add something, you can see your entire list. We find the ability to add to our shopping list while in the kitchen incredibly useful.
That said, Amazon recently downgraded a favorite feature of mine -- the ability to link outside list software directly to Alexa's list responses. For example, we used to be able to say, "Alexa, add apples to Grocery," or "Alexa, add eggs to Costco." Those requests would actually be funneled into AnyList, our favorite app for shopping lists, but as of this past July, Amazon has removed that integration.
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You can still use Alexa to add to AnyList or other list products that added the new support. To do so, you now have to say, "Alexa, tell AnyList to add oatmeal to Costco." It works, but that extra "tell AnyList to" is annoying.
With that, let's get back to reducing annoyances. You might also want to turn off Alexa Suggests. These aren't always shopping suggestions but rather pitches from Amazon about where to turn your attention.
Finally, consider turning off Frequent Orders. That way, you won't be constantly hassled to repurchase stuff you've already bought. Sure, you might be planning to buy those items again, but you probably don't want to be reminded about it every time you make yourself a cup of coffee.
4. Stop your Echo Show from auto-playing videos
One of the things I like most about having our Echo Show in the kitchen is that it surfaces interesting news or public interest stories. It's nice to have something to listen to while preparing food.
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However, one of my least favorite features is when our Echo Show decides to play more videos after the video I chose is done. It just moves on to some random video, which I find really annoying.
Fortunately, you can turn that off. Once again, go to Settings and then Home Content. This time, scroll to the very bottom of the Home Content menu and switch off Rotate Continuously.
There you go. No more video autoplay.
5. Stop your Echo Show from dimming in a darkened room
The Echo Show is very respectful of our desire to sleep. When a room goes dark, it dims its display automatically. For an Echo Show located in the bedroom, this is a great feature. For an Echo Show located in a room where people are awake, however, it's annoying.
We often turn off our ceiling light fixture in our kitchen area, but keep a few small accent lights on so we can see when making some tea or grabbing something from the fridge.
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This is the perfect time for the Show to be alive. After all, the time it takes to brew a cup of tea would be a great time to watch a news tidbit on the Show. Unfortunately, this is when it has decided we're sleeping and turns itself off.
Fortunately, there's a fix for that. This time, go to Settings and choose Display & Brightness. Once on that screen, turn off Adaptive Brightness. That one tweak should brighten up your whole day -- err, night.
There you go! What do you think? Are there other annoyances about your Echo Show -- or other Alexa devices -- that you'd like me to look into and help you fix? Let me know in the comments below.
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