Do you own an Alexa device at home? Do you love talking to Alexa? Are your kids too obsessed with Alexa? However, when Alexa gets too involved in conversations, you start to hate it. What if your Alexa asks you back more questions than you ask her?
Are you fed up with the Alexa suggestions that erupt after each command you give to Alexa? It starts with ‘by the way’ how about you try this, which is referred to as Alexa suggestions here.
For instance, if you ask “Alexa, traffic updates” and after giving the traffic updates, Alexa will go on and suggest, “by the way, do you want to know weather forecasts as well.”
Sometimes, Alexa does not stop on this and keeps giving suggestions without need be. This is when Alexa’s suggestions start to get annoying, and you would want to turn them off.
The truth is there is no particular toggle off that can switch off the Alexa suggestions. You need to work through a workaround to turn off the Alexa suggestions. It includes a series of changes in the Settings through the Alexa app.
One of the straightforward ways to turn off the Alexa suggestions include:
- Open the Alexa app on the mobile device
- Go to More
- Thereafter, go to Settings> Notifications
- Within the notification menu, tap on Answer Updates and Disable it
- Now go back to notifications
- Go to Things to Try and disable it.
Chances are, doing this won’t be enough to turn off Alexa suggestions. If Alexa still keeps giving ‘by the way’ suggestions, you need to activate the Brief Mode.
Further reading: How To Delete Alexa Notifications
What Is Brief Mode?
Brief mode is an Alexa feature that allows it to speak less. Turning it on can help you prevent Alexa’s by-the-way suggestions. Here is how you can turn on the Brief mode in the Alexa app:
- Open the Alexa app on the mobile device
- Tap on more in the bottom right corner
- Go to Settings
- Scroll down to find the Voice Responses option
- Tap on voice Responses and turn on Brief Mode
This will enable Alexa to answer what is asked in the shortest way possible. This should stop the ‘by the way’ suggestions from Alexa.
The above two steps can also be followed with another change in Alexa settings. If your Alexa also gives unwanted purchase advice, you can turn off the Amazon Shopping options.
You may also like: How To Turn Off Alexa Notifications
Turning Off Alexa Asking If You Like To Buy Something
Alexa is Amazon’s voice assistant. Being Amazon’s product, it is obvious that Amazon shopping will be linked through it. Also, Amazon is the largest eCommerce platform in the world. Thus, Alexa tries to make it easier for its users to place orders, track orders, and get any order updates through Alexa voice assistants.
It sometimes also suggest users buy something through its artificial Intelligence. Sometimes these shopping suggestions become too much, and this is when you decide to turn off these suggestions. Here is how you can turn off buying suggestions on Alexa:
- Open the Alexa app.
- Go to More by tapping on the three horizontal lines on the bottom right corner
- Go to Settings > Notifications
- Select Amazon Shopping under the Notifications menu
- Scroll down to find “receive personalized recommendations and deals based on your shopping activity” and turn off the option.
That’s it! Alexa will no longer ask you to buy something based on your previous shopping activity.
Turning Off Alexa Suggestions On Various Echo Show
What if you have Echo show as your Alexa device? Can you turn off suggestions in a similar way?
Yes, the above methods should work for Echo Show as well.
Conclusion
Most of the users complain that following the above steps doesn’t help them shut up the Alexa suggestions.
In such a case, the only way to turn off the Alexa suggestions is by finding a solution to each of the suggestions individually. For instance, if it gives too many shopping recommendations, you turn off the shopping recommendation from the Alexa app (as told above).
Similarly, if it gives too many weather forecasts, you can choose to turn off the weather forecasts or traffic updates. You can also update your bedtime routine to prevent Alexa from asking too many questions. This is just a compromising solution and not a solid solution at all.
Further, if suggestions get out of hand, you can try factory resetting your Alexa device. Depending on the Alexa device, you can easily factory reset your Alexa device on your own. You can also try contacting the Alexa customer care service to get the right solution to the problem if any solution exists.