Silence a Chatty Alexa: Taming Unwanted Announcements and “By the Ways”

“By the way,” Alexa sometimes chimes in after answering a request, offering unsolicited advice or random facts. While intended to be helpful, these interjections can become intrusive. Fortunately, there are several ways to manage Alexa’s verbosity and enjoy a quieter smart home experience.

Managing Alexa’s Notifications

Alexa’s notifications, while sometimes useful, can quickly become overwhelming. Here’s how to customize them for a more peaceful experience.

Weather Alerts

Staying informed about severe weather is crucial. However, Alexa’s default settings may over-notify you with less critical updates. To adjust these:

1. Open the Alexa app, tap More > Settings > Notifications > Weather.
2. Under Severe Weather Alerts, choose how often Alexa notifies you (repeatedly or once) and whether to receive mobile push notifications.
3. Select your preferred delivery method: spoken announcements or on-screen notifications.

Amazon Shopping Updates

While convenient, real-time Amazon delivery updates aren’t always necessary. To customize these:

1. In the Alexa app, navigate to More > Settings > Notifications > Amazon Shopping.
2. Disable unwanted notifications like order updates, return confirmations, “out for delivery” alerts, and “Subscribe & Save” updates. You can also turn off deal and reorder recommendations.

Reminder Follow-Ups

Alexa’s persistent reminder follow-ups can be helpful but also annoying. To manage them:

1. Go to More > Settings > Reminders.
2. Disable Always follow-up to stop Alexa from nagging about incomplete reminders.
3. Adjust the number of reminder announcements (from one to three).

Utilizing Brief Mode for Concise Responses

For a less verbose Alexa experience overall, enable Brief Mode:

1. Open the Alexa app and navigate to More > Settings > Voice Responses.
2. Toggle on Brief Mode.

With Brief Mode active, Alexa will acknowledge most commands with a simple chime instead of a verbal confirmation.

Taming the “By the Way” Interjections

While Brief Mode helps, it doesn’t entirely eliminate the “By the way” intrusions. A workaround involves instructing Alexa to “stop By the Way,” but this solution is temporary. For a more lasting effect, create a daily routine:

1. In the Alexa app, go to More > Routines, then tap the “+” icon.
2. Name the routine (e.g., “Stop By the Way”).
3. Set a trigger event, such as a specific time each day (Schedule > At Time).
4. Add the action: tap Custom and type “stop by the way.”

This routine prompts Alexa daily to suppress the “By the way” feature, providing a more consistent quiet experience.