How to Prevent Roommates From Messing With Your Amazon Echo

The first time I realized something was wrong was when at 9 p.m. I started getting reminders on my iPhone of upcoming appointments – not at the time when I usually have something to do. And then there were the subjects themselves: “Check for herpes,” said one. Second? Reminder to try a few NSFW numbers with my mutual friend and my roommates.

Since I was far from home at the time, I was initially embarrassed by how people (who know me clearly) left reminders on my smartphone. Until the details were clarified, I assumed that some of my other friends were just using Siri to add silly reminders to my iPhone when I left it idle.

And then it dawned on me. It was my damn smart speaker.

Roommates love smart speakers

I recently installed a new Amazon Echo in our living room because I wanted to give the whole house the ability to open the front door – a smart lock – by shouting at a smart speaker. We’re lazy geeks, what can I say?

I linked the Echo to my Amazon account so that I could use it for my own personal tasks like turning my bedroom lights on and off, streaming music throughout the house, etc. Looking back, I can tell it was bad move.

As my roommates found out – as soon as they discovered the new device after the TV in the living room accidentally activated Alex – they could send any number of Echo commands to fuck with me. And boy, they tried:

So how do you prevent others in your home from ruining your smart speakers? If friendly conversation doesn’t work, you have several technological options – few, but few.

Don’t associate shared smart speakers with your personal Amazon account

It’s simple but inconvenient. If you are graciously giving smart technology to your roommates through a shared Echo speaker, you might be tempted to keep it linked to your Amazon account so you can use half of its functionality. In doing so, you also give others a huge window into their privacy, because your Echo is not going to magically distinguish your voice from theirs and refuse to share your personal data.

While creating a “dummy” account for your Echo is a tricky task, I would think if more than one person would be using the speaker. You will lose the ability to do things like check your calendar, add to-dos or reminders, shop, or use personal skills – to name a few activities – but you also won’t give up on intimate details of your life. for anyone learning with a quick question.

You can still link your smart home devices to your “alternate” Amazon account, whatever the cost, and you can set up all the necessary skills for that second account. Your roommates will still be able to add to-do’s, contacts, and reminders (or alarms), but since it’s all tied to a dummy account, it won’t affect what you regularly do on Amazon (or, say, a second one). The echo speaker you use in your room.)

Consider setting up an Amazon Household

If you can convince your roommate to go for it – and why not, as it will save everyone money – consider adding them to your Amazon family instead of both of you having separate Amazon Prime subscriptions. Amazon only allows two adults to live in a “family” unless your other roommates mind being “teens” on your account.

While this can be tricky since both of you will now be using the same payment methods, hopefully you will trust each other enough for this setup to work. And once you’ve set up your new household on the Echo speaker, you and your roommate can switch between the two profiles by asking Alexa to do so – or by customizing voice profiles for each of you.

However, this kind of setting will still mean that you and everyone else in your home will share certain elements: your calendar, your to-do lists, your music, your skills, and so on. At the very least, you won’t be using the same alarms or timers – or Bluetooth connections – which is better than nothing, but not perfect.

Disconnect your smart speaker from more intimate services

Since creating an Amazon Household probably won’t work for most roommate situations, you might want to try disconnecting your personal services from your Alexa account. You won’t be able to use them – for example, not checking your Echo calendar to see what’s going on – but neither will your roommates. This is the price you will have to pay for using the Echo speaker in a shared space.

I recommend removing:

• Skype (via “Connect” in the Alexa settings, if you have configured it earlier)
• Your Music Services (You can leave Spotify on, but if you’re using Amazon Music, it’s probably worth asking your roommates not to create new playlists on your account.)
• Your linked calendars
• Any third party apps you’ve linked to Alexa.
• Any other third-party skills that you would not like someone else to be able to access (eg Paypal. Remove Paypal immediately).

The more you get rid of, the less useful your echo becomes. Only you will know where to draw this line.

Block your echo as strong as possible

In an ideal world, you could assign some sort of PIN to any Echo feature or Alexa skill that triggers an outbound action: create a reminder or calendar event; sending money to someone using a skill; adding an item to your shopping list, and so on. While it sounds like it’s going to get annoying after a while, there’s no reason Amazon cannot give you a “say your PIN once and you don’t have to repeat it again within [a period of time] “, or – or even a trigger word to” block “your echo after you have previously confirmed your PIN.

Voice shopping is the main feature that you can PIN lock in Echo, apart from any third-party skills that also require it, like your smart locks . If your Echo is home to a multi-person family, I recommend turning it on as soon as possible. Visit your Alexa settings via the app or website , tap or click Voice Purchases under Alexa Account and either turn off this feature (if you never use it) or enter your “voice code” if you do.

While that won’t stop your stupid roommates from adding all sorts of annoying things to your Amazon shopping list, at least they won’t be able to buy them?

Change your word for awakening

If, say, in your living room for some time it has been a “secret” echoes, and your stupid roommates are only now being discovered – and were working with him – one of the good ways to stop them – is to change the word to wake up your speaker. … If you are using Alexa by default, consider going to Settings (and then General) and changing it to something more obscure, like Echo, or worse, Computer. Chances are, your roommates won’t guess these words and your Alexa will be safe … until some commercial triggers it and they guess a new secret.

By the way, feel free to keep Do Not Disturb on your echo all the time so that you don’t receive speaker notifications reminding them that your echo exists.

Check your Alexa history

Of course, one great way to find out if people are messing with your smart speaker is to check their story and see what they said. While privacy is favored to be frowned upon when collecting data from Amazon, it is useful at times like this. Alexa not only gives you a big list of all text commands received your smart speaker, which is in the section «Alexa Account” in the settings menu, but you can also listen to the record attempt your roommates. It’s perfect for blackmailing them, which seems fair if (or when) they order you a three-pound gummy worm and add a calendar reminder to deal with.

Turn off the sound on your device when you are not around

This tip only works if your roommates are not very tech savvy or lazy. When you leave home for the day (or for an extended period of time), click the mute button at the top of Alexa. Your roommates can yell at this all they want and it will get you nowhere. And no, you can’t tell your Alexa to mute the microphone. You have to press the button.

You can also get a little tricky and connect your Echo speaker to a smart switch. Assuming it allows you to schedule power to the connected device, you can always turn off the speaker when you don’t need it (when you’re at work, when you go to bed, etc.). It’s a bit extreme and your roommates can always press a physical button on your smart switch to turn the Echo speaker back on, but that’s an option.