Have You Disabled These Amazon Echo Features?

Andrew Johnson
3 min readSep 5, 2022

What? Did someone ask to disable some features on an Amazon Echo smart device? Yeah, that’s true!

In an era when you wish your MediaTek-powered Amazon Echo devices to contain more and more interesting features and you wish to use all of them, some people suggesting you disable some of the features might sound quite weird, right?

Well, if you too are willing to get the best out of your Amazon Echo devices and get better assistance from Alexa, disabling these features would be mighty helpful. Here is a list of the features that you can disable to get better functioning;

Amazon Echo and Drop In Feature:

Drop In is a cool feature that allows your friends and family to get together virtually when you are not able to meet physically. Drop In is different from a phone call and it does not require answering the call. All that your friends and family members need to do is speak out using your device’s speakers.

It might sound good when you use it initially but people often forget that virtual visitors get permitted to drop in any time without even offering information. If you are okay with your friends and family dropping in even at inappropriate times, you can keep this switched on. However, for privacy, you can always keep it off and switch it on only when you are ready.

Amazon Echo and Hunches:

You would agree that Alexa likes talking and once you make a request, it would suggest you some more things to do or ask more questions. These suggestions from Alexa could be termed as Hunches and although they might sound good sometimes, they do not always make people happy. In fact, many people wish Alexa to answer only what they demand, without suggesting anything.

In such a case, you can switch off the Hunches using the Hunches feature in the Alexa app. You just need to make a small setting and Alexa would no more disturb you apart from the requests you make.

Amazon Echo and Voice Recordings:

Do you wish Amazon Echo devices to record your voice when you make some request? Well, although people now have an idea about this, many people still do not know that Amazon Echo devices record voices and use it for research purposes. You might not have offered a special permission for this but when you agree to their terms and conditions, one of the default permission you offer is to record your voice and use it for research by Amazon.

And although you might not make any special request, you know that this could be dangerous for you. So you need to make sure that even this default setting stays disabled in your smart device.

To make this happen, you need to go to your Alexa App, go to Settings and select Alexa Privacy. Go to Manage your Alexa data and then clock on Choose How Long to Save Your Recordings. Next click on Don’t save Recordings and confirm this. Scroll down to the bottom and come to Help Improve Alexa and follow this up with switching off the Use of Voice Recodings.

Amazon Echo and Brief Mode:

Sorry to go against the headline but Brief Mode is something that you need to switch on in your Amazon Echo devices. If you enable this feature on your Amazon Echo devices, this will disable Alexa from parroting your commands and questions back to you. You might have seen that sometimes, Alexa repeats your commands back to you and this becomes quite irritating.

However, when you turn on the Brief Mode, it would stop Alexa from doing any such thing and your Amazon Echo devices will not get on your nerves.

These are some of the features that you can switch off on your Amazon Echo devices and get better assistance from them. Even Alexa should work in limits to offer you a better experience. Do you agree?

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Andrew Johnson

I like Technology and Netflix. One of the biggest fans of FRIENDS.