A couple of weeks after teasing Amazon Alexa’s ability to whisper back to voice commands, the feature is now live.
According to a report citing Amazon, the feature is now live in the U.S. Currently, it only works in the U.S. with English. Amazon is betting this Alexa feature will come in handy at bedtime or at night, when a person is trying to keep a quiet environment, and for parents who don’t want to wake a child with a loud voice command or response from Alexa.
Whisper Mode is one of a bevy of features Amazon is developing for Alexa. At a September event, the eCommerce giant also announced Alexa Guard, which is a sound detection system that enables Alexa to recognize the sounds of smoke alarms, carbon monoxide alarms and glass breaking, the outlet reported.
Earlier this week, The Next Web reported the company recently filed a patent in which Alexa can determine different things about a person based on their voice. For instance, it can tell if someone is happy, sad, mad, bored or afraid by the sound of their voice, and can determine based on the user’s breath or voice if they are crying or tired. The patent also covers being able to identify the user based on accent, age and gender, as well as background noise. The report noted that with the data, Amazon plans to send ads to users based on how they are feeling. For instance, if Alexa was able to determine that a user has a cold, it could present ads for cough medicine. And in June, the company inked a deal with the National Health Service in the U.K. to diagnose symptoms for medical conditions via Alexa.
