Amazon Introduces Gesture Controls For When You Don’t Feel Like Talking To Alexa

With just a wave of your hand, your Echo Show will now respond to you instead of waiting for you to say the magic word, Alexa. Soon, the days of shouting at the device to wake up or to stop rattling on may be behind you with the introduction of Amazon’s new gesture update.

To activate the voice assistant or get it to stop a task, all you will have to do now is wave your hand. The camera embedded into the Echo will capture this movement and translate it into in-device adjustments.
 
The update has apparent benefits for those with mobility or vocal issues who cannot speak to Alexa when they want.
 
You can enable it in the Alexa app for iOS and Android by going to Settings > Device Options > Gestures if you have a compatible Echo Show 8 or Echo Show 10. Before this version, Amazon offered gestures as an accessibility tool, but this new function uses the camera to determine if your hand is open or closed.
 
Amazon also introduced two other features, including a function where you can tap on your device to wake Alexa up instead of saying its name. In addition, closed Captions have also been employed for Alexa calls and Alexa Captioning to add subtitles to its responses in real-time.
 
 
 
[via Lifewire and Gizmodo, cover image via Amazon]