Companies are still trying to find the sweet spot on how users want to interact with their voice assistant, but one option could be less chatty. In Amazon’s case for Alexa, the company appears to be testing a new “brief mode” for devices that replaces some of the assistant’s verbal responses and confirmations and simple beeps.
Users on Reddit were first to report about the feature and AFTVnews picking it up afterwards. One Redditor wrote: “I just asked Alexa to turn on my lights, she said ‘OK’ just like normal, but after that, she said that this would be the last time she would, and that I would hear a beep tone instead on a successful command.”
To acknowledge successful comments, beeps are being used instead of verbal cues. Though it’s not hard to imagine how Amazon might expand on this. For example, the company could bring a “do not disturb” feature where during certain times of the day, Alexa will automatically switch to non-verbal communication (beeps). Another example is where you ask Alexa how long is left on a timer, you don’t want to hear long responses every time. I just hope that Google doesn’t bring back Alexa’s creepy laughs.
