TECHGRAM

While you’re here, if you’ve been getting annoyed by Alexa’s pestering you to rate that cheese grater you bought two months ago (this happened to me at 9:30PM when I asked Alexa to read my Audible book), there is a quick fix. Scroll a bit further down on the same Shopping Notifications page and toggle off “Request to rate products you’ve purchased.” You can also stop Alexa from announcing the latest deal on the laundry detergent you usually purchase by toggling off “Recommendations and Deals.” There are other options in here you might want to check out if you often find your Alexa speaker flashing yellow like it’s trying to get your attention (which it is). If you use Amazon’s Subscribe & Save program Alexa can audibly notify you if an item in your upcoming delivery is out of stock, among other things. You can toggle this option on or off under Order Updates, this will affect announcements about any order updates. You can use this screen to stop Alexa from randomly offerin...

Echo smart speakers and smart displays have a handy feature that can show and tell you when there’s a package sitting on your doorstep and even what’s in it. While this can be helpful most of the time, around the holidays it could seriously ruin some surprises. Avoid making any Grinch-like moves this holiday and manage your Amazon shopping notifications in the Alexa app to help keep the magic alive. Alongside options for tailoring package announcements, the notifications section of the app also has a number of settings you can toggle on or off to help make the voice assistant a little more helpful when it comes to purchases you make on Amazon. Below are a few of the most useful that you might want to tweak this holiday season. Open the Alexa app. Tap on More in the bottom right hand corner. Select Settings > Notifications > Amazon Shopping . Under “Say or Show Item Titles” toggle off “including items in your shopping cart marked as gifts, or those that might be gifts during major...