We thought smartphones have made our lives easier but it is these virtual assistants that have made things simple and hassle-free for us. Amazon Alexa, Siri, Samsung Bixby and Google Assistant can control your home and smart gadgets effortlessly. Right from playing music, making calls, setting alarms, paying bills and much more our virtual assistants can do it all. However, there are still some simple features that are missing on Amazon Alexa. Want to find out what they are? Here is the list.
Lacks Support for Customized Names
Unlike most virtual assistants, you can’t set a customized or personal name for Alexa. The virtual assistant is activated when it hears “Amazon”, “Alexa”, “Echo” or “Computer”. Apart from these pre-set names, you can give Alexa a personalized name. Additionally, you cannot change the voice of Alexa on the Amazon speakers. Recently, both Google and Siri introduced support for multiple languages and voices. However, that feature is still not available on Alexa.
No Voice Notes
As of now, Amazon Alexa is capable of recording short notes. However, the smart assistant does not have the support to record voice notes or memos. This comes across as a little surprising as we know that Alexa is listening to and recording everything we say. Nevertheless, recording voice notes is a simple feature that Alexa lacks.
Lack of Shortcuts
Alexa’s rival Google Assistant supports and understand commands given in shortcuts in all the Google Home devices. These shortcuts make it easier to get work done from the smart assistant. Not just easier, these short commands also get the work done faster instead of giving out the entire command. However, Amazon’s Alexa still does not understand and respond to commands given in shortcut. Moreover, the assistant also does not have the feature to add new shortcut commands.
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Missing Location Reminders
Most smart speakers these days have support for location-based reminders. So, if you are the grocery store your smart speaker will remind you to buy things. Or it will remind you to do a chore once you get home. But this feature is yet to make its way to the Amazon speakers.
Lacks Emergency Services
Alexa can make calls to various mobile and landline numbers without any hassle when given the command. Though, the feature to make calls to emergency numbers is still not available.