What does Alexa do when she guards? (2023)

What does Alexa do when guarding?

Alexa Guard (available in the US)

Alexa Guard is a free feature available for supported Amazon Echo devices that can detect the sound of smoke alarms, carbon monoxide alarms, or glass breaking when you set Guard to Away mode. Alexa can send you Smart Alerts via notifications to your mobile device.

With Guard, Alexa can help you keep your home safe. When you set Guard to Away mode, Alexa can send you Smart Alerts via notifications to your phone if an Echo device detects the sound of smoke alarms, carbon monoxide alarms, or glass breaking.

While you're away, Alexa can turn on and off smart lights you select to make it look like someone is home and, when your camera detects motion outside, Alexa can play the sound of a dog barking from your Echo to help scare off potential intruders.

Press the “test” button on your smoke or carbon monoxide detector until it emits an audible tone for at least 10 seconds to test whether Alexa Guard can detect the sound of your smoke or carbon monoxide detector.

To have Guard Dog guard, just say "Alexa, tell Guard Dog to Guard". Guard Dog can also give you peace of mind by barking and growling for short periods on demand.

Activate Alexa Guard with a voice command

Once you've enabled the feature in the Alexa app, say, “Alexa, I'm leaving” to your Echo. This will switch Guard to Away mode, and then it will send Smart Alerts to your phone if it hears something like a smoke alarm or the sound of glass breaking.

So a couple of months back, a fun Easter egg that would be identified and enjoyed by retro gamers was discovered. This was the Super Alexa mode. If you would like to activate the Super Alexa Mode, say the subsequent voice command: “Alexa, up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start.”

Nothing. At least, there's no built-in skill called “Intruder Alert” that Alexa will recognize right out of the box. If you say that phrase to Alexa, the voice assistant will have no idea what to do — your time is better spent calling 911 if you actually think there's a burglar in your home.

You also can choose lights that are part of the Works with Alexa program and have those turn on when you leave the home to enable Guard. This is great if you're leaving but not great if you want Guard to listen while you are asleep because then you might have lights on during the night.

What color does Alexa turn when someone is listening?

When your Echo lights up with blue and cyan, it means Alexa is listening. Call out to Alexa and the light on your device turns blue, swirling around as Alexa processes your voice command.

An Amazon Echo can be your watchdog. The Alexa voice assistant has several built-in security features to help protect your home, such as Alexa Guard, which can detect if someone is breaking into your house, and Alexa Drop-In, which lets you listen in to see what the detected noise could be.

Echo smart speakers and displays can listen for a wide variety of sounds like snoring, coughing, dogs barking, babies crying, beeping appliances, and leaking water.

Using the Alexa Guard feature, you can connect your Amazon Echo device to your Ring Alarm and detect the sounds of a smoke alarm, carbon monoxide alarm, or glass breaking. Alexa will then notify you about the event.

Alexa Guard automatically listens for things like breaking glass and can alert you if it suspects someone is breaking into your home. If you have an ADT or Ring alarm system, it can also automatically set off the alarm.

Simply say, "Alexa, open emergency siren," and Alexa will say "Alert" followed by a sound effect, followed by "phew, that was close."

When your Ring Alarm sounds, whether due to an Exit or Entry Delay, Contact Sensor, or Motion Detector, the Base Station sounds either a chirp tone or the siren. Now, you can also enable your Alexa-enabled Echo device to mimic these sounds with Play Alarm Sounds on Echo Devices.

Simply say “Alexa, play 1 oh 4 point 9 The Wolf” or “Alexa, enable the 1 oh 4 point 9 The Wolf skill“. Once you enable the skill, you can live-stream The Wolf or ask for on-demand options like “Two Wrongs Don't Make A Good Podcast”, hosted by Dalby and Britt. Get the Skill for 104.9 The Wolf here.

The 'Super Mode' doesn't actually do anything, but instead is a whimsical tribute to the iconic video game cheat. The code to say is: “Alexa, Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start”, as revealed on TikTok.

Is Alexa easily hacked?

If a hacker can gain access to your home's Wi-Fi network, they can access to anything connected to it. However, we haven't found any reports of an Alexa device being hacked by someone with nefarious intentions.

Alexa. It requires only a few seconds of proximity to a vulnerable device while it's turned on so an attacker can utter a voice command instructing it to pair with an attacker's Bluetooth-enabled device. As long as the device remains within radio range of the Echo, the attacker will be able to issue commands.

You may wonder if Alexa is listening to conversations, or listening to everything you say. You may want to know whether Alexa listens to you when you're not directly interacting with an Echo device. The answer to those questions is no. Alexa and all of our Echo devices are designed with your privacy in mind.

While you can place calls to anyone in your contacts using your Amazon Echo speaker, you can't use it to directly call 911 or other emergency numbers. This is because it's not connected to a phone line. Amazon says if you need to call 911, you'll need to use your cell phone, landline phone or other telephone services.

Basic Alexa commands

Stop or pause: "Alexa, stop" or, "Alexa, shut up."