Amazon is engaged in a fascinating experiment in user behavior by upgrading and “smartening” its voice interaction system. A completely new system that could do basic tasks like “turn on light” or “close garage door”, and have a conversation with you on any of a million subjects seems cool, but we users have spent years learning the ins and outs of basic Alexa. Like a friend who has always had a narrow set of interests and suddenly cares about everything going on, are we ready for the new Alexa Plus?
Apple faces the same problem when it finally gets around to making Siri smarter with Apple Intelligence (its version of AI). Will people care? Will people long for the O.G. Siri because they’re used to it and only think of it being able to ‘set alarm for 3 pm’ and ‘launch Netflix’? We’ll have to see.
Meanwhile, Amazon has purportedly upgraded over a million Alexa users to the new system. That’s out of a community of 100 million monthly active users (estimated) controlling over 600 million Alexa-powered or enabled devices. And it’s not going great. According to discussions I’ve seen in the busy Facebook Amazon Echo (Alexa) Users group and Reddit’s r/alexa group, many of the people who have opted in for Alexa+ are feeling the same as you; they want to go back to original Alexa.
The good news is that you can do just that! And you can opt back in for Alexa+ afterwards if you decide that you’d like to explore the new features and capabilities after all. Let’s have a look…
OPT OUT OF ALEXA PLUS
I’ve been running Alexa Plus on my fairly complicated smart home setup (I have at least 30 devices of my own) and while I’m not really utilizing many of its new features, what bugs me much more is that the voice isn’t as good as the original Alexa. Seems like that’d be the first thing they’d have nailed, but it either talks too slow or too fast, and it’s annoying.
Yes, this is as first-world-problem as it gets, but hey, it can still be annoying!
To opt out and go back to O.G. Alexa (should we refer to that as Alexa- or OGA? 🤓 ), simply open up the Alexa app and ask it how to proceed:
That’s promising, right? It even conveniently includes a link. A tap, and there are some important privacy settings related to Alexa Plus:
Even without Alexa+, it turns out that Amazon wants to save your interactions. You can opt out, as you can with the other categories on this screen. What you can’t do, however, is actually opt out of Alexa+ itself.
To do that, go back and turn the question into a command:
Notice here the sophisticated Q&A sequence. My response is succinct: “yes”.
Done. That’s it. In fact, you can just say to your Echo device, “Alexa, end early access to Alexa Plus” and skip using the app altogether.
CHANGE YOUR MIND? RE-ENABLING ALEXA PLUS
Okay, so you try the old system for a bit and decide that you do want to use the new system? Well, this gets a bit confusing, because in the Alexa app it now thinks you’re not allowed to opt-in yet because you’re not “on the list”:
In fact, go to the home screen in the Alexa app and it’ll tell you in no uncertain terms that you’re done, finito:
No bueno.
MEANWHILE, IN YOUR INBOX…
But don’t despair! While the app – and the device – think you’re done, you’ll have also received an email from Amazon about ending your test of Alexa+…
Ahh… you spotted it, that big yellow “Restart Early Access” button. Click or tap on it and you will indeed be able to re-enable Alexa Plus for your account because it turns out that you are on “the list” by having it in the first place. This is now what you’ll see in your Web browser:
One click on “Restart Early Access” and it’s back!
Try it. Say “Alexa, enable Alexa Plus”. It should say, “You already have Alexa Plus access!”
Pro Tip: I’ve been writing about Amazon products, from Kindle to Echo, for quite a while now. Please check out my extensive Amazon Alexa help area for lots more tutorials. Thanks!
