I love me Echo displays. I have one in my kitchen that helps my wife and I participate while preparing food. But there are some things Show does that are truly annoying. Have you ever found your Echo Show’s behavior distracting, agitated, pushy, or just plain pushy? Want to learn how to turn off decadent images of culinary delights or Amazon’s never-ending shopping recommendations?
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Repairs available. We’ll look at five annoyances and how to fix them in this article. Let’s go.
How to access Echo Show’s Settings
All the modifications I’m about to show you in this article are done from the Echo Show’s Settings screen. To access Settings, swipe down from the top of the screen with your finger. You will see the menu below. Then, tap the gear icon.
1. Prevent the Echo Show from displaying culinary temptations
Food can be a triggering topic. For people on restrictive diets, images of tempting foods can simply cause discomfort for some and extreme anxiety in others. Because I no longer consume sugar or flour, images like the following make me uncomfortable.
To turn off these images, go to Settings, find Home Content, and tap it.
Now scroll down to Culinary Inspiration and turn off the toggle. This is how you modify any of the Home Content selections. Turn on to display them. Toggle off to turn them off.
To avoid all food images, other content you may want to turn off includes Explore Local Places and Popular Recipes. If you’re still seeing images of food, take a look at the Home Content menu and try turning off other themes until you like what you don’t see.
2. Stop Echo Show from answering when you’re talking to another Alexa device
If you have two Alexa devices near each other, sometimes the wrong device — or both devices — may respond to your “Alexa” prompt. To solve this problem, change the wake word.
From Settings, scroll down to Device Preferences and tap. From there, tap Wake Word.
You can choose from the following five wake words: Alexa, Amazon, Computer, Echo, or Ziggy. The Echo show I’m showing is going on in our kitchen, and it’s responding to the Echo wake word. But as a longtime Quantum Leap enthusiast, I donned the Alexa device in my pocket. Great lab Ziggy’s wake word. It was fun to go in there and ask Ziggy to do something for me.
3. Stop Echo Show from making shopping suggestions
Amazon is the world’s largest e-commerce site. Is it any wonder that their Echo Show product makes frequent shopping recommendations? You can reduce the constant push to get you to buy, buy, buy by making a few changes to your Home Content settings.
Again, go to Settings, then Home Content. Scroll down and turn off Stores and Store Recommendations.
I recommend turning on Shopping List because when you add something, you can see your entire list. We found the ability to add to our shopping list while in the kitchen incredibly useful.
You may also want to turn off Alexa Suggestions. These are not always shopping suggestions but recommendations from Amazon on where you should pay attention.
Finally, you might also consider turning off Standing Orders. That way, you won’t constantly have to go through the trouble of repurchasing things you’ve already bought. Sure, you might be planning to buy again, but you probably don’t want to be reminded every time you make yourself a cup of coffee.
4. Stop Echo Show from autoplaying videos
One of the things I love most about the Echo Show in our kitchen is when it displays interesting news or stories of public interest. It’s nice to have something interesting to listen to while preparing food.
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But one of my least favorite features is when the Echo Show decides to play more videos after the one I selected is finished watching. It just moves to the next random video, a behavior I noticed Actually uncomfortable.
Luckily, you can turn it off. Again, go to Settings then Home Content. This time, scroll to the bottom of the Family Content menu and turn off Continuous Rotation.
That’s it. Videos no longer autoplay.
5. Prevent the Echo Show from dimming in a dark room
Echo Show is very respectful of our desire to sleep. When the room darkens, the screen dims. For an Echo Show placed in the bedroom, this is a great feature. But for an Echo Show placed in a room where everyone is awake, it’s annoying.
We usually turn off the ceiling lights but leave a few small accent lights on in the kitchen area. We can easily see to make some tea or grab something from the fridge, but the Echo Show thinks we’ve gone to sleep and dims the screen.
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But this is the perfect time for the Program to exist. After all, time to make a cup of tea would be a great time to catch a piece of news on the Show. But it decided we were sleeping and turned itself off.
Luckily, there’s a fix for that. This time, go to Settings and select Display & Brightness. Once on that screen, turn off Adaptive Brightness. That one tweak will brighten your day, er, night.
That’s it! What do you think? Would you like me to review and help you fix any other frustrations about the Echo Show or other Alexa devices? Let me know in the comments below.
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