Here’s what’s new for the touchscreen speakers with Alexa.
Gestures, Text-to-Speech, and More
First up, Gestures provide a new way to interact with Alexa without using your voice or tapping the screen.
You can dismiss timers by raising your hand with the palm facing the camera of the second-generation Echo Show 8 or third-generation Echo Show 10.
This can be enabled directly on those Echo Show devices. Swipe down on the screen and choose Settings. Then head to Device Options and toggle on Gestures.
The Tap to Alexa feature is also getting better. Previously, it allowed users to access Alexa with touch thanks to touch-based shortcuts and the ability to create custom requests.
That can help someone who is nonverbal or with speech disabilities to communicate with others in their home.
Consolidated Captions allows users to turn all caption options on the Echo Show—Call Captioning, Closed Captioning, and Alexa Captioning. That will bring access to all of your supported Echo Show devices.
All of the caption options help users who are deaf or hard of hearing. Call Captioning brings captions for Alexa calls in real-time while Alexa Captioning shows captions for Alexa responses. Closed Captioning shows what’s being spoken on videos like TV shows and movies.
To enable Consolidated Captions, swipe down from the top and choose Settings. From there, select Accessibility and then Captions.
