If when asking your smart speaker to play some music, a podcast or simply to respond to your requests you were startled by the volume at which it did so, calm down because you are not alone. What has happened to you has also happened to many other users. Luckily, there is a very simple way to avoid these scares, especially at night.
Smart speakers and playback volume
Smart speakers offer many advantages, but they have not yet reached that level of perfection that allows them to behave and interact as if they were a real person. And we don't say this because of his understanding abilities, but because of details as apparently obvious as doing it at the same volume that he is spoken to.
This Alexa more or less does with whisper mode. You speak to it in a whisper and Amazon's voice assistant responds in the same way. But if it is not like that and you ask her, for example, that she play some music, she will do it at the last level established. And of course, imagine that it was a high volume, the shock will be fixed. Especially if it is at night and silence reigns.
Fortunately, there's a very simple solution that even Amazon's own assistant is starting to offer its users thanks to improvements in its proactive features. This involves learning from the user's habits , so if they play music at a maximum volume of 3 at night, it won't exceed that volume at night.
How do you do or achieve this? Well, in a very simple way and that you can extrapolate to other voice assistants: routines or automations.
How to adjust the volume of your smart speaker according to the time
So that never again, or at least regularly, you don't get scared when you ask your smart speaker for something and it starts to sound at full volume, all you have to do is create a routine in your assistant and define according to what hours what should be the volume to which you would have to respond.
Thus, for example, from a certain hour of the night you would go down almost to the minimum. Because with the silence of those hours any small noise becomes a "rumble". And in the morning or at noon you could turn it up a bit in case you play music while you do housework, cook, etc.
How do you do this? Well, let's see it for the three main voice assistant companies that exist right now: Apple, Google and Amazon.
Create a routine to adjust Alexa volume
Let's start with Alexa, Amazon's assistant , although it may have already suggested you do this at some point. Even so, if you didn't accept it then or if you want to create an additional one, here's how:
- Open the Alexa app on your mobile
- Go to the More section and then access the Routines section
- Click on the + icon to create a new routine and give it a name: volume in the morning, in the afternoon, at night, at dawn,... here you are in charge and you can create as many as you want
- Next, set when it will be activated. For example, from a certain specific time, at dawn or dusk
- Then the days in which you want it to be configured
- And finally add the action: Device Settings > Volume
- Ready, you just have to indicate the level and that's it
Create a routine to adjust the volume of the HomePod
If you have an Apple HomePod, the process is virtually identical, except you'll need to replace one app with another. On your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, open the Home app and follow these steps:
- Tap on the + icon in the upper left corner and select add automation
- Select At a time of day and set to sunrise, sunset, or a specific time
- Then the days that said action will be carried out
- Select the HomePod
- Now tap on Media Content
- Select Just adjust volume
- And then in Custom Volume set the level you want it to have
- Ready
Create a routine to adjust the volume of Google Assistant
Finally, using Google Assistant , the process for creating a routine that allows you to adjust the volume to a specific level according to the time would be as follows:
- Open the Google Home app
- Hit create new routine
- Select the time it will run and what days it will repeat
- Now select the speaker where you want it to be modified
- Then select speaker volume settings
- Set the level you want for that moment
- Ready
Your smart speaker will no longer scare you
As you can see, the solution is so simple that it seems strange that it is not something that the assistants themselves offer users in a more productive way. Even so, this is nothing new and many have been using it for a long time. And not only to establish a volume at night, also during other times of the day. Something that is highly recommended to do, because those minutes you lose creating the routines the first time will help you avoid scares later.
It is also to be assumed that at some point it will be the voice assistants who will gain a degree of their own decision that, depending on your habits, will know at what volume they should answer you or play audio at all times. It may even be, as we said, analyzing the level at which you speak to him in order to sound the same unless you ask for something else.