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You can now make two requests back-to-back using Alexa
July 11, 2025
Let’s say you want to askAlexato do two things for you that have nothing to do with each other, like turning on the living room lights as well asplaying some music. You would have to say, “Hey Alexa, turn on the living room lights,” and then say, “Hey Alexa, play some music.” You have to use the wake word for both because Alexa only understands one command at a time.
But not so anymore! Amazon introduced something it’s calling “follow-up mode” to allEchodevices (and some third-party Echo systems). Now, assuming you’ve opted into follow-up mode, Alexa will wait approximately five seconds after you’ve issued a command to hear if you issue another command.
With follow-up mode on, the example given at the top of this article would only be one command instead of two. It would sound like this, “Hey Alexa, turn on the living room lights……play some music.” You don’t need to use the “Hey Alexa” command for both lines anymore.
Now, there are some caveats here that need to be kept in mind when using this new function:
Follow-up mode is a pretty killer feature, one thatGoogleshould adopt for its line ofGoogle Homeproducts as well. Eventually, it would be incredible to be able to converse naturally with a virtual assistant, issuing multiple commands in complex sentences. The day where we can say something like, “Hey Google, turn on the lights and tell me what time my dentist appointment is tomorrow,” and Assistant understands all queries, will be a glorious day.
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