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[Action Required] Client code changes and feature enhancements

Posted on January 30, 2018

The Alexa Voice Service (AVS) is introducing two changes that may require updates to your product’s client code:

  1. Description: Cloud-based wake word verification is now required for all voice-initiated products.

    Reason for change: This feature improves “Alexa” wake word accuracy on AVS products by identifying and reducing false wakes that are caused by utterances that sound similar to the wake word.

    Effective Date: 15-Mar, 2018

    Resolution: Update your product’s client code to use cloud-based wake word verification. This feature is supported in the AVS Device SDK.

    Resources:

    Enable Cloud-Based Wake Word Verification

    Recognize Event Specification

  2. Description: The initiator type in ExpectSpeech directives has changed from a string to an object.

    Reason for change: Support for future enhancements.

    Effective Date: 15-Mar, 2018

    Resolution: Ensure that your JSON parser can handle initiator as an object in ExpectSpeech directives.

    Resources:

    ExpectSpeech Directive Specification

If you have any questions or encounter issues while updating your client, please let us know.

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Talha Syed avatar image Talha Syed commented ·

"all voice-initiated products"

Could you please elaborate how we can make sure our product does not come under category.

In the AVS console, we have three checkboxes:

  1. Touch Initiated
  2. Hands Free
  3. Far Field

Our mobile app is touch initiated, but once a multi turn session starts, we depend on StopCapture directive to stop streaming and recording audio.

Kindly let us know which checkboxes we should check in the AVS device management console to be excluded from this new requirement.

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erik-amzn avatar image erik-amzn Talha Syed commented ·

Hi Talha,

This change relates to 2 + 3, which are both considered voice-initiated. To clarify, this requirement is for devices that use a wake word to trigger interactions with Alexa.

As for your question, since your product is touch-initiated and does not use the Alexa wake word, cloud-based wake word verification is not required for your mobile app. You should check #1.

Let me know if you have any follow up questions.

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JJ avatar image JJ commented ·

Sending "Wakeword" for verification is not an issue. However, sending "initiator.payload.wakeWordIndices" is a problem to me. Not every wake word detection library provides us such information. It will limit our choice of wakeword engine provider.

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