When it comes to voice assistants most people have, at this point, decided which is their preference. Regardless of what you want, however, sometimes the voice assistant you get is entirely determined by which device you’re using.
That’s no longer the case for Android users, as a Reddit user has flagged up that it’s now possible to swap out the default Google Assistant with Amazon’s Alexa.
The process of making Alexa your default voice assistant on Android varies from device to device, but the way to start is by downloading the Alexa app from the Google Play Store.
All Alexa all the time
From here go into your phone’s settings, then go the apps and notifications section. When here, go into ‘Advanced’ and then ‘Assist App’ and change your selection from Enhanced Google Services to Alexa. If you don’t want any assistant at all that’s also an option.
Before now it was actually possible to replace Google Assistant with Microsoft’s Cortana, but given Alexa is a much more popular option than Cortana as a voice assistant, we can see this going down well with those who have kitted their homes out with Amazon’s Alexa devices.
So far, the functionality for Alexa isn’t quite as extensive as Google Assistant’s on Android. For one thing, you can’t summon Alexa using only your voice – instead you have to hold down the home button on your phone. And once you’ve pulled up Alexa it’s worth noting that it won’t be able to call up any maps or make calls for you so you’ll mostly be using it to set alarms, send messages, make appointments and perform Google searches.
These are, however, small sacrifices to make for the voice assistant you love most.
