Cueing up the next song in the Amazon Music app is about to get a little easier.
Amazon today added Alexa wake word support for app users in the US and Canada. That means you can now use Alexa voice controls to play tunes in the app completely hands free, just like you would on an Echo$9.99 at Amazon smart speaker.
Amazon first added Alexa support to the app in September, but until now you could only get the virtual assistant’s attention with a tap, which isn’t always convenient. Now, you can wake Alexa with your voice. This highly requested feature works when the Amazon Music app is open and in the foreground on your iOS or Android smartphone.
“Providing hands-free listening in the app has been one of the top requests by Amazon Music customers,” Amazon said in a statement.
Just say, “Alexa, play the latest song by Camilla Cabello,” for instance, or “Alexa, play the Drake playlist I was listening to last week.” If you can’t remember the name of the song you want to listen to, just spit out whatever lyrics you know, and Alexa may be able to identify it for you.
With Alexa voice controls, you can play music by mood, activity, genre, artist, or song title as well as pause tracks and move back and forth between songs in the app.
To try out this new hands-free music listening feature, update your Amazon Music app for iOS or Android. If you’re not into this feature, you can turn it off via settings
