Knowing you

alexa and google assistant can be taught to recognize your distinct voice signature. On your iPhone and iPad, siri should ignore other people when they say “hey siri”, but homePod will respond. also, homePod’s connection to personal data (like reminders) is limited to one person’s apple id. a patent revealed in mid–2018 shows apple is working on multi–user personalization.

alexa can distinguish between up to six voices per account, giving access to personalized messages and music playback if you subscribe to the amazon Music unlimited Family Plan.

google’s experience is probably the smartest of all, giving each of its voice– matched users access to their streaming services of choice. But it’s worth noting, that all of these services collect recordings of your voice to improve their recognition features: if this makes you uneasy, there’s little choice but to avoid them altogether.

Picking another voice for Siri is easy and sometimes amusing — try the Australian male voice for a change.