Amazon Tap was a new Bluetooth speaker that the company launched in March last year. It’s not just a Bluetooth speaker, though, as it also integrates Alexa, the company’s virtual private assistant that you’ll find in its Echo devices as well as a plethora of third-party devices now. Users were previously required to press the physical button on the Tap speaker to fire up Alexa but they won’t need to do that anymore soon as Amazon Tap will wake itself up when it hears the “Alexa” hotword.
Always needing to press the top button on the Tap made it difficult to use the device when it was either far away or your hands weren’t free. Other Alexa-powered devices also work with a hotword so it’s great that Amazon has finally seen reason here and decided to add support for the hotword to enable the truly hands-free use of Tap.
This means that Amazon Tap users will soon be able to use the smart speaker just like they use an Amazon Echo. All they need to do is say “Alexa” and the virtual assistant will fire itself up on the Tap and will then be able to respond to the voice commands and do what it’s told to do.
The firmware update that enables this functionality is rolling out gradually and should be live for all Amazon Tap users in the near future.