Home LivingSmart HomeAmazon Alexa is now called Ziggy – Quantum Leap and Bowie fans, here’s how to change your wake word!Sci-fi and glam rock stans alike will love this new upgradeWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Home LivingSmart HomeAmazon Alexa is now called Ziggy – Quantum Leap and Bowie fans, here’s how to change your wake word!Sci-fi and glam rock stans alike will love this new upgradeWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Sci-fi and glam rock stans alike will love this new upgrade
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Getty)
(Image credit: Getty)
Hey Ziggy, when does the reboot of beloved sci-fi series Quantum Leap start? That’s something many fans have probably longed to say for many years, and now they can. Hey Ziggy, what was the best thing about jamming good with Weird and Gilly, and the Spiders from Mars? Possibly some David Bowie fans may have wanted to ask that. I’d certainly like to know. Well, now we can, and there’s a guide to how to do so right below this intro.
’Ziggy’ can now be used as a wake word forAmazonEcho devices, instead of the familiar ‘Alexa’. It’s not all that widely known, but if you own an Amazon Echo device, you can already use ‘computer‘ and ‘Amazon’ as wake words for it. I’d assume 99% of people just use Alexa.
Ziggy seems a better option all round to me though. It’s only two syllables and it‘s got harder consonants. But mainly, it seems better because Ziggy was both an alter-ego of David Bowieandthe all-knowing but not-all-that-helpful supercomputer in Quantum Leap. Having Ziggy as your digital assistant will bring a whole new level of excitement to turning on your lights, asking for a chicken recipe, and ordering toilet paper from Amazon!
Alexa looking very glowed up after her latest makeover(Image credit: Amazon)
Alexa looking very glowed up after her latest makeover
Alexa looking very glowed up after her latest makeover
(Image credit: Amazon)
How to change your Echo wake word to Ziggy
You’ll need the Amazon Alexa app. Ironically, the app will still be called Alexa no matter what your wake word is.
Have you got multiple Echo devices you’d like to Ziggy-fy? Prepare to be annoyed: you’ll have to repeat this process for every single one.
Recently picked up for a remake/reboot/sequel which may or may not turn out to suck, Quantum Leap was an extremely good-natured sci-fi show which ran from 1989 to 1993. Then it unfortunately got shit-canned without any element of the overarching story being resolved to any kind of satisfactory degree. Life’s like that.
In the show, Scott Bakula – later of Enterprise and NOT a vampire as his name suggests – travelled through time as Dr Sam Beckett, righting wrongs and trying to get back to the present. That probably seemed a more inviting prospect in the early 90s than it would today. Aiding him in this was David Lynch and Wim Wenders regular Dean Stockwell, as Al Calavicci. He was a hologram, if memory serves.
Sign up to the T3 newsletter for smarter living straight to your inbox
Get all the latest news, reviews, deals and buying guides on gorgeous tech, home and active products from the T3 experts
Al would receive information about Beckett’s predicament of the week from a super computer called Ziggy, who he consulted via a kind of proto tablet device – this show was so ahead of its time!
Yeah, right.
Amazon further goes on to reference David Bowie, which is a perfectly valid alternative explanation. Ziggy Stardust was a persona Bowie adopted during the sexy glam rock phase of his early career and also the name of his most successful album (deep breath): The Rise And fall of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars. In this context you could say, ‘Ziggy: play guitar’ – the opening line (almost) of the (almost) title song Ziggy Stardust, and probably you will get some guitar-based songs fromAmazon PrimeMusic. But the song that lyric comes from also tells us that Ziggy is ‘the Naz’, whatever that means, and furthermore has ‘god-given ass’. I don’t know about you but I’m not sure I could speak to an Echo speaker again if I was picturing it having god-given ass. It would seem kind of kinky.
Also, it must be said that David/Ziggy, while androgynous, was definitely a boy, whereas Amazon’s AI clearly has a female voice, as did Ziggy in Quantum Leap. QED. Although, confusingly, Ziggy was always referred to with male pronouns, and no explanation was ever given as to why it eventually turned out that they had a female voice. Again, very ahead of its time.
UPDATE: We reached out to Amazon to ask if Ziggy being chosen was anything to do with Quantum Leap. A spokesperson replied: ‘No it is not. Thanks for checking though.”
Today’s best Amazon Echo deals94 Amazon customer reviews☆☆☆☆☆No price informationCheck AmazonWe check over 250 million products every day for the best prices
Today’s best Amazon Echo deals94 Amazon customer reviews☆☆☆☆☆No price informationCheck AmazonWe check over 250 million products every day for the best prices
Today’s best Amazon Echo deals
94 Amazon customer reviews☆☆☆☆☆
94 Amazon customer reviews☆☆☆☆☆
☆☆☆☆☆
No price informationCheck Amazon
No price informationCheck Amazon
No price informationCheck Amazon
No price informationCheck Amazon
No price information
No price information
We check over 250 million products every day for the best prices
We check over 250 million products every day for the best prices
Samsung Galaxy S25: every leak, rumour and spec we’ve heard before the launch eventThis is everything we’ve heard about the new handsets
This is everything we’ve heard about the new handsets
This case turns your iPhone or Android phone into an e-reader, but there’s a catchActually, there are a couple…
Actually, there are a couple…
