https://qz.com/1197847/alexa-will-sleep-through-amazons-super-bowl-ad-by-design/

If you’re watching the Super Bowl next to an Amazon Echo this evening, worry not: Alexa won’t accidentally wake up when a 90-second commercial all about her plays during the game. That’s because Amazon used “acoustic fingerprinting technology” to help Alexa discern between the ad and a command from her masters roommates.

In fact, Amazon thought about this exact conundrum years ago. In September 2014, the company patented techniques to prevent Alexa from waking up “as part of a broadcast watched by a large population (such as during a popular sporting event).” As Bloomberg reports: