Using your voice to shop
Inaudible Tones
Through the use of Alexa’s voice feature, we wanted to bring the ability to ingress to Amazon Live’s Immersive Player experience.
Product Design
New Feature
0 to 1
Role
Leading Product Designer
Collaborators
Software Engineering
Product Management
Timeline
Design to Development: Dec 2022 - Mar 2023
Launch Date: Aug 2023
Deprecation (Sunset): Oct 2023
Overall impact
Launched Amazon’s first companion device experience to shop livestreams through use of Alexa’s Inaudible Tones
Design showcase
Ease your experience through sound.
To kickstart the concepts of shopping from your companion device, we’ve partnered up with Amazon Alexa team to help in ensuring that through livestream videos being played on your screen, the inaudible tones will help to pick up the correct video to be displayed on your mobile device.
Videos come with Inaudible Tones. Follow the instructions to access!
Tap the microphone icon on the home state to access this screen.
Or if you have the Inaudible Tones enabled, just type in “Shop the stream” to automatically detect!
Worried about privacy and doubting us? Feel free to disable.
(We’ll never hear you without your permission)
Results & Takeaways
Sigh. Didn’t work out, but a lot of learnings!
After launch, we learned valuable lessons—but ultimately decided to deprecate the Inaudible Tones feature in October 2023.
- “Show the Stream” in mShop no longer leads to Shop-the-Show
- The ALFTV tutorial and inaudible tone detection service have been removed
- Creator tone ingestion workflows and related FAQs have been deprecated
​
What we learned
Before launch, we debated potential customer backlash around embedding inaudible (high-frequency) tones in video content.
- Added disclaimer: “This video includes inaudible tones to support this experience.”
- Customers could turn tones off in settings
- No press or CS complaints, but data shows engagement with tone settings was higher than expected:
- 3.8% tapped tutorial to open Settings
- 2.6% turned tones off (vs. 0.05% target)
​
Customer impact
Impact expected to be minimal on existing Fire TV users
2024 Metrics:
- 294 avg monthly visits to second-screen experience
- 0.81% conversion rate from video → companion experience
- 3.4% conversion rate → purchase
- ~10 monthly sales, $333.29 Direct OPS, $33.32 avg price/unit
mShop Experience:
- 43% abandoned before success/failure screen
- Of those who continued: 66% success, 34% fail (retry after 15s)
- 4.8s avg latency for successful tone detection
​
Why we deprecated
Maintaining the experience required heavy KTLO (Keep The Lights On) investment.
- Needed major updates to support video ingestion stack QoS changes
- Decision: Refocus resources on scaling Shop the Show for Prime Video and the Amazon Live FAST Channel
- Exploring alternative TV-to-phone sync technologies (no plans to reinvest in inaudible tones)
​
Alternatives considered
We explored replacing the feature with an account-auth companion experience (TV ↔ phone sync)
- Decided not to proceed — engagement didn’t justify investment (>300 MAU, $333/month OPS)
- Future revisit possible if ROI outlook improves
- A Q3/Q4 ROI review is planned to reassess potential investments
Using your voice to shop
Inaudible Tones
Through the use of Alexa’s voice feature, we wanted to bring the ability to ingress to Amazon Live’s Immersive Player experience.
Product Design
New Feature
0 to 1
Role
Leading Product Designer
Collaborators
Software Engineering
Product Management
Timeline
Design to Development: Dec 2022 - Mar 2023
Launch Date: Aug 2023
Deprecation (Sunset): Oct 2023
Overall impact
Launched Amazon’s first companion device experience to shop livestreams through use of Alexa’s Inaudible Tones
Design showcase
Ease your experience through sound.
To kickstart the concepts of shopping from your companion device, we’ve partnered up with Amazon Alexa team to help in ensuring that through livestream videos being played on your screen, the inaudible tones will help to pick up the correct video to be displayed on your mobile device.
Videos come with Inaudible Tones. Follow the instructions to access!
Tap the microphone icon on the home state to access this screen.
Or if you have the Inaudible Tones enabled, just type in “Shop the stream” to automatically detect!
Worried about privacy and doubting us? Feel free to disable.
(We’ll never hear you without your permission)
Results & Takeaways
Sigh. Didn’t work out, but a lot of learnings!
After launch, we learned valuable lessons—but ultimately decided to deprecate the Inaudible Tones feature in October 2023.
- “Show the Stream” in mShop no longer leads to Shop-the-Show
- The ALFTV tutorial and inaudible tone detection service have been removed
- Creator tone ingestion workflows and related FAQs have been deprecated
​
What we learned
Before launch, we debated potential customer backlash around embedding inaudible (high-frequency) tones in video content.
- Added disclaimer: “This video includes inaudible tones to support this experience.”
- Customers could turn tones off in settings
- No press or CS complaints, but data shows engagement with tone settings was higher than expected:
- 3.8% tapped tutorial to open Settings
- 2.6% turned tones off (vs. 0.05% target)
​
Customer impact
Impact expected to be minimal on existing Fire TV users
2024 Metrics:
- 294 avg monthly visits to second-screen experience
- 0.81% conversion rate from video → companion experience
- 3.4% conversion rate → purchase
- ~10 monthly sales, $333.29 Direct OPS, $33.32 avg price/unit
mShop Experience:
- 43% abandoned before success/failure screen
- Of those who continued: 66% success, 34% fail (retry after 15s)
- 4.8s avg latency for successful tone detection
​
Why we deprecated
Maintaining the experience required heavy KTLO (Keep The Lights On) investment.
- Needed major updates to support video ingestion stack QoS changes
- Decision: Refocus resources on scaling Shop the Show for Prime Video and the Amazon Live FAST Channel
- Exploring alternative TV-to-phone sync technologies (no plans to reinvest in inaudible tones)
​
Alternatives considered
We explored replacing the feature with an account-auth companion experience (TV ↔ phone sync)
- Decided not to proceed — engagement didn’t justify investment (>300 MAU, $333/month OPS)
- Future revisit possible if ROI outlook improves
- A Q3/Q4 ROI review is planned to reassess potential investments
Using your voice to shop
Inaudible Tones
Through the use of Alexa’s voice feature, we wanted to bring the ability to ingress to Amazon Live’s Immersive Player experience.
Product Design
New Feature
0 to 1
Role
Leading Product Designer
Collaborators
Software Engineering
Product Management
Timeline
Design to Development: Dec 2022 - Mar 2023
Launch Date: Aug 2023
Deprecation (Sunset): Oct 2023
Overall impact
Launched Amazon’s first companion device experience to shop livestreams through use of Alexa’s Inaudible Tones
Design showcase
Ease your experience through sound.
To kickstart the concepts of shopping from your companion device, we’ve partnered up with Amazon Alexa team to help in ensuring that through livestream videos being played on your screen, the inaudible tones will help to pick up the correct video to be displayed on your mobile device.
Videos come with Inaudible Tones. Follow the instructions to access!
Tap the microphone icon on the home state to access this screen.
Or if you have the Inaudible Tones enabled, just type in “Shop the stream” to automatically detect!
Worried about privacy and doubting us? Feel free to disable.
(We’ll never hear you without your permission)
Results & Takeaways
Sigh. Didn’t work out, but a lot of learnings!
After launch, we learned valuable lessons—but ultimately decided to deprecate the Inaudible Tones feature in October 2023.
- “Show the Stream” in mShop no longer leads to Shop-the-Show
- The ALFTV tutorial and inaudible tone detection service have been removed
- Creator tone ingestion workflows and related FAQs have been deprecated
​
What we learned
Before launch, we debated potential customer backlash around embedding inaudible (high-frequency) tones in video content.
- Added disclaimer: “This video includes inaudible tones to support this experience.”
- Customers could turn tones off in settings
- No press or CS complaints, but data shows engagement with tone settings was higher than expected:
- 3.8% tapped tutorial to open Settings
- 2.6% turned tones off (vs. 0.05% target)
​
Customer impact
Impact expected to be minimal on existing Fire TV users
2024 Metrics:
- 294 avg monthly visits to second-screen experience
- 0.81% conversion rate from video → companion experience
- 3.4% conversion rate → purchase
- ~10 monthly sales, $333.29 Direct OPS, $33.32 avg price/unit
mShop Experience:
- 43% abandoned before success/failure screen
- Of those who continued: 66% success, 34% fail (retry after 15s)
- 4.8s avg latency for successful tone detection
​
Why we deprecated
Maintaining the experience required heavy KTLO (Keep The Lights On) investment.
- Needed major updates to support video ingestion stack QoS changes
- Decision: Refocus resources on scaling Shop the Show for Prime Video and the Amazon Live FAST Channel
- Exploring alternative TV-to-phone sync technologies (no plans to reinvest in inaudible tones)
​
Alternatives considered
We explored replacing the feature with an account-auth companion experience (TV ↔ phone sync)
- Decided not to proceed — engagement didn’t justify investment (>300 MAU, $333/month OPS)
- Future revisit possible if ROI outlook improves
- A Q3/Q4 ROI review is planned to reassess potential investments