Amazon Echo Club

[DreamWriter]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Voice calling and messaging comes to all Amazon Echos and Echo Dots

Wow! Not sure if I'll use the feature, but that's awesome! The article states that capability will be added to the Alexa app, too!

[tubemonkey]

Alexa Calling & Messaging

Coming soon – Alexa calling and messaging

Use your Echo device to call or message anyone with a supported Echo device or the Alexa App—for free.

Hands-free calling

Making calls with Alexa is easy. Just ask Alexa to place a call.

Alexa will let you know when someone is calling, and a green light ring will appear on your supported Echo device. You can ask Alexa to answer or ignore the call.

With Echo Show, you’ll also be able to make video calls or use Drop In, a new feature for the special cases when you want to connect instantly with your closest family and friends.

Messaging made easy

In addition to calling, you can use Alexa to easily send and receive messages. Just ask to send a message, then tell Alexa what you’d like to say and she’ll send it.

You’ll hear a chime when you have a new message, and a green light ring will appear on you device. You’ll also be notified in the Alexa App so you can stay in touch wherever you are.

So basically it is an Echo with a very limited function screen. It does not appear to have a web browser, the screen does not appear to be usable as a tablet, it only functions for Amazon video, music, highly limited video calling, and a few other things. A swing and a miss!

"Alexa, play such and such song."
"I'm sorry, that song is not in your library. You can purchase it for..."

"Alexa, play such and such movie/TV show."
"I'm sorry, that movie/TV show is not available. You can purchase it for..."

"Alexa, call anyone who doesn't own another Show or supported Alexa device."
"I'm sorry, that is not allowed."

"Alexa, kiss by backside!"
"I'm sorry, I am not programmed to do that. Do you want me to check Jeff's schedule to see if he is available to do that?"

I think you have a lot more functionality in a Fire tablet or an iPad or iPhone. Major fail in my opinion.

One more thing, the calls only work with supported devices, as already mentioned, but the other caveat is that the person you are calling has to pre-approve your calls. Lame, really lame...

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I use her for weather, time, timers and alarms. I also use her for spelling which makes hubby mad. lol I use her sometimes to find a business and get their hours. I ask her what day a certain holiday is on. I seldom use her for music as she almost always gets it wrong.

Sent from my Nexus 7

Another thing I use Alexa for is recipe conversion. If I have a recipe in GasMarks, for example, it will happily convert that to Fahrenheit, or Celsius. And I use it to change a recipe size as well.

We use timers, shopping lists, and alarms routinely. And I use music from my Amazon Music account. I've even used it to listen to Audible books, though less often for that.

It's still pretty stupid. But it is getting better all the time.

[wodin]

I bought a pair of Nucleus video intercoms several months ago that purported to do much of what I've seen written about the Echo Show.

When I bought it it was very much in beta, and extremely unreliable. The units would go off line for no apparent reason and fail to wake up without a reboot, but the concept was valid.

The reason I bought them was to establish a convenient communications channel between my wife and our adult son who would be living in our mother-in-law apartment, but our tenant was delayed moving out so the requirement was pushed back by a few months.

Now that the tenant has finally moved out (almost), and a good amount of maturation time has elapsed for the Nucleus, I need to re-engage on getting this thing running.

[wodin]

On the other hand, maybe I'll just enable the calling feature on my Echos, and write off the Nucleus' as an also ran.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I' I have occasionally tried to ask for some random fact related to a TV show or baseball game I'm watching

The Yankees are almost never on in my tv market, so I find myself these days frequently checking the current scores in the highly competitive AL East. "Alexa, what's the Yankees' score?" "Alexa, what's the Orioles' score?" "Alexa, what's the Red Sox' score?"

Originally Posted by CRussel

. I've even used it to listen to Audible books, though less often for that.

It's still pretty stupid. But it is getting better all the time.

I listen to audiobooks through Alexa when I'm in bed, but I almost always stream it from a device. Navigation back if I fall asleep is much easier that way.

Yeah, OK Google is still a lot smarter.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by issybird

The Yankees are almost never on in my tv market, so I find myself these days frequently checking the current scores in the highly competitive AL East. "Alexa, what's the Yankees' score?" "Alexa, what's the Orioles' score?" "Alexa, what's the Red Sox' score?"

I listen to audiobooks through Alexa when I'm in bed, but I almost always stream it from a device. Navigation back if I fall asleep is much easier that way.

Yeah, OK Google is still a lot smarter.

When I want baseball scores, I use MLB's At Bat app on the Fire tablet. I never thought of asking Alexa for the score of a game in progress. Maybe I'll try that tonight while I'm watching the Mets game.

I just tried asking Alexa who's pitching for the Mets tonight, and all I got was the time of the game and the opponent. And that took two tries. It's annoying.

[DreamWriter]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Alexa Calling & Messaging

Thanks for posting that link, TM, as well as the one for Echo Show. The videos on those pages are helpful.

This morning I got an update to the Alexa app on my iPhone that allows it to make the phone calls messaging discussed with the Show device.

[DreamWriter]

Originally Posted by jswinden

This morning I got an update to the Alexa app on my iPhone that allows it to make the phone calls messaging discussed with the Show device.

I haven't received the Alexa app update on my Fire HD6 yet, but I'm sure it'll be coming soon.

Let me see how many contacts I have who own compatible Alexa devices and actually will give a damn about using them to make calls or send messages. Hmmm, imagine that, not a single contact, and that includes me. Nope, this is yet another feature I will never use. If I wanted to video conference with someone I would use Facetime. Yet in all the years I've owned iPhones/iPads, and with all the family and friends who own them too, none of them have ever suggested using it.

[wodin]

Well, I got the update this morning and enable calling.

It was on the app on my phone, but not on the website (yet). I haven't had a chance to try it yet as I don't have an Echo at work, but there didn't seem to be a setting on my individual devices, only the whole account so I think that a call to my account would just ring all of my Echos, and I can answer from whichever one I happen to be near.

The app itself seems to have undergone a major overhaul, and is even less intuitive (to me) than it was before; it does, however seem to be a little faster.

There is a cartoon balloon icon on the bottom that calls up the new calling feature, but I haven't been able to figure out how to activate the contacts list or the drop in feature. It says the contact list uses my phone's address list, but I don't know how it knows if a contact has an Echo, or if they do is the calling feature enabled.

I've been asking Jeff's folks about an intercom feature from the very beginning, and it appears that they have been diligently working on it. I hope it works out.

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Voice calling and messaging comes to all Amazon Echos and Echo Dots in the US

Fixed that for you