In addition to the new Amazon Echo Show released today and discussed here , Amazon also updated the mobile apps to enable messaging and calling features between devices:
About Alexa-to-Alexa Calling and Messaging
Alexa-to-Alexa calling and messaging helps you keep in touch with friends and family who also have supported Echo devices or the Alexa app.
This free feature provides calling and messaging between supported Echo devices and the Alexa app on compatible iOS and Android phones.
This feature is available to Alexa customers in the United States. All you need to sign up is an Amazon account, the Alexa app, and a cell phone number.
Based on the FAQ on the page that @JDRoberts posted above, it sounds like it goes beyond one account…
Who can I call and message?
You can call or message any contact who also has the free Alexa App, an Echo, Echo Dot, or Echo Show and has enabled Alexa calling and messaging. Once you update the app, you can see which contacts have also enabled Alexa calling and messaging. Don’t see your friends or family in the app? Just send them a link to this page to help them get started.
account/app in my world it’s the same thing. Although I tried to put my wife’s name in her app and it seems to be failing -will try later but not sure if it’s because it’s logged into my amazon account.
I was hoping each device would get an ID/Name and I could just call a device. that would be much more useful than me calling an app someones phone.
Agree with @jjslegacy… Yes, you can call anybody with an app or a device, but the implied, unwritten part is about said app & device being used by a different account…
Akin to telephones of old: I may have 3 in my house, but they all have one number, and cannot dial each other.
Now if I have several echos in my house, and each is active/hooked-up/logged-in with a different account, I can see this working.
To allow device calling on the same account, they will have to allow, for lack of a better description, “device specific addressing”, regardless of the account it is using… I most certainly hope that this will be possible!
Even if it’s only account-to-account, it’s still a big deal. Think of the business application! Alexa’s mic array, sitting in the middle of a conference table…
well I have updated to the android app version 1.0.205.0-prod_82031410 dated april 5th.
in the description on Google Play it says that calling feature is available.
But I can’t see how to activate it. any ideas ?
[quote=“mrmrmrmr, post:14, topic:86948, full:true”]
well I have updated to the android app version 1.0.205.0-prod_82031410 dated april 5th.
in the description on Google Play it says that calling feature is available.
But I can’t see how to activate it. any ideas ?
[/quote]
The feature will only show up if you are on a device that has texting capability via SMS. That is, it has to have its own phone number.
If you open the Alexa app on device with its own phone number, then when you open it you will see the “conversations icon” at the top of the screen, which is a little person outline.
Also, you will see a speech bubble icon at the bottom of the screen where you can see recent conversations.
However, if you open the Alexa app on a device that doesn’t have its own phone number, such as a Wi-Fi only tablet, even though you are using the same Amazon sign in, it won’t show you the conversation options.
Which is sort of weird, given that you have access to the same echo devices, and the calling will work from the echo device, but only after you have set it up from a device that has a Phone number.
Unfortunately the Android implementation of the Alexa app looks nothing at all like the iOS one, so I don’t think your screen capture is going to apply (oh, and your phone needs charging ). I’m also on the latest version of the Android app on my Samsung S7 Edge, and while I see that the new “Do Not Disturb” entries have been added to the individual device settings, I can’t find anything about actually using the feature.
click on the hamburger menu. This will open the account details menu.
Two) you’ll see your name/user ID in the upper left and a tiny? Just to the right of the name.
If you click on the ?, You’ll go to help and one of the choices will be Alexa calling. From there you can click through a bunch of different topics.
You can read all of that, and, as you mentioned, access the do not disturb button, but that was all that I could do on my tablet that doesn’t have its own phone number.
I had to switch over to my mobile phone and use the app there in order to access the conversation setting and history screens.
Once I turned it on the mobile phone, it works fine on the echo devices, but I still never get the conversation options in the app on my tablet.
None of that maps to the Android app…but I was able to find the Alexa Calling/Messaging help topics, which describe enabling messaging/calling by “clicking on the Conversations icon on the home screen”. The problem is that there is no Conversations icon on the home screen nor anyplace else in the Android app, so I suspect either they’ve FUBARed the Android rollout or the help text is geared toward the iOS app and it was unintentionally included with the current Android app.
Can’t say, for sure, but as I mentioned I don’t have the conversation icons on the tablet, but I do on the phone. So there are obviously two versions of the app and only it knows how it decides who is “worthy.”
). I’m also on the latest version of the Android app on my Samsung S7 Edge, and while I see that the new “Do Not Disturb” entries have been added to the individual device settings, I can’t find anything about actually using the feature.