How to Set Up and Get the Most From Your Echo Speaker

[Karlston]

How to Set Up and Get the Most From Your Echo Speaker

What does an Amazon Echo do, exactly? Here's all the tips and tricks you need to get going.

Photograph: Amazon

 

 

So you got yourself a brand new Echo. Ready to start yelling at your shiny new toy? We'll walk you through its setup, share the most useful Alexa Skills, and give you a look at its full range of capabilities. (It can do more than you might realize.)

 

This guide focuses on the 3rd-Generation Echo Dot, the tips and tricks below also mostly work for any Alexa-powered device (these are our favorite Echo and Alexa speakers). Let's get started.

 

Updated May 2020: We've refreshed the advice here to match the new menus in Amazon's Alexa app, and added a few new tips.

 

1. Set Up Your Echo

 

Plug your Echo Dot into the wall and it will begin glowing orange. That means it's ready to be paired with a device. If, at any point, it stops glowing orange, you can get back into setup mode by pressing and holding the Action button (that’s the one with a white dot in the middle) for five seconds.

 

Download the Alexa app for iOS, Android, Kindle Fire tablets, or whatever combination of those suits your personal set-up.

 

After you download the Alexa app, it will prompt you to turn on Bluetooth and choose your Echo from the choices. You can toggle Bluetooth in your phone's Settings menu. After pairing, the Alexa app will show you a quick introduction video.

 

2. Customize It

 

With that, your Amazon Echo Dot setup is complete! Just remember, start every question or command with "Alexa." You’re going to want to do some quick customization before you get going, though. Here's what we'd suggest adjusting:

• Change your default music service: Echo devices default to Amazon Music, which is a perfectly fine option and has a pretty robust offering of free tunes if you’re a Prime member. If you’ve committed to Spotify, Pandora, or iHeartRadio, though, you can make one of those your default music player instead by going to Settings > Music & Podcasts > Link New Service in the app.

• Integrate your calendar or email: Amazon doesn’t offer its own calendar service, but allows you to connect accounts from Apple, Google, Microsoft, or Outlook (which is also Microsoft). Do this! Life gets just that much easier when you can ask Alexa what appointments you have that day. Go to Settings > Calendar & Email and follow the instructions from there.

• Make a phone call: With a recent update, Alexa can make phone calls—sort of. Specifically, you can place calls to people in your phone’s contacts who also have Alexa devices, meaning your conversations will be Alexa-to-Alexa, which feels like it should be a palindrome but isn’t. You can find toggle this in Settings > Communication, and hook up Skype if you so desire.

• Create family profiles: Maybe you live in a household (or dorm room) where everyone has their own Amazon account. Don’t worry! Switching profiles should help avoid Alexa-based confusion. By adding accounts to your household, everyone can access their personal calendar, content library, flash briefing, and more. Go to Settings > Account Settings > Guest Connect and sign in. Presto! One big happy Echo family. To switch accounts—and this should not come as much surprise—say “Alexa, switch accounts.” And to prevent accidental (or intentional, if you live with a scallywag) purchases on the wrong account, go to Settings > Account Settings > Voice Purchasing and turn on Voice Code to establish a four-digit PIN for any acts of consumerism.

• Edit your history: As soon as you say “Alexa,” your Echo Dot starts listening and recording. In practice, that’s not so different from Google tracking what you type into Chrome, but it does feel a small dose creepier when it’s your voice on file. If you go to Settings > History* you can see what Alexa has clocked you saying, and delete them one by one. For a bulk cleansing, head here or go to Settings > Alexa Privacy. You can set how long you'd like Alexa to retain recordings, and delete what you wish. (Here's our guide to managing privacy on every voice service.)

• Adjust flash briefing: Alexa will play up-to-date news from most major news sources. You have literally thousands of options to choose from, which you can find in Settings > Flash Briefing > Add Content. Don’t go overboard unless you’ve got an hour to kill, and try to mix up coverage types to avoid redundancy.

• Connect to a speaker: Few of Amazon’s Echo speakers sound amazing, but The Dot, thanks to its diminutive size, has the weakest sound quality of the bunch. If you want the full Alexa experience, you’re in luck: The Echo Dot features audio out, meaning you’re just a 3.5mm audio cable away from making your home’s very best speaker a smart one. If you hate cables more than you do latency, it also supports Bluetooth.

3. Add Some Alexa Skills

 

Now that your Amazon Echo Dot setup is complete, let's have some fun. In addition to its native abilities, Alexa has more than 10,000 "skills," which is just a fancy way to say "voice-activated apps." Adding them is easy; just say “Alexa, enable Domino’s Pizza,” and your Echo Dot can help you summon up a piping hot side of spicy jalapeño-pineapple chicken chunks.

 

Amazon’s Skills store interface manages somehow to both over and underwhelm. If you find yourself thinking that you wish it did X, chances are there’s a skill for it—though you'll have to see if that skill works well. You'll find plenty of useful Echo apps as you go. Here, we rounded up some of our favorite ways to leverage Echo Apps.

 

Call a Car

 

Uber and Lyft both offer Alexa Skills, letting you request a ride without pulling out your phone. Lyft comes with the added benefit of telling you how much a given ride’ll cost.

 

Work Out

 

If you have trouble getting motivated to work out, it’s worth giving an exercise app like 7-Minute Workout a shot. It does what it says, guiding you through a short workout, letting you take breaks as needed. It’s just one routine, which can get monotonous. But hey, no pain no gain.

 

Check the Weather

 

One of our favorite weather apps is Big Sky, a hyperlocal service that lets you know what it’s like outside not just in your city, but on your block. You can also set up Alexa's daily Flash Briefing (see above) to tell you the weather.

 

Play a Game

 

There are tons of games you can play with the Amazon Echo Dot, from classics like 20 Questions to more obscure finds like The Magic Door. The Magic Door shows the compact smart speaker's potential for real depth. Saying too much might give away some of the fun, but suffice to say that it’s an interactive game that leads you on a magical adventure stuffed with riddles, gnomes, and a tropical monkey island.

 

Level Up Jeopardy

 

This … is … Jeopardy! Sort of. Updated every weekday, the official Jeopardy app tests you with the “sixth” clue in every category from that day’s show. You already shout the answers at the TV when you watch; now you can do it with the validation you crave.

 

Make Your Home Smarter

 

Got a smart home? Alexa supports Nest, Control4, SmartThings, Philips Hue lights, Lutron, Insteon, and pretty much any other hub or platform you can think of.

 

If you’re a smart home newbie, maybe start with a smart plug from Wemo or TP-Link. They are low-cost, low-stakes entry points that let you turn whatever’s plugged into them on and off with a yelp.

 

And that should do it! For a start, anyway. Amazon adds new Alexa Skills by the week, so keep an eye on its update emails in case something catches your eye. Otherwise, enjoy yelling at your new gadget, and having it actually talk back for a change.

 

 

Source: How to Set Up and Get the Most From Your Echo Speaker (Wired)