One of the things that people are looking forward to when it came to the Amazon Echo and the Echo Dot, which is powered by virtual assistant Alexa, is how other brands, apps, and partners will be able to incorporate skills (voice-driven capabilities) into the smart speaker and their respective products. AT&T is one of the first and also the first carrier that will let you send text messages to your contacts through Alexa using purely voice commands of course.
Starting November 18, AT&T subscribers will be able to use the Send Message skill on their Amazon Echo or Echo Dot. From the name itself, you could probably surmise that it lets you send text messages from your phone number to a predetermined list of contacts, and all you have to do is ask Alexa to do it for you. You can add up to 10 contacts, obviously those that you text most often, to the skill so you can let the cloud-based voice service do her magic.
Jeff Bradley, AT&T’s senior vice president for Device and Network Services Marketing said that becoming the first carrier to do this is part of their goal to bring simple solutions so their customers can stay in touch. Hopefully, this will spur other carriers to do the same, and even other developers as well to explore the skills feature of Amazon’s home speakers.
The AT&T Send Message skill will be available starting August 18. They’re also offering great deals that day for the Amazon Echo ($179) and the Echo Dot ($49) when you buy through att.com or their retail stores.
SOURCE: AT&T
Doesn’t work very well. Check the reviews before you put a ton of effort into linking your cellular account (which is a bit of a time consuming PITA). I’ve already disabled it because it doesn’t recognize most names in my contact list.
NOTE: Alexa/AT&T doesn’t like the name Mark.