If you have an Amazon Echo device lying around your house or office, you will now be able to utilize them for phone calls. They have created a partnership with AT&T so their customers will be able to link their phone numbers to their Alexa account. This way you can use your digital assistant and its voice commands to facilitate phone calls through the smart speakers, without having to bring out your smartphone if you don’t want to do so.
The Verge says Alexa calling feature has actually been around since 2017 but this time around, Amazon is working closely with AT&T to make it easier for their respective users. It should be able to let users use their Echo speakers just like they were using their AT&T numbers. In other countries, Amazon also has partnerships with some carriers in other countries like Vodafone OneNumber in the UK, Germany and EE in the UK.
To link your supported number, go to the Alexa app on your smartphone and the communication sub-menu under the settings. You’ll see the AT&T button there and so you just follow the instructions. After link has been finalized, you can now use voice commands to make phone calls. Either you say, “Alexa call my brother” or you can also say a specific number like your office’s number.
When you receive calls on your Echo speaker or display, you’ll also get caller ID. You can also use voice commands to answer or ignore the phone call. If you don’t want to be disturbed with phone calls, you can activate the Away Mode. You can also use the various routines you can create for Alexa, like accepting phone calls only during certain times of the day or snoozing it when it’s night time.
So far, it looks like the partnership is exclusive with AT&T so customers of other carriers will not be able to link their numbers to Alexa. If that changes in the future, we’ll be sure to let you know.
