The Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, and Echo show are now able to make phone calls to both mobile and landline numbers with Amazon Alexa. The AI behind Amazon’s collection of smart speakers will now make it easier than ever to get in contact with your friends and family.
Previously, communication through the Amazon Alexa supported devices required both parties to have some kind of Amazon Echo device. With this update, you will be able to talk to your friends and family using your smart speaker as a phone.
For users in North America (including the continental United States, Canada, and Mexico), these voice calls can be placed at absolutely no charge at all. However, it may be worth noting that if you were to use your Amazon smart speaker alone as a phone device, you will show up as an “unknown caller” to recipients on their caller ID. In other words, you cannot receive calls directly to your speaker as though it has its own number.
Although this may turn some people off to the idea, there is a simple and easy fix to it. You can link up your own mobile number so that you can use it hands free and revolutionize your experience! Then, you can place AND receive calls. In this case you can choose a number to show up with the device so that you show up on caller IDs of recipients as well!
With this announcement, Amazon will compete against Google Voice’s features, but this time addresses some of the key concerns (namely the unknown ID).
Amazon Alexa supported devices are certainly making a name for herself as a leading AI program. It’s the little features like this that allow AIs to become part of the household in this modern society.