Amazon. com Help Get Started with Alexa

How to get started with Amazon Echo and Alexa

- Plus: what else you should do during your first day with Amazon Echo and Alexa

Your Amazon Echo has just arrived and you might have glanced at the quick-start guide in the box from Amazon, but beyond the basic setup, do you know the first things you should do with your new Echo?

Alexa is the virtual assistant inside Amazon Echo devices - for a briefing on how Alexa works, check out What can Alexa do?

We're about to run through our list of the top things to do to get started, but first check out this video for the basic steps including the initial set up with the Alexa app:

Set up Echo with the Alexa app or a web browser

As we mentioned, your Amazon Echo guide will tell you to download the Alexa app from iTunes or Google Play, but some people struggle to set-up Echo this way and we've had more success using the web-based browser interface.

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You can use this link to setup a new device, whether that's setting up your Echo in the first place or adding other devices such as the Tap and Echo Dot, or adding other services.

Although the Alexa app is great for general use, we'd highly recommend using the browser interface for the initial setup and if you've got any problems with connecting your Amazon Echo to a BT Home Hub. It also makes the other things we're going to cover in a minute a breeze too.

Set a default music service on Amazon Echo

With a speaker built into the Echo, it makes for a good Bluetooth speaker alternative. Out of the box, your Amazon Echo will have access to your Amazon music library, i. e., anything you've purchased from Amazon and, if you have a subscription, Amazon Prime music.

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If you don't have an Amazon Prime subscription, no need to worry because there's also TuneIn radio, which is free, and the ability to connect with Spotify.

Spotify too requires a subscription, but if that's your usual music provider then setting it up as a service is easy through the interface. Just go to settings > music and media and click to authorise Spotify. This is one area people have had difficulty with when using the mobile app, especially on Android, so if you're having problems, using the browser might fix it.

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It's also worth noting that your Amazon Echo will read books to you by simple commands "Alexa, read my book" for Audible playback or "Alexa, read my Kindle book" for reading your Kindle library.

Fine-tune your Amazon Echo flash briefing

"Alexa, play my flash briefing" or "Alexa, what's new?" will start your Amazon Echo reciting news updates. By default, your Amazon Echo is set to use Sky News and while there's nothing wrong with that, you may choose to get your news from a different source.

Under settings > flash briefing you can pick from a range of different news services including BBC World Service, The Guardian, The Telegraph and more.

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Sync Alexa with your Google, iCloud or Outlook Calendar

Your Amazon Echo is pretty handy at helping you keep on top of your to-do list, but it's also able to help you manage your day-to-day activities. By connecting to your Google, iCloud or Outlook calendars you can get Alexa to check what's happening today or at a specific hour on a day in the future.

To do this simply go to settings > calendar in the browser interface. You'll need to authorise access to your calendar, but otherwise setup is easy.

Download more Alexa skills

Alexa is pretty smart and there's a lot of things she can help out with, but you can further improve the usefulness of your Amazon Echo by adding relevant skills.

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Skills are essentially plugins that allow you to do a variety of things such as ordering your last meal from Just eat or listening to UK radio. Just pop into the skills section and search for anything that fit your needs.

You can find some ideas of other skills that are fun to try in our Amazon Echo tips and tricks article. You can even do things like connecting your Fitbit to see how well you slept last night or how many steps you've taken throughout the day.

Connect Alexa to smart home devices

It might seem obvious, but Alexa is compatible with a range of different smarthome devices, giving you the power to control everything from your heating to your lighting if you have suitable technology in your home.

Activate and connect the relevant Smart Home skills in the interface to get started. Alexa gives you the power to control all sorts of things like full control of your Philips Hue lighting, adjusting the heating on your Nest Thermostat or even controlling your television with the Logitech Harmony controls.

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Change your Echo wake word

This one isn't necessarily essential, but you might find it handy especially if you have someone called "Alex" living in your house.

Under the device settings you can choose to change the wake word to something else, though the choice is pretty limited. Alas, there's no option for "Hal", but you can get your mini sci-fi nerdgasm by changing it to "computer", imagine you're Jean Luc Picard and order yourself a cup of hot Earl Grey tea (presuming you have a connected smart tea maker). Other wake words include "Alexa", "Echo" or "Amazon".

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Adjust media and alarm volumes

If you're struggling to hear Alexa or if music playback is too loud then you can press the buttons on the top of the Echo Dot or twist the dial on the larger Echo to adjust to your preference. Alternatively "Alexa, turn it up", "Alexa, reduce the volume" or other similar commands will quickly and easily change the media volume too.

Voice commands also change the volume on a number basis with 10 being the loudest. We'd highly recommend setting an alarm volume you're confident will be loud enough to wake you up if that's what you intend to use it for. Just be aware that media and alarm volumes are currently connected and cannot be adjusted separately.

Restrict Alexa voice purchasing from Amazon

A post shared by Cam Bunton (@cambunton) on Nov 2, 2016 at 8:45am PDT

By default, Amazon Echo devices are all set up to allow easy purchasing of products directly from Amazon. As if it's not dangerous enough being able to get a pizza delivered to your door by just using your voice, you can easily have a range of far more expensive products ordered with just a few mutterings.

To prevent family members breaking your bank account or accidentally ordering unwanted goods you can follow our guide to restricting voice purchasing using a pin.

Random and fun things to try with Amazon Echo and Alexa

Now you've setup all the important things, why not try out something daft and get Alexa to entertain you? Check out How to be entertained with Amazon Alexa

Expand the experience

If you like it in one room, you'll want Amazon Echo in other rooms. Buying the Echo speaker over and over again could get expensive, but you could opt for an Amazon Echo Dot. The dot is the smaller, and cheaper version of the Amazon Echo that while coming with a small built-in speaker, doesn't come with large tube speaker that the Echo sports. You can though plug it into a speaker you already own either via a 3.5mm jack or via Bluetooth.

Multi-room music playback

The Amazon Echo lineup has recently been updated with the ability to support multi-room audio, which is a great addition to Alexa's skillset and means you can now listen to your favourite tunes throughout the house.

If you're lucky enough to have purchased or been given several Amazon Echos then check out our guide on how to set up and play music on multiple Amazon Echo devices.

This sort of update from Amazon shows how Echo is improving all the time and adding new skills and talents to Alexa's abilities. It's worth regularly checking to see what's new and what you can take advantage of to improve your life with your Amazon Echo.

Get Started with AVS

Developers use the Alexa Voice Service (AVS) to integrate Alexa directly into their products. Your team chooses hardware and designs the experience, AVS provides the automatic speech recognition, natural language understanding, and text-to-speech engines.

To start, create a product profile and prototype with our AVS Device SDK sample app. Then follow our documentation to design your ideal customer experience and select the right software and hardware development tools for your use case.

Prefer a turn-key solution? Amazon also works with System Integrators and Original Design Manufacturers to enable an accelerated path to market.

Get on our radar

Learn about feature updates, international expansion, release notes, and helpful tutorials.

Prototype with the AVS Device SDK

See AVS in action with a quick prototype. Use it to define your customer use cases, desired features, and hardware requirements.

Don't have access to a Pi? We have quick start guides for Ubuntu Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Choose a hardware development kit

Kick off development of a commercial device with a reference solution for AVS. These audio front end (AFE) and single-chip-solution development kits were built with voice in mind, reducing cost and accelerating the integration process. Select the kit that matches the number of mics, mic arrangement, and audio algorithms your product needs.

Build with the AVS Device SDK

The Device SDK provides the software interface for your device through C++-based libraries that leverage the AVS APIs. It is modular and abstracted, providing components that expose our APIs, which you can use and customize.

To integrate Alexa into your device, get the SDK.

Not using the SDK, or want to learn how our service-level APIs work? Read the docs to understand authorization, capabilities, and interfaces.

Follow the AVS guidelines

UX design guidance

Alexa UX goes beyond voice, touch, and on-device buttons. From product design and branding to packaging and the companion app – your product's voice and visual experience should be familiar and natural for customers.

Read the UX requirements and recommendations Overview.

Functional requirements

Avoid issues as you build and prepare for testing. Get to know our functional requirements and download self-testing checklists to validate your integration.

Building for commercial release? Read the requirements.

Marketing guidance

Teach your customers about Alexa through promotional materials and advertising. We cover requirements for press releases, packaging, retail fixtures, websites, crowdfunding sites, Amazon product detail page content, and videos.

Develop your strategy with our Marketing and Branding Guidelines.

Manage your product

Integrate new features

Alexa lives in the cloud and is always getting smarter. With regular feature updates and product requirements that enhance the Alexa experience for your customers, our tech docs are your resource.

Refer to the AVSDocumentation Changelog Check for API updates inWhat's New

Reach your customers

Once your product is released, track customer engagement in the AVS developer console. Learn to leverage Amazon. com and Amazon Marketing Services to increase exposure.

Monitor engagement in the AVSAnalytics Dashboard Promote your product with AVSMarketing Opportunities

If you have any questions, comments, or encounter issues, please leverage the AVS Knowledge Base and Forum. We actively monitor and respond to developer feedback and concerns.

Smart Home Products (SHP)

How To Get Started with Amazon Alexa and Amazon Echo

In Smart Home Ideas, Uncategorizedby Nathaniel September 29, 2018

If you have just purchased an Alexa enabled device, then you should already know by now that you have one of the best voice assistants in the world under your control. However, if you are a first time user, then chances are that you may experience some challenges when operating the device. There are a plethora of activities that Amazon Alexa is able to perform. Apart from allowing users to smart control their homes, Amazon Alexa also allows users to shop for various items at the comfort of their homes. Amazon Alexa also allows users to listen to their favourite music without having to move or use a remote control.

Amazon Alexa enabled devices including Amazon Echo have all been designed in a simple and straightforward manner. The user will issue out a series of commands or question and then Amazon Echo will execute those commands or provide answers for the specific questions. However, for Amazon Echo to execute these commands, the respective devices must be correctly configured and connected to a working network. When shopping for new smart devices, always opt for smart devices that are compatible with Amazon Alexa, so that you can control them using your Amazon Echo device.

What Can Amazon ALEXA and ECHO Do For You?

According to recent statistics, the popularity of Amazon Echo speakers has continued to rise, thanks to the increase in demand for smart devices and the outstanding performance of the Amazon Echo. This, in turn, has caused more and more people to jump onto the trend, as they try to establish what the fuss is all about. For any smart device, their beauty lies within the first week, when users will be trying them out and be amazed at the number of things that they can do. Nonetheless, I have rounded up a number of things that Alexa or Echo enabled devices will be able to do.

Retrieve specific news report Make calls Play games Play specific radio stations Get answers for certain questions on the web Play music Set alarms and timers Stream music from the internet Control smart devices

Getting Started with Amazon ECHO

Download Alexa Application

What I really loved about the Amazon Echo device apart from being easy to use, is the easy, straightforward and seamless setup process. Setting up your Amazon Echo device is extremely easy and will not take you more than 10 minutes. You will first have to download the Amazon Alexa application from App store or Play Store; it all depends on the type of device that you are using. The Amazon Alexa application is free of charge. However, before you can download the application directly into your Andro />

While testing out the device, I began by opening the App Store on my Samsung Galaxy and then searched for the Alexa application. I downloaded and installed the application onto my Samsung Galaxy.

Alternatively, if you do not plan on installing the application on your mobile device, then you can always download the application on your personal computer. However, instead of the Application store, you should visit the Amazon Alexa Website and then install the application directly on your personal computer.

Plugging and Powering the device

The great thing about the Amazon Echo device is that it does not rely on batteries. Therefore all the user has to do is to plug in the device into a power source. You will first connect the power adapter to your Amazon Echo and then plug the adapter into a nearby power outlet. Once correctly connected, the power ring will turn blue. Upon turning blue, you will have to wait for the ring to turn orange. By turning orange, the device will now be ready to great you. You will then hear Alexa’s voice informing you that your device is now ready.

Connecting Your Amazon Echo Device to a Network

After connecting your device directly to a power source, the next step would be to connect the device to a home network. What I realised is that the Echo device offer comes with a step by step guide on how to connect the device to WiFi.

Nonetheless, if you get stuck while connecting the device to your Home Network, then you can always open up the Amazon Alexa application and then search through all the listed networks. For users who own multiple Alexa enabled devices, always ensure that upon accessing the menu, be sure to select the right device.

Moreover, what I learned is that users have the ability to choose whether to save their WiFi passwords to Amazon or not. By saving your Wifi password on Amazon, setting up new Alexa devices will be quite easy. Alternatively, you can always opt to connect your Echo device to a public network. However, if you decide to connect your Echo device to a public network then your password will not be saved on Amazon.

Talking to Alexa

Once Amazon Echo device has successfully connected to your home network, it is now time to begin using the device. Start by saying the command “wake”, which is default to all Alexa enabled devices. However, in cases where there might be other Alexa devices in your home, then you should change the default wake word. While testing out Amazon Echo, I realised that changing certain commands is extremely easy. In this case, to change the wake word, you should simply use this command “Alexa-change-the-wake-word”.

Alternatively, you can also change commands manually by opening the application and then tapping help. After tapping help, you should then select the command that you want to change. At the moment users can be able to change Amazon Echo to respond to phrases with the words Amazon, Echo or Computer. This, in turn, means, that you can only customise Amazon Echo to respond to these three words. Nonetheless, I am still hopeful that Amazon will allow users to fully customise different phrases, and include words that are not among the three.

Selecting a Default Music Service

Thanks to the inbuilt speakers, the Amazon Echo is a really great alternative to Bluetooth speakers. The Amazon Echo has access to all the music that you have purchased from Amazon using your account. Alternatively, if you have an Amazon Prime music subscription, you can also use the device to stream music.

In case you are yet to subscribe to Amazon Prime music, then you do not have to worry. There is a tone of applications that you can use to stream music directly into your device including TuneIn radio, which happens to be free of charge. Thankfully, Amazon Echo also gives you direct access to Spotify.

It is important to note that just like Amazon Prime Music, Spotify also requires an active subscription. If Spotify is your usual music subscriber, then all you will have to do is to activate Spotify as a service on your Alexa application. Setting up Spotify as a service on your Alexa application is extremely easy.

I began by accessing the settings menu options on the application and then selecting the option Music and Media. I then clicked on the authorise Spotify option. While using the Alexa application, this is normally one of the major areas I noticed many people normally have a problem. Therefore, if you face any challenges, always use the browser which will immediately fix the issue. Moreover, it is also important to point out that your Amazon Echo device will read books to you as well by issuing out commands such as, “Alexa-read-my-book”.

Downloading More Skills

It goes without saying that Alexa’s skills and abilities cannot be matched. What I came to discover while using the device is that you can always improve Alexa’s usefulness by adding more skills. When it comes to Alexa, skills are essentially plugins which will give you the ability to do a number of things like listening to the radio and even ordering your next meal. You can always search for useful skills online and then add them to your application.

Syncing Alexa with your iCloud, Outlook or Google Calendar

The Amazon Echo device can prove to be very handy when it comes to keeping users on top of their to-do lists. Moreover, it is also important to point out that your Amazon Echo device will also come in handy when it comes to managing your day to day activities.

By allowing Alexa to access your Google, Outlook or iCloud calendar, you will be able to receive important notifications with regards to your current activities, or those happening at a future date. Syncing up your calendar is an easy and straightforward process.

Begin by first going to settings and then selecting calendar. You will have to authorise Alexa to access your Outlook or Google profile, calendar and contacts as well. It is important to point out that the Amazon Alexa application will access only one Google, Outlook or iCloud account.

This, in turn, means that you will not have access to multiple Google accounts but rather one Google, one Outlook and one iCloud account, which is still pretty amazing. Moreover, out of the three, you can always select which account you want to use as a default account. To do this, click on the Alexa application settings menu options and then select the account that you want to set as your default account.

Get 3rd Generation Alexa over here on Amazon! The Price is pocket friendly so no worries.

Thank you for taking time to read this article. It means a lot to us.

How to get started with an Amazon Echo and Alexa

Don’t have your own personal assistant? Why not get a digital one? We explain how to set up and use the popular smart speaker.

Smart speakers may be designed primarily for homes but they have voice-activated digital assistants that can help you manage your professional life, including your schedule, to-do list, contacts and more. Want to order an Uber? Just tell your digital assistant to order one – and, of course, it will play your favourite music while you work.

Prices start at just $79 and there’s plenty to choose from: Google Home and Home Mini, Apple HomePod, Sonos One and Amazon’s range are all available in Australia.

Here we’ll explain how to get set up an Amazon Echo Dot, Echo or Echo Plus, troubleshoot Wi-Fi and other problems, and get started with the speakers’ digital assistant, Alexa.

Australian Skills

The key thing to know about Alexa is that it can be ‘taught’ to work the way you want with ‘Skills’.

Alexa comes with a host of built-in Skills but third-party developers can add to them too. The platform is still relatively new here, but already more than 10,000 Skills are currently available in Australia, according to Amazon.

Australian organisations supporting the platform include AGL, Airtasker, Amaysim, Dominos, EnergyAustralia, Hipages, NAB, Qantas, REA Group, Seek, Telstra, Transport for NSW, Village Roadshow, Westpac and various media outlets.

Using these organisations’ Skills, you will (sooner or later) be able to ask Alexa to give you your bank account balance, provide travel information, read the latest news, help manage your energy consumption, search for suitable jobs, order a pizza and more.

And if you’re interested in developing your own Skills for your customers, you can do so via the Alexa Skills Kit. In the US, Amazon has also released Alexa for Business, which enables employees to easily perform tasks such as booking conference rooms, order new supplies and report IT problems, and allows organisations to create their own Skills for better productivity.

We’ll get into how to use Skills later, but first let’s get you started with the device itself.

How to set up an Amazon Echo, Echo Plus or Dot

1. Plug in your Echo using its power cable. The ring light will turn blue and start spinning to let you know it’s turned on. In around a minute, this blue light will turn orange, to signal the speaker is in setup mode and Alexa will welcome you to the Amazon Echo. If the orange light doesn’t appear, go to step 4.

2. Download the Amazon Alexa App from iOS or Android. You can also access the app from a browser.

3. The setup process should start automatically and you’ll be prompted to sign in with your Amazon account email and password.

4. If the setup doesn’t start automatically, or the orange light doesn’t appear when you first switch on your Amazon Echo, go to Settings and select Set up a new device.

5. Select your language and choose which device you are trying to set up from the list. This includes Amazon Echo, Amazon Echo Dot and Amazon Echo Plus.

6. The next step involves connecting the app to your Echo, and connecting your Echo to your Wi-Fi network. On the Begin Echo setup screen click Connect to Wi-Fi. The orange ring should now appear on your device. If the orange light still doesn’t appear, go to step 11.

7. Close the app, open Settings and go to Wi-Fi. If the phone has recognised your Amazon Echo device you will see a Wi-Fi network with a name that starts: Amazon-XXX. It can take up to a minute to appear in the list.

8. Selecting this Wi-Fi network will drop your phone from your main Wi-Fi network and connect it directly to the Amazon Echo.

9. Once connected, you will be prompted to connect the Echo to your main Wi-Fi network. Enter your Wi-Fi password when asked and Echo will join the network.

10. From this point on, any Echo device on the same network can communicate with each other and with the Amazon Alexa app.

11. Orange light still not appearing? Press and hold the Action button for five seconds and go back to step 7.

You will need to repeat this process for every Amazon Echo and Echo Dot you connect to your network.

For more specific setup instructions for your Amazon Echo model, click the links below:

Next: How to use your Echo, troubleshoot problems and get started with Alexa Skills