Talk to phone numbers from your Echo speakers with a voice command, and here’s how it works

Alexa now lets you make free calls in Mexico from Echo speakers. With a voice command, users of Echo devices will be able to call mobile and landline numbers, and the recipient will see the call on their phone from the sender’s number.

The new functionality of Alexa and Echo speakers arriving in Mexico is different from Alexa for Alexa calls. be Calls to phone numbers from Echo speakers or the Alexa appThey pretend to be by phone because the Alexa app is tied to the user’s number, which is why the call is seen with their number, but in reality it’s made over the Internet, either via Wi-Fi or mobile data, for free and even to numbers in the US and Canada, according to Amazon. .

How to make free calls with Alexa in Mexico

Making free calls with Alexa in Mexico is very simple, you have to follow these steps:

• In the Alexa app, go to the section Communication (One)
• Select the contact icon in the upper right corner (2)
• Follow the on-screen instructions to link the mobile number to the account.

After making this link, it will only be necessary to ask Alexa, either in the app or on the Echo speaker, to call one of our contacts with the command “Alexa, call XXXXX” also “Alexa, dial XXXX-XXXX-XXX”. Again, it is important to emphasize that these are calls to phone numbers and not Alexa for Alexa calls which has been available in our country for a long time.

It’s important to keep some considerations for calls to Alexa phone numbers in Mexico. First, and very important, Our contacts don’t need an Echo device or Alexa app. When we make a call, contacts will see our number as if it was a normal phone call.

Calls are free It has nothing to do with any operator But it’s done online, with our number linked to the Alexa app. That way, the primary requirement is to have mobile internet, and that’s what allows calls to be made even to numbers in the US and Canada, according to Amazon.

Finally, free calls with Alexa on Echo devices 10 phone numbersUsers will be able to make up to 10 number exchanges directly in the Alexa app. If the user exhausts the changes, he will keep the numbers registered and will have to wait 365 days to make a change again.

This is how calls to phone numbers work with Alexa

At Xataka Mexico we had the opportunity to pre-test this new functionality for Amazon and Alexa, and We were surprised by his performance. After connecting my number, it was as simple as saying “Alexa, call Gonzalo Hernandez” and the call started almost immediately on my Echo Plus.

My partner Gonzalo confirmed that He received the call on his smartphone and my phone number as the sender. Overall, call quality was good, with the downsides being that my Echo is a bit far away, and at times it was a bit difficult to hear or hear me, mostly because of the device’s location. I did this first test with my smartphone in Airplane mode, just to confirm that it was not related to player issues.

In the second test, I made a call to My partner Martin Pacheco From the Alexa app on another smartphone. It didn’t work at first because Martin has Echo devices, so automatically a file Invite Alexa to Alexa. Corrects it to “Alexa, call by phone a Martín Pacheco”, then a call was made to the phone number. These details are important to set up when necessary.

On this second try, call quality was much better than the first, mostly because it was from the Alexa app with the smartphone in front of me, so the sound was much better.

Finally, it’s worth noting that calls to phone numbers are exclusively from Echo devices and the Alexa app, which I tried from one of them Sonos Beam Gen 2 bar, but it didn’t work, so even if a smart speaker integrated Amazon’s voice assistant, it wouldn’t work. The only details of Alexa free calls that we couldn’t verify was the ability to call mobile numbers or landlines abroad.