Echo gains room-to-room intercom feature

[Beetle-Snake]

Just tried the drop in feature but doesn't seem to be working in the UK yet. Hopefully as it's already on the app and can be enabled it soon will be and hopefully will roll out with calling also.

[AlanH]

As a side note, there's an update available to the iOS Alexa app with bug fixes.

[Laurel]

I wonder why the intercom feature won't work on Tap?  I see all others such as Echo and Dot have the drop in feature.

[malliekm]

^^^
What he said (again)

If GH doesn't hurry up with it's promises of things to come, I'm going to have to swing my preferred AI status back to Alexa.  The fact that reminders are yet to be enabled as well as GH's calling feature and Alexa's home run with the intercom feature, the pendulum is swinging!

[k9kids]

^^^
What he said (again)

If GH doesn't hurry up with it's promises of things to come, I'm going to have to swing my preferred AI status back to Alexa.  The fact that reminders are yet to be enabled as well as GH's calling feature and Alexa's home run with the intercom feature, the pendulum is swinging!

And you can bet Amazon knows that. Cheeky bastards!

Bollocks... I'm watching way too much British TV.

[mike27oct]

OK, I tried without renaming things (yet)  My Echo is named Mike's Echo by default, and called it from a Dot, and said, "Echo, call Mike's Echo" and the test trial happened.

[malliekm]

OK, I tried without renaming things (yet)  My Echo is named Mike's Echo by default, and called it from a Dot, and said, "Echo, call Mike's Echo" and the test trial happened.

...and?  Is there more to the story?

I set it up here earlier today and then went to mom and dad's to set theirs up for calling and messaging and intercom use.  They think this is all very "spooky"  but mom used it (unsolicited) a few times while I was there.  My granddaughter said she could hear an echo.  Turned out not to be an echo, rather our voices traveling thru out the open floor plan,  excuse me, CONCEPT, house with all hardwood floors!   Same thing here tonight with stone floors when I called the (carpeted) bedroom to tell my husband dinner was ready.  He said, "you know I can hear you without the Dot, right? LOL  Also, there is a lag.  Guess it's due to the slower satellite connection out here.

Then I used the calling feature from my house to my mother's house.  The lag time probably is a deal breaker.  There were times we were talking over each other.  There was some distortion too.  Another one of those things that work better if you're "in town".  I can see the novelty wearing off but nice to have in a pinch.  I guess GH will have the same latency issues

[mike27oct]

>>>  ...and?  Is there more to the story?

Nope, I thought it was enuff to say it worked out of the box, so to speak; no setting up required to test it out.  I will rename some, but not all, the Dots.  One Dot is a "room floater" and for travel, so I guess Floater is a good name for it.  This will be like naming pets.

[coyote]

OK, I tried without renaming things (yet)  My Echo is named Mike's Echo by default, and called it from a Dot, and said, "Echo, call Mike's Echo" and the test trial happened.

I renamed all my devices based on this. They all had "Echo Dot" in the name; now they are just "'living room", 'kitchen' etc. In my home it would only matter if the doors are closed, which is almost never. But it's works,man's the feature is nice to have.

[fstbusa]

I have all the features in my app but mine wouldn't work yet.  Alexa tells me to "drop-in" on another device the name has to be the room name and drop in has to be enabled blah blah blah...   Still doesn't work.. assuming the devices aren't updated yet to allow it to work.

[joshsimpson79]

I have all the features in my app but mine wouldn't work yet.  Alexa tells me to "drop-in" on another device the name has to be the room name and drop in has to be enabled blah blah blah...   Still doesn't work.. assuming the devices aren't updated yet to allow it to work.

Mine didn't work when I first tried it, but a few hours later last night and this morning, they did.  It's a very helpful feature, considering my wife can yell down at me to the basement from the bedroom or living room.  Wait, is that a good thing?  Haha.

[StevenR]

Just tried the drop in feature but doesn't seem to be working in the UK yet. Hopefully as it's already on the app and can be enabled it soon will be and hopefully will roll out with calling also.

Same here, I just get "I'm not quite sure how to help you with that" if I try anything like "Alexa, drop in on device name" or "Alexa, call device name". It's strange that the option to enable Drop In for a device is available here but not the ability to actually use it.

[Beetle-Snake]

Just tried the drop in feature but doesn't seem to be working in the UK yet. Hopefully as it's already on the app and can be enabled it soon will be and hopefully will roll out with calling also.

Same here, I just get "I'm not quite sure how to help you with that" if I try anything like "Alexa, drop in on device name" or "Alexa, call device name". It's strange that the option to enable Drop In for a device is available here but not the ability to actually use it.

agreed and I am sure us 'second class' citizens have whinged about this many times before but the Amazon policy of being as vague as possible with their non-US releases is getting a little frustrating - we either get a 'we dont know' or as with the named timers 'we have no timeline available", which seems ridiculous for such a simple piece of localisation, or slightly worryingly with the 'Show' they have been advising that its "designed for use in the US only" which I hope refers to the current software and not the hardware.

I know we cant get specific dates but a yes its coming and we expect it in weeks, months, end of summer etc would be helpful.

Call me cynical but Music Unlimited was alot quicker to localise than most things, and I doubt it was a simple piece of work, but then again maybe thats becuase it was an additional revenue stream so they were more incentivised to roll that one out.

[mike27oct]

All my Dots and Echo are now renamed by room except one which is the only white Dot, it is a floater, so it is named White Dot since it can be anywhere, including on a trip with us.  Only problem was (1st gen) Dot in Master Bedroom would not answer a call.  Solution: unplug and plug it back in.