Does it work outside USA?

[Boris]

I know that Echo is only sold in the US. I  live in Venezuela. I was given an Echo as a fathers day gift. Is there a workaround to download the app? Anyone help?

[migmog]

Mine has no trouble working with the website echo.amazon.com
I have not used the app.

[chrisfuccione]

You could open an US Itunes account with a US email address.

[Talisman]

ITunes huh?

[dmuzik]

I live in Austria and just set up my Alexa. Here are some things we noticed:
1.) weather and timezone is based on zip code. It defaulted for us to NYC. We do as others on this forum have suggested and just append "in Vienna, Austria" to our requests. I also sent a suggestion to Amazon to add a global field of options.
2.) I have a US Amazon account and my husband has an Austrian one. We could not set-up profile switching until we changed his country to the US. This took some searching on the Amazon account settings, as it's not in the normal account profile location --> it was under the settings menu in "manage content and devices."
3.) We have a US VPN and a standard local network. The Echo works fine on both, and the location settings don't seem to change.

In part, we got the Echo to generate some enthusiasm with our German-speaking kids about speaking English. They haven't given it a try yet, but I do think it would be interesting if the language settings could be switched.

[xyzwhatever]

Once the echo and the app will be released in Europe, do you think its possible to convert the US version (that I would buy on ebay), by changing the firmware or whatever....?
I can live with those drawbacks for a couple of months, but it would really suck if it then is not compatible to the european app or something.

[jwlv]

It's hard to say what Amazon will do. But from a software engineering point of view, it's much easier to create a universal version and have it localize based on the user's region. That way, they won't have to make separate versions of the firmware and app.

[mike27oct]

>>>>>    I usually listen to the radio, and I can bluetooth my favourite music from my phone. Shame it doesn't stream using DLNA as that's what all my other gizmos can do.
--------------------
You can use DLNA -- indirectly by using a DLNA-capable app on a phone or tablet, access your music source and Bluetooth it to the Echo.  My favorite way to do this is to use the free Avia app on my Android tablet and access my NAS where all 17,000 music tracks are stored, select one of the many playlists I have, and send audio to Echo via Bluetooth.  Easy!

[migmog]

Hey Mike - thanks for the DNLA tip.
However, I can already DNLA music to my hifi using a Roku soundbridge and of course this goes through a proper amp + speakers, so it has much better audio quality than the Echo. It's only the voice control aspect that I'm interested in for sending it to the echo, and I don't think your solution offers that. Ideally I would like a way to have the Echo output sound to the hifi so we can listen to music with better quality and still retain the voice control. I suspect we may be waiting a long time for this, though :-(

[mike27oct]

Unfortunately, Amazon left a basic headphone jack off of the Echo; I might add that many quality table radios have this handy and inexpensive feature.  In that way you could have piped the audio into the stereo. Like you, I also can access DLNA devices on apps and connected to my stereo to play music, video, etc.  The last thing I would want to send to the stereo is the Echo's output. What is nice is the Echo can play TuneIn stations without needing a gadget like a Roku and TV; the Echo is a self-contained system. 

I find my Echo to be a nice and handy state of the art internet clock radio and weather/news reporter. I feel that out of the box, it came with bare minimum apps/channels very unlike, say, a Roku.  Since one of my most-used internet radio apps (other than TuneIn) is Slacker (app like Pandora), but I cannot call up Slacker like I can Pandora, so I have to resort to BT-beaming Slacker from mobile device to Echo.  The Echo needs a lot more channels than it has.  I hope they will be coming along soon.

[roadbug]

I tried a new one today to try and get at least the time correct for my location.  Since the app will only let you input a 5 digit ZIP code I thought what would happen if I used an APO/FPO code?  It is 5 digit and they are scattered around the world so maybe I could put one in that was close to me.  Unfortunately Alexa does not recognize those ZIP codes as valid.  Oh well, back to the drawing board!

[Quentin]

Hi,

I made a small tutorial on how to download the alexa app when you are not from the USA.
Let me know if I can help!

Quentin

[jwlv]

That's great! I'm sure this will help a lot of people who are not in the US.

Hi,

I made a small tutorial on how to download the alexa app when you are not from the USA.
Let me know if I can help!

Quentin

[BDN13]

I bought one last week in the US and took it home to the Netherlands. Radio works fine, as do the jokes  and other questions you can ask Alexa.
Weather for Amsterdam (close enough to my home to be meaningful) works fine, but other music is a no-go. Can't use Amazon Digital Music and so far I have not found a way to have it access my local NAS with my music library.
Still, it is good fun and a good radio. Hopefully Amazon will soon allow music streaming in more countries (probably a rights and license issue).
Still figuring out what other use cases I could apply, switching on lights doesn't seem very useful!
I do most f my strong audio via 2 Bluesound devices - great sound - but lousy interface. I'll suggest to them that they open up an API so we can use Alexa to control those by voice, that would be neat

[mike27oct]

>>>  Can't use Amazon Digital Music and so far I have not found a way to have it
access my local NAS with my music library.

True, but my computer can access the Echo via Bluetooth, and play from my NAS to Echo; even playlists.  A small BT transmitter on an iPod can stream playlists to Echo forever!

Sound on Echo is mono "table-radio" quality, but streamed music sounds better than say, TuneIn streaming on it.