From GeekWire:
Some early adopters of Amazon’s new Alexa voice-calling feature for the company’s Echo devices have been surprised to find that they can’t keep specific contacts from calling them when the feature is enabled, if those contacts have their phone number and have enabled Alexa voice-calling themselves.
“Among my contacts were old landlords, many co-workers, random vendor account managers, city councilmen, and of course, crazy ex-boyfriends,” said Alexa/Echo user Elise Oras in a Medium post, after an exchange with Amazon Support on Twitter about the issue. “And each one now has a direct line into my home.”
. . . .
Contacted by GeekWire about the issue, an Amazon spokesperson said, “If you enable Alexa calling and messaging and decide that you don’t want to use the feature, you can simply call Amazon customer service and they will disable it for you. We will introduce the ability to block callers in the coming weeks.”
Link to the rest at GeekWire
I’m among those who complained a few days ago. I have two Fire phones, but the updated Alexa app couldn’t be loaded on them. Seemed like a pretty big lapse of Amazon’s logic. I ended up buying an iPhone so I could get the app (I have two Echo Shows on order, so needed the app for them). My kid and I are using the new app to communicate via the Echos we already have. It’s a convenient, hands-free way to send messages. When you’re away from home, you can use the app on your phone to call or send messages to your Echos.
I also complained about the lack of privacy, like the problem mentioned here in PG’s post. Not just the Echo owner’s privacy, but everyone in that person’s contact list. You have to give the Echo access to all your contacts in order to use the app. Rather than having to opt contacts out, I think the app should be designed to let you opt-in the contacts you want the Echo to communicate with.
Another complaint: while it’s nice to have this new way to get calls and messages, there doesn’t seem to be a sleep setting so incoming communications won’t wake you. Maybe there *is* a way, but I haven’t figured it out yet.
When I was trying to get the app on my Fire phones, I talked to tech support and they were as in the dark as I was, even after my call was escalated to an “expert”. Seems like Amazon could have done a better roll-out.
The Fire Phone thing isn’t Alexa-specific. They stopped having any interest in supporting that device after they stopped making it. I had one for at least a couple years which I got after they stopped them and used it to listen to Audible books (not as a phone), and they always seemed to have more trouble with that than the Audible app on Android/iPhone. When they introduced Audible Channels, I couldn’t access it at all on my Fire Phone. Even a year after launch of that feature, still couldn’t get it. It seemed odd to me that they were more interested in supporting apps on third party devices than supporting features on their own devices for people loyal enough to the brand to buy them instead of the Android/iPhone options, but there you go. It seems that once Amazon stops making a device, they lose all interest in supporting it for anyone who may own it. One of those “good to know” things. Lesson learned, I guess.
I have no interest in trying this calling feature, but don’t you have to tell Alexa to answer, or does it actually just connect right away whether you want to take the call or not?
You have to tell Alexa to answer. I don’t know yet what happens to an unanswered call (will a message be left? I dunno). When you send a message to someone, you say “Alexa send a message.” She asks the name of the one receiving the message. You tell her, then she asks what your message is. You tell her, and the message is sent. At the other end, the top of the Echo lights up (green) and flashes till you ask Alexa to play your messages.
Those you contact via the Echo need to be on your contact list, and you have to be on their contact list.
“Surprise surprise surprise” in you know whose voice.
And Amazon saw it coming, they just wanted to be seen as ‘fixing’ the problem.
Yep. Because of it’s Always-On nature, the echo show is much more like a phone than other audio/video chat programs. I’m surprised Amazon didn’t see this coming.