Top positive review
5 people found this helpful
Once installed and understood, you've got a great device. Need improvements, though.
By Bert in Chicago who is a happy and loyal Amazon Customer. :-) on Reviewed in the United States on September 15, 2019
The Amazon Connect is basically a device able to turn any of your Amazon Echo devices into: 1) Extensions to your home (VoIP or regular wired landline) phone and 2) Makes them into speaker phones. The installation is so easy, I thought it was hard. 1) You wire the Echo Connect to your phone system, as you would any hardwired phone. 2) You connect power to the Echo Connect. 3) You wait for the device to come online. This means you wait till all four (4) indicator lights come on a solid white. When someone calls you, the Amazon devices without a screen will announce the call (e.g. phone number or name). You can answer or decline the call. You can hang up, when done with the call. Special note: At the present time, Amazon doesn't give non-screen customers a way to access the phone keypad. Basically, you're using a phone before even the rotary dial phone! Sigh, Amazon gives one great step forward and two steps back, no wait, its three steps back. I should note I submitted a request Amazon should provide a voice keypad (or something) for non-screen Amazon devices. Non-screen can dial a number and they should be able to access a keypad in some manner, too. In the case of those devices with a screen, you'll hear and see the information. You can answer via voice or an onscreen icon. Unlike the non-screen versions, the screen versions gives you a keypad! The other area of improvement is the forced limitation of only one device per account. There are reasons I can think of for people to need three devices. 1) Home 2) Vacation Home 3) Cellphone (there are Bluetooth 2 wired phone line adapters) You need them in your home, your vacation home, and your cellphone. Cellphone? Yes, cellphone. When you come home, you should be able to: 1) Plug into charger (or set down for wireless charging) 2) Connect to a Bluetooth to Wired Phone line adapter (sold on Amazon) This way a person could soak in a tub, be out by the pool, with the children, etc., and should a cell phone call come in the person can get it wherever they are in the home without carrying it. ** Think of how many home accidents with a cellphone this might prevent. ** How many times you won't misplace the phone somewhere in the home. ** How easy it will be doing stuff without having to carry the phone with you. ** How easy it will be to find time to charge the phone verses now. ** You won't need to worry about having greasy, dirty, or otherwise messy hands while carrying or using the phone. ** and the list goes on as I'm sure each person has their own issue(s). Yes, you can do it with multiple Amazon accounts, but an Amazon Echo can't connect to more than one Amazon Account. There in lies the other issue. You will want multiple phone types / locations on one account and with multiple devices. Bottom line: 5 stars for it working and working well, today. This device needs some major improvements for the future, though. This review only presented two of these improvements / new features.
Top critical review
222 people found this helpful
My family saw Echo Connect as a nuisance and demanded I disconnect it ASAP
By kflaming on Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2018
My Echo Connect is return eligible through Mar 18, 2018. Right now I plan to return it. First, I believe Echo Connect was designed and supported by people who have no idea how a landline works in the US. Second, I believe the product manager has never used a home phone. The way this product supposedly (I never got this to work) looks up contacts in a list to announce INCOMING callers smells like a cell phone. That’s just not the way our home phones work. My Echo Connect is connected to an Obihai Obi200 with Google Voice providing free in/out-bound calling and Callcentric providing low cost Caller ID name/number (CNAM) and E911 services. This setup has performed beautifully since May, 2016. I selected the option for Echo Connect to use my home phone service and home phone number as Caller ID during setup. I verified Echo Connect is using my home phone service and number to make OUTBOUND calls. I have a first generation Echo, 4 second generation Echo Dots, and an Echo Spot. I purchased Echo Connect primarily to announce INCOMING callers rather than having to chase down a handset to look at the Caller ID. I thought, given I have working Caller ID on my home phone; Alexa would simply announce INCOMING callers from the provided Caller ID. Nope! Furthermore, Alexa won’t even announce callers from my mobile phone contact list Amazon got during setup. Alexa merely chimes incessantly “incoming call, incoming call, incoming call…” Echo Spot displays “Incoming Call”. Come on Amazon, even my 10 year old Uniden handsets correctly display Caller ID name/number (CNAM) for INCOMING calls. Alexa makes OUTBOUND calls from my cell phone contact list (correctly identified on my Echo Spot) so why can’t Alexa at least identify INCOMING callers that were uploaded from my cell phone contacts? Between 5 or 6 Uniden handsets ringing and 6 Echo devices barking out “incoming call, incoming call, incoming call…” Echo Connect creates quite a stir when the home phone rings. My family presently sees Echo Connect as a nuisance and wants it disconnected ASAP. What I would like is for Alexa to announce ONLY when she recognizes the caller from a contact list that I can input/edit on my Amazon Fire tablet or PC. Ideally, I would hear nothing for unrecognized calls. This is an Amazon device. I full well expected Amazon to have fully integrated Echo Connect with their ecosystem like Xfinity & Google, for example. I expected incoming Caller ID to be visually displayed on other Amazon products like my Amazon Echo Spot, three Amazon Fire tablets, and three Amazon Fire TVs. I expected Alexa to be able to look up and dial businesses. Nope! Neither. The Echo Connect video states I can make calls to anyone (businesses, mobile devices and more) using my voice. I thought this worked like the Google Assistant on my cell phone so I asked Alexa to call a local steakhouse. Alexa was able to provide the address and phone number but when I asked her to dial the “Texas Roadhouse”, Alexa stated “I couldn’t find that device or contact name”. I do not want to read in numbers Alexa already has or to first enter every business I might occasionally dial into my cell phone contact list. Pros: - Echo Connect uses a standard micro-USB power connection. - Very easy to set-up (knowing that it was going to go offline for about 5 minutes to update firmware) - Seems to recognize my cell phone contacts for OUTBOUND calls even with “+1” (I travel internationally) prefix. This may be my problem for Echo Connect recognizing INCOMING calls? Cons: - No Ethernet connection. - Echo Connect is huge. It’s 50% larger than an Echo Dot! and 4x to 5x as large as a 4-tuner HDHomeRun device. What’s in this thing? - Echo Connect is a home phone product but requires an activated cell phone to set up. - There is no way to edit uploaded cell phone contact list. Some business contacts I would never want to call from my home number cause confusion. One has the same first name as I and Alexa calls (butt dials?) him a lot. - Other than putting them into my cell phone contacts, there is no way to add contacts other members of my household might want to make or receive calls from. - I should be able to but cannot set-up/edit contacts on any Alexa app or PC. - No Caller ID announced from working home phone Caller ID name/number (CNAM). - No Caller ID announced from even my uploaded cell phone contact list Amazon uploaded during setup. - There’s an unreasonable time delay between picking up a call on a handset and when Alexa quits barking out “incoming call, incoming call, incoming call…” - Often my answering machine gets the incoming call before I can convince Alexa to answer. - There is no way to adjust the outgoing call volume so the person on the other end can hear me. - Echo Connect is not integrated with the rest of the Amazon ecosystem. Echo Connect does not display contact/Caller ID on other Amazon devices.
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