Once the Echo is fully powered up and in the orange configuration mode, pull out your smartphone and open up the Wi-Fi settings. If you miss this window and it starts complaining (and the ring turns purple), hold down the action button (the button opposite the mute button) for about five seconds until the ring turns orange again.
This indicates it’s ready to be configured. The indicator ring around the top will flash blue then switch to a rotating orange color (as shown above). Once you have the app downloaded, hold off on launching it right now. To help minimize Alexa belting out instructions at you, the first step (before you even unpack and plug the Echo in) is to grab the Amazon Alexa app for your phone or tablet ( iOS/ Android).
With the brief overview of the physical side of things out of the way, let’s take a look at how to set up your Echo. Other than the buttons, there’s also an audio-out port on all the latest Echo devices (next to the power port at the bottom) so that you can plug a more-powerful speaker into them. RELATED: How to Get the Most Out of Your Amazon Echo
On the Echo Plus (and the previous-generation Echos) there’s a volume ring around the edge, rather than volume buttons. In this guide, we’ll be setting up the regular Echo model, but setting any of them works pretty much the same.Īs far as physical manipulation goes, there are three things on the Echo you can mess with: the microphone button (which toggles the listening feature on and off), the action button (which, when tapped, summons Alexa without having to say anything), and the volume buttons. You can also get Echos that have screens on them, like the Echo Show and Echo Spot.īefore we set the Echo up and play around with it, though, let’s take a quick tour of the physical device and its buttons. There’s also the cheaper $50 Echo Dot on the lower end (which comes with laptop-quality sound in a smaller package), and on the higher end is the $150 Echo Plus, which has a built-in smarthome hub and a slightly better speaker than the $99 model. The main Echo is the $99 version which comes with a decent speaker for the price.
There are a handful of different Echo models that you can choose from. RELATED: Which Amazon Echo Should I Buy? Echo vs. Simply put, the Echo is a voice-controlled virtual assistant that lets you control smarthome devices, check the weather, play music, get news updates, and more. Let’s take a look at how to set it up and some useful things you can task your Echo with. So you just got an Amazon Echo, either from the recent sales or the holidays.