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Alexa just gained a handy new music trick, but say goodbye to another longtime feature
Smart assistants like Amazon’s Alexa are great at telling you what your day will be like. It is also helpful as a music player, allowing you to listen to anything your ears desire. If you have an Echo with a display, music videos will accompany the tunes. Tap or click here to solve one of Alexa’s most annoying problems.
If you have more than one Alexa-enabled device, music will play on the gadget closest to where you initiated the request. But there is one thing that Alexa couldn’t do — follow you around.
That doesn’t have to be the case anymore, as Amazon has changed how Alexa works. Read on to find out how to use this handy new feature.
Here’s the backstory
Amazon sporadically updates its products with new features and firmware. For its October update, the company added a new feature to make listening to music more enjoyable. It also removed a feature that’s been around for a long time.
In terms of listening to music, Amazon has given Alexa the ability to follow you around the house. When you listen to music or podcasts on one device, you can ask the smart assistant to continue playing the content on another.
Ask Alexa to move music, podcasts, or radio stations to a different room. It also works with Echo Buds or Echo Auto. So when you leave your house, you can pick up exactly where you left off.
All you have to do is say, “Alexa, move my music here.” To move audio between groups, say, “Alexa, move my music to the kitchen.”
The same can be done between devices, but the process is slightly different. You must ask Alexa to pause the audio where you are, move to a different location, and then tell Alexa to “resume here.” Here’s how Amazon described the feature:
“Move your audio from one Echo device to another in your home. Just say, ‘Alexa, pause’ to the Echo device playing music, and say, ‘Alexa, resume music here’ or ‘Alexa, resume radio here’ to the device you’d like to resume listening on.”
Alexa feature removed
Alexa can read out loud any emails that you receive. For this, you have to link your email account to Alexa and she’ll update you on any correspondence.
Many didn’t know that the function was even there, which is why Amazon decided to pull the plug on it. It didn’t explicitly say that it is removing the feature due to a lack of interest, but Amazon hinted as much.
“We regularly evaluate the features and experiences available to customers and prioritize those that make customers’ lives easier and allow them to get the most out of their Alexa experience. As with everything we do, we will continue to evolve the experience based on customer feedback,” it said in a statement.
The change already happened, and if you have set it up for emails to be read, your email account will automatically be unlinked.
Keep reading
Pop quiz: Between Alexa, Siri, Cortana and the rest, what collects the most data?
Alexa isn’t the only thing to call your Echo – Here’s what all the other names do
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Tags: Amazon, Amazon Alexa, Amazon Echo, Amazon Echo Auto, Amazon Echo Buds, Apple Siri, Cortana, devices, emails, home, Music, music player, Podcasts, radio stations, Smart Assistant, smart assistants, videos
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