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Amazon’s new Alexa partnership lets you link your AT&T number to turn your Echo into a phone

Amazon’s new Alexa partnership lets you link your AT&T number to turn your Echo into a phone

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‘Alexa, answer the phone’

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Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Amazon is rolling out a new partnership with AT&T today that will let customers link their phone numbers to their Alexa account, allowing them to both make and receive phone calls via their Alexa devices.

It’s an expansion of Amazon’s existing Alexa calling feature, which the company debuted in 2017, that allowed Echo devices to call mobile numbers and landlines for free. The difference here is that Amazon is working much more closely with AT&T, giving customers the opportunity to use their Echo devices in the same way they’d use their regular AT&T phones.

Amazon has previously rolled out this feature overseas: Vodafone OneNumber customers in the UK and Germany and EE customers in the UK have already been able to take advantage of linking their mobile phone accounts. But today’s announcement marks the debut of the feature in the United States.

Linking your AT&T account to your Alexa devices is simple: just head over to the Alexa app on your phone, go to settings, select the communication sub-menu, hit the AT&T button, and then just follow the instructions. Once you’ve linked your account, you’ll be able to dial numbers through commands like “Alexa, call Mom” or by dictating the specific number. You’ll also receive incoming calls on your Alexa, complete with caller ID and voice commands like “Alexa, answer.”

Calls can also be snoozed by activating Amazon’s existing Away Mode. They can also be toggled on or off for specific times of the day using Alexa Routines — for example, you can set your Alexa device to only ring during daylight hours so that you aren’t woken up by telemarketers at 3AM.