How to make phone calls with Alexa and an Amazon Echo

make phone calls with Alexa and an Amazon Echo

Alexa is today the most advanced virtual assistant. Its success is due both to its compatibility with a multitude of home automation devices and to the naturalness with which its artificial intelligence understands our words and learns by leaps and bounds. Alexa allows you to do many things, and one of them is to make phone calls. Calling from Echo to Echo is possible with the Drop In functionality and these calls can also be received by anyone who has the Alexa app installed on their mobile phone. However, there is also the possibility to directly call a phone number through Alexa and receive calls from your mobile directly on the Echo . If you are interested in this function, stay and we will explain it to you point by point.

Alexa can make mobile to mobile calls, although only with Vodafone at the moment

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Not many years ago, we saw in series like Mr. Robot that the FBI agent used an Alexa assistant at home and it seemed somewhat dystopian to us. Currently, the assistant has become one more device in our house. And, in fact, many of the people who use one of these assistants at home today are not computer experts at all. Alexa has managed to establish itself even in homes where older people live, being a very useful tool to call relatives or even to control some devices remotely.

If you have an Amazon Echo at home and you use it a lot, you may be aware of Drop In , the functionality with which the device can communicate both with another Echo that you have at home and with the Echo of your friends and family. Drop In is still a VoIP service like many others, and allows video calls between users who have the Amazon Echo Show.

Drop In works like a charm, but it has a small defect, and that is that we will not be able to call those users who are not Alexa users. For a contact to receive a call, they must have one of these devices at home or the Alexa app installed on their mobile phone. This limitation can be avoided, although only if we have our telephone line contracted with Vodafone .

In 2020, Vodafone launched its OneNumber service in the UK, which allows you to unify a phone number with Amazon Echo calls . Almost a year later, this service landed in Spain, and activating it is really interesting if you are in this company.

What is Vodafone OneNumber?

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Vodafone OneNumber will allow you to turn your Amazon Echo into an extension of your mobile phone . You can answer calls or initiate them directly from the voice assistant.

Once configured, your Echo will become a kind of switchboard. It will not matter if the mobile phone is lost, turned off or without battery . Your Echo will be able to replace it without problems.

What requirements must be met to activate Vodafone OneNumber?

So far, this Alexa feature is only available to Vodafone customers . Therefore, the first requirement is that our mobile phone is in this company. It works for both private clients and micro -enterprises. In both cases, this feature is reserved for contract customers.

On the other hand, customers who want to access OneNumber will need to have a My Vodafone account linked to the phone number they are going to use.

Finally, it is also necessary to have the Alexa app installed on the mobile phone to be able to link both accounts. For this, it will be necessary to have both a OneNumber-compatible Echo and an Amazon account, although if you use Alexa on a daily basis, this last requirement is obvious that you meet it.

How to Activate OneNumber for Amazon Echo

To activate the service, follow these steps:

  1. Open your Alexa app on your iPhone or Android device.
  2. Go to the ‘ More ‘ button in the bottom right corner.
  3. Enter the ‘ Settings ‘ option.
  4. Swipe to the ‘ Alexa Preferences ‘ section and enter the ‘ Communication ‘ option.
  5. Within the ‘Accounts’ section, press the ‘ + ‘ button located next to ‘ Vodafone ‘.
  6. Click ‘ Link account ‘. A browser will open in which you will be asked to log in with your Vodafone user.
  7. Follow the steps, accept the contract and that’s it.

You must bear in mind that activating this service is not free. Vodafone OneNumber costs 1 euro per month if you are going to use it with Alexa (5 euros per month for Smartwatch and tablets), which will be paid together with your mobile contract. However, the first month is a trial , so you can try it completely free of charge. You can unsubscribe at any time from the My Vodafone app or website.

The limits of OneNumber and Alexa

The integration between the lifelong mobile and Alexa works like a charm. The audio quality and communication is more than correct. However, there are a number of details that you should know before hiring this service.

Emergency calls

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This point is important. You will not be able to use Alexa to make an emergency call . We do not know specifically why this limitation is due, but we consider it to be a point for improvement. Amazon’s assistant is being used by more and more seniors, and the integration with OneNumber is perfect for this audience.

However, in an emergency, users of this service will have to use their mobile phone —or a landline— to call 112. This is not a reason not to contract the service, but you should be aware of this limitation before contracting it , because we do not want you to discover this limit just at the least opportune moment.

Various numbers

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Amazingly, you can link multiple phone numbers to a single Alexa device. All the numbers must be in the same Vodafone account —that is, in the same contract with the same holder, something usual in the family—. Of course, we will have to pay for the service for each line that we want to activate.

What happens when I’m not at home?

OneNumber has a feature called ‘ Away From Home ‘. Once activated, the service will stop the Echo from receiving calls when you’re on the go. You won’t have to do it by hand; the system detects by location that you are no longer at home and will activate the mode without your having to intervene.

To activate it, go back to the route where you activated the service within the Alexa app and check the option to activate the ‘away from home’ mode. The setting will kick in when you get 150 meters away from your home and will return to normal when you get closer to that distance.