The Amazon Echo is a more than capable speaker with room-filling sound; as such it only makes sense to pair your smartphone, tablet, or other Bluetooth-enabled device to it in order to super charge your smartphone’s sound system.
Why Do I Want To Do This?
Although the Echo does a fantastic job with Amazon’s native Prime Music service as well as the available additional services such as Pandora, iHeartRadio, and TuneIn, there are some popular services currently left out in the cold like Spotify, and so on.
Even though the Echo can’t natively play all the services out there that doesn’t mean you can’t use the Echo for playback. Thanks to Bluetooth integration you can pair the Echo with your mobile device just like you would pair it with a plain old Bluetooth speaker.
Once paired it operates exactly like a regular Bluetooth speaker with, of course, the addition of the handy voice commands for volume adjustment, starting and stopping playback, and so on.
It is worth noting there is one feature missing from the Echo that is commonly found on larger table-top style Bluetooth speakers: there’s no mechanism for using it is a speakerphone and if you make or receive calls with your smartphone while paired with the Echo the calls will not be transferred over to the speaker. Likewise text messages can’t be read to the Echo nor will on-device notifications be passed to the Echo.
Pairing Your Device Via Voice Commands
The biggest draw of the Amazon Echo is the voice control so it’s only natural that you can initiate the pairing process with your voice. Before you proceed make sure you have the device you wish to pair on hand and that you know where the Bluetooth settings menu is for your device. We’ll be pairing an iPhone with the Echo so if you have an iPhone or iPad you can follow directly along, otherwise adjust them to fit your device.
To start the pairing process make sure Bluetooth is enabled on your mobile device and then issue the following command:
Alexa, pair.
Alexa will respond by telling you that she is ready to pair and that you should go look at the Bluetooth settings on your device. On the iPhone you’ll find the settings in Settings -> Bluetooth. There you’ll see an entry for the Echo like so:
Select the entry to complete the pairing process.
Pairing Your Device Via The Alexa App
In addition to initiating the pairing process via voice command you can also open up the Amazon Alexa application on your smartphone and initiate the pairing process.
Tap on the menu icon in the upper left corner of the application and then, from the slide out menu, select “Settings”. Select the entry for your Amazon Echo.
Within the settings menu for the Echo select, as seen above, the Bluetooth entry.
Here you can select “Pairing Mode” to begin the pairing process or, if you need to remove devices from the Echo then select “Clear” to wipe the Bluetooth pairing roster.
Once you’ve selected “Pairing Mode” you will need to confirm the pairing, like in the previous section of the tutorial, in the Bluetooth settings menu of your device.
Using And Reconnecting Your Paired Device
After you’ve paired your device you can immediately being using the Echo as a Bluetooth speaker for any streaming service, podcast, etc. on your mobile device. When you leave the area your device and the Echo will disconnect. When you return to the speaker in the future it will recall your pairing and you may reconnect your device with the command:
Alexa, connect.
The command always reconnects the Echo with the most recently paired device; if your Echo is not pairing with the device you’re currently using you may need to repair it with your Echo to resolve any connectivity issues.
Have a pressing question about your Echo? Shoot us an email at ask@howtogeek.com and we’ll do our best to answer it.
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