How to Use Your Amazon Echo as an Intercom

There are plenty of creative uses for the Amazon Echo, and plenty of them are useful. If you happen to have more than one Echo, you can also turn two Echos into an in-home intercom. And even if you don’t have two devices, you can still use this feature with the Alexa app for mobile devices.

Setting Up the Amazon Echo Intercom

You may have this feature already turned on and don’t realize it. Here’s how to turn it on.

1. Open the Amazon Alexa app on your phone and go to Settings.
2. Under your list of devices, tap the name of the first Echo you want to use as an intercom.
3. Under General tap Drop in.
4. Select Household only. (You toggle it to On if you’re ok with extending this feature to your contacts. This is different to the Amazon Echo’s calling feature, and will allow them to start speaking to you without responding to a call.)
5. Repeat the steps above for your other Amazon Echo device.

If you need to rename your Echo devices, opting for easy-to-remember names, go to Settings and under Devices, tap the Echo you want to rename. Scroll down to device name and tap Edit. Enter the new name and tap Save.

How to Use Your Amazon Echo as an Intercom

Now that you have the feature enabled on both Echos, you can use the following voice command to activate the intercom feature:

“Alexa, drop in on [Echo Name].”

The first time you do this, Alexa will also prompt you to enable the feature in your household with a voice command. So depending on how you have your Echos named, you will need to say the name of the Amazon Echo in the other room that you’re trying to communicate with.

Once you’re done, you can use the voice command:

“Alexa, end drop in.”

You can also use the feature from the Alexa app on your phone. Go to the Calling & Messaging tab and tap the Drop in button. You can choose which of your devices you want to connect to, place the call on speaker, and mute your mic.

If you want to give people a warning before you start talking, you could use the calling feature instead and say:

“Alexa, call [Echo Name].”

Of course this means that they have the option of ignoring your call.

This feature should work with an Alexa-enabled app, including the regular Amazon Echo and Echo Dot.

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