Gadgetory

in addition to sending voice messages to other echo users and placing voice calls with your Amazon echo you can now use Alexa to send text messages to your friends and family however there's a catch it only works with Android phones running version 5.0 and newer and Amazon explained that there is no plan to expand to iOS anytime soon still here's how you set it up start by opening the Alexa app on your Android phone then open the conversations tab if the app is up to date a pop-up should appear explaining the new SMS feature to have to go to my profile if you don't see this pop up or you accidentally close it don't worry it's very easy to get back to your profile and find this setting tap the contacts icon in the upper right corner and select my profile under permissions tap the toggle next to send SMS to enable it tap ok then tap allowed to give Alexa access to send and view SMS messages like voice calling with Alexa this feature will let you text most us-based numbers excluding 9-1-1 you also won't be able to group message or send MMS an SMS with Alexa differs from the previously launched messaging feature and that this isn't echo to echo messaging and it's not sending voice messages instead these are text to speech text messages with recipients will receive on their phone from your phone number this also means you will not receive messages and they will not be read back to you on the Alexa speaker to send a text message with Alexa simply say your wait word and then you can either say send an SMS or send a text message and you can also tag your recipients name on the end of that command by saying something like send an SMS to Cori or send a text message to share it for more Alexa tips and tricks and other how to's be sure to check out cnet.com forward slash how to