Top 10 Best Echo Show Tips and Tricks That You Must Know

With a stellar sound system, a great display and plenty of skills, the Amazon Echo Show can display news and other information as effortlessly as it can read them out to you. It’s a tad bigger than its other cousins, but on the bright side, you can watch all your favorite Prime shows without switching on your TV or Laptop.

But that’s not all the Amazon Echo Show has to offer. With the right settings, this display-enabled assistant is capable of much more.

In this post today, we have listed down some of the best things that you can do with the Amazon Echo Show.

1. Turn Your Echo Show into a Digital Photo Frame

Yep, you read that right. You can easily turn your Echo Show into a digital photo frame. This one works by pulling photos from your Facebook or Prime Photos and playing them in a slideshow.

Just make sure to link your Amazon account to your Prime Photos or Facebook account.

To link the account, go to Settings of your Alexa app and select Settings > Photos and tap on Link my account.

Next, open the settings menu of your Echo Show and go to Home Screen > Background, and tap on Facebook (or Amazon Prime) to select the photo albums.

Now, tap on the Home button, and you’ll see a nice slideshow of your photos. Alternatively, you can say “Alexa, show me my photos” to command Echo Show to start a slideshow.

2. Display a Static Background

If you’d rather want a static picture from your collection as the default wallpaper, the Echo Show lets you do that. Once again you’ll need the help of the Alexa app.

Head over to the app and tap on Devices > Echo & Alexa and select the Echo Show. Next, Scroll down and select Home Screen Background and upload an image of your choice.

3. Choose Your Default Browser

The Echo Show bundles two browsers – Firefox and Silk. If you are more comfortable with Firefox, you can easily make it your default browser.

To do so, go to Device Options > Web options > Browser, and take your pick.

4. Ascending Alarm

Have trouble waking up to the Alexa alarm in the morning?

If yes, you may want to try out the ascending alarm feature of the Echo Show. This setting allows your alarm to get louder so that you are forced to get up from the bed.

To activate it, go to Settings > Sounds and turn on the toggle for Ascending Alarm. Simple, see.

5. Pair a Bluetooth Device

The good thing about the Echo Show is that it is Bluetooth enabled. That means you can either stream music from a paired Bluetooth Speaker (or headphones) or pair your phone to it to stream offline music. Best of both worlds.

Open Settings > Bluetooth, and tap on pair. All the devices will show up on the screen, and you just need to tap on Pair.

6. Have Kids? Block Voice Search for Videos

Keeping kids safe on the internet is essential. However, with smart voice assistants, that can be a problematic scenario since you have to speak out the query.

Thankfully, the Echo Show has a couple of parental control settings that lets you block content or restrict access. For one, you can disable voice search for videos or activate the Video SafeSearch option.

While the first one is pretty self-explanatory, the latter filters adult or mature content from displaying. All these settings are accessible via Settings > Restrict Access > Web Video Search.

7. Turn off the Screen or Dim the Screen

Is the screen of your Echo Show too bright? Simple, tone down the brightness from the quick settings menu. At the same time, you can also activate Adaptive Brightness to adjust the brightness as per its ambient surroundings.

To find the Adaptive Brightness setting, go to Settings > Display.

Furthermore, if you want to turn the display off during the night, just say. “Alexa, turn off the screen,” and it’ll obey your command.

8. Watch Your Favorite Videos

The Echo Show supports both YouTube and Amazon Prime. You can launch the video of your choice via voice commands. In my personal opinion, playing videos directly on Amazon Prime is much easier than on YouTube, since there are no duplicate videos.

For YouTube, What I usually do is open it through the Silk Browser (Alexa, open YouTube) and then search for it, although it defeats the purpose of a voice assistant.

However, for tremendously common terms like movie trailers, a simple voice command is enough.

“Alexa, play the Avengers Endgame trailer.”

9. Enable Follow Up

For people like me who loves repeating questions and queries, the Follow-up Mode is one of the ideal settings. As you may have deduced, this setting lets you repeat follow up questions without saying the wake word.

When enabled, the blue indicator light on the Echo Show remains on for a couple of seconds more so that you know the lady is active and listening to your commands.

To enable it, open the Alexa app on your phone and go to Device. Select Echo Show from the list, tap on Follow-up, and toggle the switch on.

10. Schedule DND

Yep, you read that right. Your Echo Show now lets you schedule the DND timings. So if you don’t want to be notified for new skills or want to block out calls & messages for a fixed duration, it lets you do so.

To activate DND, go to DND settings, toggle the switch for Scheduled and enter the start time and the end time.

Get the Most out of Your Digital Assistant

Last but not least, don’t forget to check out the Alexa compatible smart-home gadgets like the Yeelight Smart LED Bulb to use the device in the best possible way. At the same time, set a music player of your choice (Settings > Music in the Alexa app) to listen to your favorite songs seamlessly.

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Yeelight Smart LED Bulb

Next up: Have you tested the Alexa call and Drop-in feature? Read the following post to understand the difference and which one should you use.

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Yeelight Smart LED Bulb