Alexa Lets You Move Your Music Between Echo Devices – Here’s How

Amazon is rolling out a new feature to its Echo devices that allow users to move their podcast or playlist from one device or group to another with a simple voice command. The Alexa voice assistant is present on a variety of devices. The Google Assistant rival powers not only Amazon’s own Echo line of smart speakers and smart displays but also its streaming sticks and TVs and laptops from manufacturers such as Lenovo. Earlier this year, Amazon released an Alexa app for Xbox consoles that allows users to see the camera feed from a compatible security camera, among other uses.

Homes with a smart speaker or smart display mostly have more than one of these devices, some of which are placed in different rooms. Amazon is now adding support for users of Alexa-powered devices, including the new Echo Show to move their audio playback from one device to another.

There are a few different ways to move audio from one device to another. One way is to say the command ‘Alexa, move my music to the kitchen/living room/device name,’ and whatever the user is listening to will begin playing in the room or on the device mentioned. Playback will be suspended on the device or in the room that person issued the command. A much simpler alternative is to say “Alexa, pause” in one room and then say “Alexa, resume” in another room. Owners of the Echo Buds have their own special Alexa command. Once the earbuds are connected to the phone, the command “Alexa, move my podcast here” will cause playback to stop on whatever device it was on before and move to the Echo Buds. Amazon says that the feature is also available on Echo Auto. Once the user is in their car and Echo Auto is connected to the phone, the command “Resume radio/podcast” will have the playback resume in the car after issuing the order to pause on a device inside the house.

Alexa Is Playing Catch-up

Amazon is playing catch up with Google, which released a similar feature called Stream transfer in October 2019. The feature allows users to move playback of videos, podcasts, and more from one Google Assistant device to another. Stream transfer not only works with the ‘Hey Google’ command but can also be done with the Google Home app.

Apart from being able to move playback from one device to another, Amazon has also added a feature to its Fire TV devices that make it easy for owners in Canada and the U.S. to find what to watch on Netflix. Simply saying ‘Alexa, play something on Netflix’ with the Alexa voice remote will launch the Netflix app and play a show or movie the viewer might enjoy. This feature is also available without the need for the remote on its new Fire TV Omni series.

Source: Amazon