With both advanced settings and add-on Alexa Skills, you can change your device location, manage your calendar, get weather information for any location around the world, and fine-tune accessibility features for hearing- or vision-impaired users. Here are some details on key ways to customize the Echo Show to work for you.
Beyond Basic Settings
Here are ways you can fine-tune your settings.
Device Location: As a result of the initial setup process, the Echo Show knows your location, time zone, and other details. However, if you would like to manually change your location, all you have to do is tell Alexa to “Go to settings” or select Settings using the touch screen. Next, select Device Options > Device Location, and use the on-screen keyboard to enter a new physical address.Calendar: One of the great things about the Echo Show is that you can use it to organize your periodic household, shopping, travel, business, or vacation events. On the Echo Show, tell Alexa to “Show me my Calendar.” Once your calendar appears on the screen you can command Alexa to “Add an event to my calendar” or “delete my event.“Weather and Other Information: For the Echo Show, saying “Show me the weather” will display weather information similar to what you would see on a web page. By default, the weather information will correspond to the location of your Echo Show. However, you can find out the weather for any location by providing Alexa with the city, state, or country in question. You also ask the Echo Show to display weather information for the next day or other days if the information is available. You can also further customize the weather information feature to display temperatures in either Fahrenheit or Celsius.
Accessibility: The Echo Show provides several options to enhance accessibility for those who are either hearing- or vision-impaired. For the hearing-impaired, you can activate Closed Captioning for supported content via the onscreen menu settings. Using the Message Touch feature, you can view transcripts of voice messages. For the vision-impaired, the Echo Show provides a Screen Magnifier that can be controlled by physical gestures. Color Inversion is handy when you prefer white text over a black background, and Color Correction can optimize the display to compensate for varying degrees of Color Blindness.
Fine-Tuning Video Features
Playback can be controlled by verbal commands, including the ability to play, pause, skip ahead, or rewind in stated time increments. You can also command the Echo Show to go to the next episode if you’re watching a TV series. Another interesting video playback feature is “Daily Briefings.” This option displays short, timely video news clips with the command “Alexa, tell me the news.” Searching a listing of news sources that you can customize, the Echo Show will start showing short video news clips. Content participants that you can select from include CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, People Magazine, and NBC.
Fine-Tuning Music Features
Just as with other Echo smart speakers, the Echo Show can find and play music. Just ask the Echo Show to play a song, artist, or genre. If you subscribe to Prime Music, you can command the Echo Show to play music from that source, with such commands as “Play rock from Prime Music” or “Play top 40 hits from Prime Music”. You can verbally command the Echo Show to “raise the volume,” “stop the music,” “pause,” “go to next song,” or “repeat this song.” In addition to the above playback options, you can view Album/Artist art and song lyrics on the Echo Show screen. You can turn the music lyric display on or off with simple Alexa commands, or tap the Lyrics icon shown on the screen.
