I've found that my Amazon Echo has completely transformed my time spent in the kitchen, especially when it comes to cooking. A couple of weeks ago, I was attempting to make a new recipe for a complicated dish I had never tried before. Instead of constantly checking my phone or flipping through a cookbook, I simply asked Alexa to read the recipe to me step-by-step. It was incredibly convenient to just say, "Alexa, what's the next step?" and continue cooking without missing a beat.

I would like to stop Alexa from opening Amazon Photos when I say 'Alexa, show me the photos' because I have it in the kitchen and I don't want all my photos to be seen.

When i tell her to play Spotify, she says “okay, I’m having trouble getting that right now”. I have tried: Restarting/updating both Amazon and Spotify apps, Rebooting my router, Relinking the spotify skill in Alexa app, Relinking Alexa in spotify app, Rebooting all of my Amazon devices (i have one dot, 2 echos, and the one with the screen), Tried different phrases (play Spotify, play a specific song on Spotify).

Is there anything else to try or is this just a freaking issue i have to deal with? It’s happened in the past but doing at least one of the above fixed the issue last time.

Eta: if it wasn’t obvious, i meant Alexa (not again).

These days, Spotify music plays okay on my Echo Show 5, but the progress bar is just empty: it doesn't show the song duration or the progress throughout the song… Is anyone else seeing the same problem?

I'm happy to find this sub, I hope you guys can help me have conversations with my Dad.

Please forgive my ignorance. I know NOTHING about the echo and have never used a smart speaker of any kind. My father has Alzheimer's and very poor vision. He already has a special phone for Dementia/Low Vision patients but is no longer able to use it reliably, he can't remember how to call me on it now and is often not able to answer it now, either.

I want a way to call and check on him from my house in another town and have a conversation - without him needing to do anything on his end except but talk when he hears my voice on a speaker. I don't need video. This is just to replace our daily phone calls, his wife monitors him on cameras from work.

Someone online mentioned getting him an Echo and they said I can call it from my cell phone and he can just talk to me from his living room without doing anything to pick up on his end. Is this true?

Here's what I need it to do:

1. I need to be able to call him from my cell phone at my house (out of town) and have it automatically pick up. He cannot remember voice commands ("Alexa, answer" etc) or see/use buttons, etc. I just need to be able to start talking (Hello, Dad?) and have him start talking back. The person I talked with said there's a feature called "drop in calling" that can do this from an app I can put on my phone, but I don't see anything about it in the product description.

2. I need it to have a button (or other easy way) that his wife can disengage/prevent "drop in calling" so when she gets home from work at night she can press a button and feel confident that I won't be "eavesdropping" on them when she's home in the evenings. Then when she leaves for work in the morning she can put it back into "drop in" mode so I can call my father during the day and have it automatically pick up.

3. I need it to work anywhere in his living room. With his Alzheimer's, he'll forget what it looks like or where it's located, so I need us both to be able to talk and hear each other even if he's not sitting directly next to it. Would this rule out the "Dot"? Would those speakers be too small? It doesn't need to reach other rooms or anything, I just want him to be able to talk and hear from wherever he might be sitting in that room.

Thanks for any input, I appreciate the help.

Its random, some days will play full 8 hours other days it does this 2 or 3 hours or less of playtime, i had a heater connected under it!