These days, it's very common to find a smart speaker in our homes to help us with everyday tasks. From playing music and controlling home automation systems to making calls to other users, there are many features you might not be aware of. Today, we want to show you one in particular, specifically for Amazon smart speakers. We'll explain how to turn an Amazon Echo Show into a photo frame.
Compatible smart speakers
The first thing you should know about this curious feature is, of course, which smart speakers are compatible with it. And, as you can imagine, when talking about a photo frame, the only essential condition is that it has a screen.
Therefore, within Amazon's current catalog, the speakers with screens that we can use to perform this process are:
- Amazon EchoSpot.
- Amazon EchoShow 5.
- Amazon EchoShow 8.
- Amazon EchoShow 10.
So, if you don't already have one at home, you can check them all out on Amazon's website. Our recommendation is that, if this photo frame feature interests you, you opt for the 8-inch or 10-inch Echo Show . The other two are quite small, especially the Echo Spot.
How to turn an Echo Show into a photo frame
Now yes, let's go with the really important thing in this article, which is to configure our Amazon smart speaker as a photo frame.
The truth is, it's a very simple process. The first step is to access your device's display settings , and there are several ways to do this. The most comprehensive (and simplest) method is as follows:
- Enter the Alexa app with your phone (Android or iOS).
- Click on the "More" button, and then click on the "Settings" section.
- From here, in this new menu look for the section of "Photos".
- Once inside, we will see 2 options. The "Accounts" section shows us the services related to our photos that are linked to our profile, that is, Amazon Photos. On the other hand, we have the option of "Devices" where all those who may be affected by this part of the photographs are grouped together, in other words, all those associated with a screen. The first thing you should do is create (or link if you already have one) an account on Amazon Photos, since in the next step we will need it.
- When you have created the account, go back and access the "Devices" section that we saw before.
- Click on the equipment you want to configure as your photo frame.
If you follow these instructions step by step you will reach the photo settings menu of your, for example, Amazon Echo Show. Here we will have different options available to do this:
- daily memories: It is a selected collection of our photos (hosted on Amazon Photos) that is automatically updated and will go into slide mode.
- This day: photographs taken on a day like today but from the previous year. For example, if today is June 1, 2021, a slideshow of photos (hosted on Amazon Photos) that you took on June 1, 2020 will be displayed.
- more collections: Here you can choose any collection (album) that you made through your Amazon Photos account.
- uploaded photos: If you don't want to link your Amazon Photos account, you can do without it and place up to 10 photos from your mobile phone's gallery in this frame. Of course, every time you want to put a new one you will have to do it manually.
It's that easy to use one of Amazon's smart speakers with a screen as a digital photo frame. Of course, keep in mind two small details:
- As shown in the Alexa app itself, the "free" storage of any user in Amazon Photos is 5 GB. If you need more space, you will have to purchase it with some of the subscription methods that it has.
- In the event that you use a specific Amazon Echo Spot, since it does not have a "usual" aspect ratio, your photos look cropped. In this model you should choose to display those photographs whose main content is in the central part of it.
How to activate Amazon photo frame
Now, how can we make our Amazon smart speaker (or an Amazon Fire TV connected to a screen) play our photos.
First, if you want it to appear automatically, you can configure it through your device's screensaver. For both smart speakers and Fire TVs, this setting is located in the device's settings.
- In the Echo Show we will see it as a photo presentation.
- On Amazon Fire TV it will appear as a screen saver.
In this way, by making the relevant adjustments, we will configure that the selected photo collections appear automatically on said computer after a certain period of inactivity.
However, if you want to do it manually, you just have to ask the wizard itself with one of the following commands:
- “Alexa, play my photos”– This will make Amazon's smart assistant automatically launch a slideshow of your chosen photos.
- “Alexa, show me my photos”: on the contrary, if you only want to access the catalog, this voice command will allow you to reach it. Then from here you will be able to play that slideshow or other interesting actions.
This is just one of those more "flashy" features you can use with your Alexa smart speaker. But, if you want to know many more interesting aspects, or simply discover what the experience of living with the complete system of these speakers with Alexa is like, you can take a look at the video we made on our YouTube channel:
The links you can see in this article are part of our agreement with the Amazon Affiliate Program and may earn us a small commission from their sales (without ever influencing the price you pay). Of course, the decision to publish them has been made freely under the editorial criteria of El Output, without taking into account suggestions or requests from the brands involved.