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Alexa Can't Control the AUX Input On Amazon Echo Speakers Anymore (theverge.com) 48

Posted by BeauHD from the feature-removal dept.
Amazon has removed Alexa voice control for the 3.5mm aux input on several older Echo speakers, meaning users can no longer ask Alexa to play or pause audio coming through the wired connection. It's unclear why the feature was removed. The Verge reports: Ars Technica points to this Reddit poster claiming they received a message from Amazon and says an unnamed spokesperson confirmed the change. When contacted by The Verge, Amazon did not provide an on-the-record statement. The message does not include any explanation for why the feature was removed. It also doesn't mention any changes to audio output functionality like connecting an external speaker to an Echo Dot, and it appears that control of the port from within the app's settings menu still works.

Alexa Can't Control the AUX Input On Amazon Echo Speakers Anymore More | Reply

Alexa Can't Control the AUX Input On Amazon Echo Speakers Anymore

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  • It's just a message (Score:5, Informative)

    by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Tuesday October 06, 2026 @05:16PM (#66365766) Homepage
    It's a message from Amazon: "Yeah, we are too big to be stopped and we just do occasional enshittification to remind you who's boss. So tough luck, suckers!!!!"

  • Just a guess (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dmomo ( 256005 ) on Tuesday October 06, 2026 @05:38PM (#66365776)

    They want to sell something that this would compete with.

  • I mean, it's a dumb audio port. How could you cause aux playback to pause?

    • Re: Aux port - how could it even technically pause (Score:4, Informative)

      by Zero__Kelvin ( 151819 ) on Tuesday October 06, 2026 @06:06PM (#66365784) Homepage
      Not by asking Alexa to do it anymore, that's for sure.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dmomo ( 256005 )

      I think they mean "mute". Aux on echo is output so the device is already controlling the music. At least that's how I read it.
      Otherwise, I have no clue!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by quenda ( 644621 )

        Some Echo devices have AUX in, so they can be used as a dumb speaker.
        some have AUX out - to connect an external amplifier.

        TFA is talking about the former.

    • TFS is awfully confusing. But if I may speculate wildly, if it's a 3.5mm *headset* jack including the mic line, it could play/pause audio on any connected device that can be controlled by the mic clicker on earbuds. If that is the case and you're feeling charitable, you could imagine disabling this feature because they got reports of it damaging equipment and determining that there's a hardware limitation preventing them from doing it safely.

      Since I don't own any Amazon devices and never will, this remai

    • Exactly.

      users can no longer ask Alexa to play or pause audio coming through the wired connection

      That line is clearly considering the 3.5mm jack as an "input" rather than an output - "...audio coming through the wired connection"

      There were various Amazon devices with 3.55mm jacks - some were output only, some were input only, others could have their port either be an input or an output.

      Source: https://www.amazonforum.com/s/... [amazonforum.com]

    • I don't know the protocol but old phone headsets had a 2.5 or 3.5mm jack with an extra ring that got you play/pause/hook/next/last.

      Hypothetically that could have been implemented. I had a collection of Alexas that got binned as soon as they got caught spying for police so I never got that far. ESP32 is better for nerds anyway.

      One thing Australia does right is a statute naming removal of features as a violation of contract requiring full refunds in these circumstances.

      • With those, doesn't the male device control the female device? So here, if the echo device had that extra control ring, then I could see it accepting play/pause signals to control the echo device. But I feel like the article was describing the echo controlling whatever device is plugged in to the aux port.

  • Has anyone figured out how to load an alternative OS on Echo/Alexa devices?

  • Using an old echo dot (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dutt ( 738848 ) on Tuesday October 06, 2026 @06:16PM (#66365790) Homepage

    I can confirm that it no longer can play audio via Spotify using the line in to the Sonos speaker I have it on.

    Weird that they've stopped the function. I guess it's time to decommission Alexa. It's age is starting to show.

  • You need to be moved on from old stuff that just works so you can be new stuff.

    Remember when Amazon tauted Kindle as superior to an actual book?

    My books of 10 and 20 years ago still work. My Kindle technically tuna on but cannot use new content...so this move to downgrade isn't surprising.

    How likely am I to buy an Amazon product in the future? *Blinks*

    • How silly - you can carry hundreds, if not thousands of electronic books in a device that weighs a pound or two, how many books can you carry with you onto a plane? Into a coffee shop, etc?

      • How many hundreds of books are you planning to take on holiday!?

    • My 2nd gen Kindle and my old Fire will still allow me to assign stuff via library management. I can't go to the store or god forbid the "experimental" browser but I can put stuff there and on my old Kindle Fire. I use my 2nd gen in my car at lunch time or before shift at the humane society.

  • Well duh. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ThumpBzztZoom ( 6976422 ) on Tuesday October 06, 2026 @08:11PM (#66365882)

    They can't collect any data from an aux jack. They don't know the device name,type, or MAC address. If you don't turn on bluetooth, they won't know when you arrive at your house or when you leave. They won't get the song metadata to profile what to advertise to you. Of course they disabled the Aux input control, you didn't think they'd just let you keep on playing music without giving something to them, did you?

    • Well said. Data collection is the underlying reason why everything seems to be opt-out or the switch well hidden under layers of obscure menus.

  • That's really the only use I have for my one echo device. I consume their prime music content and pipe it out to a small amplifier for stereo speakers and a small subwoofer in my garage so I have music to listen to when I'm being a gear head. I guess if I HAD to, I could use a raspberry pi or something like that to do the same, but this just works and I'm lazy.

    • I consume their prime music content and pipe it out to a small amplifier for stereo speakers and a small subwoofer in my garage so I have music to listen to when I'm being a gear head.

      My car has a built-in stereo :-)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Mal-2 ( 675116 )

        And the stereo in my car even supports Bluetooth so I could feed it directly from my phone.

      • Go remove the battery cable to do some electrical work on your car and then let us now how that works out for you.

  • One of the things that I have noticed in the past is that features remained stable when they were specifically coded. In the move to AI I wonder if the stupid fuzzy training and inference just fucks up and doesn't recognise features exist anymore. I've noticed this in my car which arbitrarily decided that Gemini Google searches the names of songs rather than defaulting to playing them on Spotify. When leaving work I used to ask "Is it faster to take the A4 or the A24", Gemini used to do a Google maps update

  • The job of the Enshittificator is to take things that are perctly fine... and make them shitty.

  • Stop complaining, you don't own the Alexa devices in your home anymore than you own the airplanes that fly over it.

    You bought a device that you don't own and don't control and can't modify, and now you're complaining that you don't own it, don't control it, and you can't modify it.

    • Was it presented as if it was being sold? Was the money-taker not up-front with the possibility that features might be disabled in the future? Did they not mention it or bury it in the small print? If so, anyone who "bought" one and is surprised by this is a victim of fraud. Fraud victims have every right to complain, even if it was possible for a well informed person to detect the fraud.

      • Yes, yes, they 'sold' it to you and you did pay real money for it, but don't confuse that with you 'owning' anything.

        Think of it as the way you 'own' the faucet in your home. You do own the faucet but you don't own the water, even if you pay for every drop you use.

        Alexa, Nest, Homepod, etc.... all these devices are basically empty boxes with an internet connection. What you 'own' is whatever they decide to provide and nothing else. (Although they might make decent paperweights.)

  • Amazon has totally FUCKED Alexa, and I make few apologies for my tone, other than that I was raised in a blue-collar home.

    They had an amazing product that used to be, quite frankly, what I imagined the future should look like.

    Enshitification ensued... They started whittling away features. Aux ports were removed. I had to find older devices, or pricier devices for aux. Then they screwed up commands. Yes, the very things that it's supposed to do at a basic level.

    Now you have to make specific routines, or

    • you can turn off alexa+ to get back to the functional behavior...."alexa exit alexa plus" is the voice command do it it, iirc.

      But i agree w/ all your complaints about how broken alexa+ is, which is why i know how to disable it. I dread the day they stop supporting the "old" system, which i assume is coming (quickly followed by charging an additional fee to cover all the new inference costs from their customer base)

      • Unfortunately, you can't in all circumstances.

        I hate to say this, but I am one of the few people that actually acquired an Echo Auto. Everyone can have whatever opinion on that that they want, but I love being able to very specifically ask for music in my car in ways that traditionally Alexa was able to handle well. I am an iPhone user, and tried out Apple Music as an alternative and frankly I just prefer Amazon music unlimited. The recommendations, the stations, etc., just work better for me.

        Anywa

  • I have a set of 5 Echo Dots around the house and ever since I "upgraded to Alexa+" -- it's a train-wreck. Sure, the AI gives much smarter answers to questions. But they continuously forget my preferences for the voice I chose for them to use. (My wife and I both prefer their "female 2, relaxed" voice, as most similar to the original and more "professional" sounding than the others.) But no, it keeps going back to a voice that sounds like a bubbly, annoying teenage girl. Worse yet, there's no way to set a vo

    • at least for now, you can still disable alexa+, which is what i did. sounds like you might want to, too....at least until amazon drops the "classic" alexa.

  • Amazon's is actively disabling their "Echo Link" device remotely so it cannot be used for streaming audio any longer. It was something like $400 when it was released if you got the Amp version. This started happening over the last year and a half or so - you can reset it, get it working for a while, but after 24 hours their update hits the device and turns streaming support off.

    This was the ONLY way you could stream music of your choice to an Alexa music group (e.g. Soundcloud, or a record player, etc).

    We h

  • Drop Alexa, seriously (Score:3)

    by LeadGeek ( 3018497 ) on Thursday October 08, 2026 @04:07PM (#66368188)
    Don't encourage the enshification, and spread the word and actively discourage it. Long live projects like Jellyfin, and on-premise NAS devices, and even stuff like Pianobar. Don't fall into the trap of walled gardens.

  • A few months ago, asking "Alexa, pause" while the media was playing through a bluetooth connection started generating the non-answer "You can pause Bluetooth media by going to your tablet or phone." Meanwhile, "Alexa, stop" works.

  • more pretending computers aren't computers. more gimping. more stupid! Just for you :D

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