4 Clever Uses For Your Old Amazon Echos

The first Amazon Echo was released in 2014, and in the 12 years since, Amazon has released multiple products under the voice-activated, smart speaker brand’s banner, including the Echo Dot, Echo Pop, and Echo Show. Amazon’s Echo is now the most popular smart speaker brand in the U.S., with eMarketer predicting that 70.9 million people will be using an Echo device by 2027.

If you’ve taken advantage of Amazon’s more recent releases, and upgraded your Echo device, your old Echo doesn’t need to gather dust. There are plenty of ways you can utilize or repurpose your aging Echo, with minimal effort.

Your old Echo can be the perfect kitchen companion for hands-free cooking, setting timers, and providing unit conversions. You could hook it up to a set of neglected speakers, transforming them into smart speakers and enhancing the audio output. You can even use it as part of a two-way home intercom system, allowing you to instantly communicate with your household. And if you’re done with it, you can always trade it in for an Amazon Gift Card (and a decent discount on a new Echo device). Below, we break down how these clever uses can breathe life into your old Amazon Echo.

Sick of shouting for the kids to come downstairs for dinner? Your old Amazon Echos could help with that. The Alexa Household Drop In feature — compatible with all Echo models, minus the Echo Look and battery-powered Echo Tap — allows you to communicate with other Alexa-enabled devices within your home instantly.

For this method to work, you need to have more than one Alexa device in your home, ensuring they’re all integrated into your Alexa smart home set-up. Each device should have a clear name, like “Echo living room,” and that you’ve enabled the drop-in feature on your Alexa app. To communicate with a device or room, simply say “Alexa, drop in on [device name]” to start an instant two-way audio link with that device. You can also communicate with all devices at once by saying, “Alexa, drop in everywhere.”

This is a great use for older Amazon Echo speakers, as this feature can either utilize only older generation devices, making them a dedicated household intercom, or a mix of older and newer Echo speakers, placing the older devices in rooms not already covered by an upgraded device.

Older Echo units don’t have all the capabilities of the latest generation, but they’re perfect for helping out in the kitchen, especially if you don’t want to get your newer model dirty with wayward food residue.

Through Alexa, you can ask your old Echo to set multiple timers, work out unit conversions, substitutions, rest times, and even required temperatures for your oven or food, reducing the need to whip out your phone during cooking. What’s more, if you run out of a certain ingredient or item, you can ask Alexa to add it to your shopping list for later.

While the speakers in older generations don’t offer the improved audio seen in the Echo Dot Max, you don’t necessarily need amazing speakers when cooking. Older Echo models are still capable of playing music, podcasts, and the radio and even setting kitchen routines. So, if you want to keep your newer Echo pristine, but still want help in the kitchen, your old Echo could offer an ideal solution.

If you’ve got a set of external speakers or even a soundbar lying around that is also collecting dust, hooking it up to your old Amazon Echo could give it (and your Echo) a new lease on life.

Depending on the age of your speaker, and your Echo model, you may be able to connect the two via an audio jack or Bluetooth. Once connected, your Echo’s audio output will come through the external speakers, essentially making your old speaker a smart speaker, as you can still control the Echo via voice commands. This should enhance the audio quality of the Echo’s output, but be warned, the output quality depends on the quality of your speakers.

This is a clever way to enhance your old Echo’s audio output while repurposing an old set of speakers — or leveraging a better speaker system — that you already have. Just make sure to keep them three feet apart to prevent the speaker output interfering with the Echo’s voice command system.

Using your old Amazon Echo as a voice-controlled smart alarm can be a great way to repurpose your aging device. Through Alexa, you can set multiple alarms on your Echo, with more traditional alarm sounds able to be replaced with your favorite playlist or radio station. That can help waking up feel like a (slightly) more pleasant experience. If you don’t need a smart alarm in your own bedroom, they can also prove valuable additions to guest and kids’ rooms, or as portable smart alarms for when you’re staying away from home.

You can also use Alexa’s Routines feature to elevate your smart alarm, creating a customized morning schedule that includes a daily weather report, news briefing, or updates on your commute travel time. These routines can even integrate other Alexa-enabled smart home devices, like your compatible coffee maker or smart lights. For example, you could set a routine that, at 8 a.m. every weekday, the alarm wakes you up to your favorite Spotify track, turns on your bedroom lights, and automatically starts brewing your coffee. Unfortunately, it can’t make getting out of bed any easier.