Finally, we are able to but the Amazon Echo in the UK. For the next two days Prime members can order the standard Amazon Echo here for £99.99 or you can pre-order the 2nd Generation Amazon Dot here for £49.99 (which includes a speaker but is better added to your own existing speaker system – ignore other news sites saying that there is no speaker in this model, there is) note that if you really want to go crazy you can buy 5 Echo dots and get one free.
Release Date
Whilst these can be ordered now (and I would, because I think they will sell out fast), the release date is actually 28th September for the main Amazon Echo. The Echo Dot is expected to start shipping in October.
UK Echo Services Confirmed
- UK music services are: Amazon Music, Spotify, Tunein.
- Other services (possibly as skills) include Guardian and Telegraph news, Sky sports, Uber, Trainline, FitBit and various others.
- I’m interested to try out the Jamie Oliver recipe skill!
- There does not seem to be any IFTTT support in the UK currently. I’m sure this will be added if it really isn’t possible right away. Note that many sites are reporting that this is confirmed, it is not.
Will my US Amazon Echo work on the UK system?
I have spoken to two customer service people and one developer on this now as well as reading the many comments on this site (thank you everyone).
It seems that the answer really is ‘yes’. You will be able to switch your echo to work with your UK account. This will allow you to use Prime Music (hurray!) and all the other UK features. However, it will mean that you lose any US features that are not currently integrated with the UK version. This includes (but is not limited to):
- IFTTT (I find this one strange and I’m sure it’ll come later)
- Pandora
- IHeartRadio
- Your US Kindle books (UK Kindle books not yet supported but expected soon)
- Wikipedia (seriously amazon?!)
- Local search (I understand that there are more ‘appropriate’ skills being considered for this in the UK
Now – let’s not forget, you can currently have more than one account on your Echo. The first thing that I’m going to test is whether I can have my US and UK accounts connected at the same time and if I can just switch between them like you can with two US accounts currently. At the moment no one can tell me if this is possible.
UK Echo Community 
Was there any mention of the supporting Alexa App? Will there be a .co.uk version soon?
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The documentation on the Amazon help site says that http://alexa.amazon.co.uk/ is the place to go but it isn’t live yet. I suspect it will be on or slightly before the 28th to allow press reviewers a chance to try it out
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As of today, the US Android App now accept England, GB addresses
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Not sure if it is official but someone seems to be developing a Guardian Skill on github:-
https://github.com/guardian/alexa-skills-lambda
It seems pretty comprehensive and even has a snazzy Guardian jingle:-
[audio src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/alexa-config/audio/alexa-intro.mp3" /]
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Even more exciting news- the alexa settings app now recognises UK addresses and allows you to change your location!
My triby will now give local weather forecasts without having to give the location manually.
She will also give you local business searches such as restaurants, supermarkets and chemists
She still has an american accent though!
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Since yesterday’s announcement to release Echo and echo dot in the UK, the US android app now accept England, GB addresses
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When I tried to add a 2nd HouseHold profile trying to add my UK account to my US account I got a “incompatible region error”. However, the errors seem to be changing all the time, now I get duplicate user when I try to add my UK account and get errors from music. I think /hope they’re working on it.
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Wait for Amazon UK to release the Alexa app in the U.K. App Store then reset you Amazon echo with a paper clip. I would expect this to work
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alexa.amazon.co.uk is now working. The URL directs to the main US site and I’ve not found, as yet, any additional functionality for UK owners
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Even though alexa,amazon.co.uk redirected you, you are still redirected to the .com site which would point to a US backend server. Wait until the alexa App is released in the UK and then de-register your echo before resetting it with a paper clip. I would expect that during the registration process the UK app will instruct echo to point towards a backend platform located in the UK to reduce latency and better handle British accents. At that Point the Echo voice should be one of a British person (instead of the America voice we currently get).
Equally, if you are in Germany, I would expect the German App to connect your echo to a German backend platform programmed to handle German language and reduce latency. obviously the German backend platform will be designed to answer in German.
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alexa.amazon.co.uk now is UK site not .com redirect …..changes, exploring now….traffic now can be setup with UK destination address….says UK Apps available 28th
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quiet a few skills have vanished from the UK site….especially the home automation skills. Yonomi is missing (although the skill is still active) which was the skill I used to control my home automation from the apple Lexi app. Obviously Yonomi this has to be changed to co.uk url to work again. Early days
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As of today the Amazon Alexa app is available for download on the Apple App Store and Google play Store.
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