Amazon slipped a nice little update out for the Echo, the “ESP” feature, which stands for “Echo Spatial Perception” means that if you have more than one Echo in your house, Alexa will hear your command, work out which Echo device is nearest to you and only answer from that device. This is a godsend for those of us with multiple devices because previously you’d often ask a question and get two answers on a slight delay – meaning you couldn’t hear either of them.
Amazon’s Website simply says:
“If you have more than one Echo or Echo Dot, Alexa responds intelligently from the device you’re closest to with ESP”
Has anyone tried this on their US and UK versions of the Echo and Echo Dot? I’ve got a US Echo and a UK Echo device both linked to my UK account and this seems to be working pretty well already (although sometimes there seems to be an additional lag whilst it think about which one is closer – unless that’s just me imagining things).
Smart Home
This change seems to be part of the overall strategy for the Echo – the idea that you’ll need these all over the house so that you really do have a ‘smart home’. Currently if you just have one Echo and you’re far away from it, you can’t control your home from there and have to revert to the old method of actually using light switches and things – it’s like being in the stone age.
UK Echo Community 
I already have a UK Echo and am looking forward to testing this feature when my Echo Dot is delivered tomorrow.
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I also have a UK and US Echo in different rooms on a UK account. This new feature does appear to be working fine as previously I had the problem where both echos would answer which is very annoying when you ask Alexa to play some music, and they both play a different song. What would be useful is if both units could play the same content when playing music. So each unit could play the same song in different rooms. I beleave the google home device will have this feature.
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That’s a good point. I’ll update the article.
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can someone confirm which firmware version this update is in, 3731 or 4008 or another version, my echo’s are both still 3731, dot arriving tomorrow
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I have two echos, one US and one UK, both set to a UK account and both work fine with Amazon music. One is software version 4148 and the other is 4008.
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@Grant cheers, realised that my blocking of updates for the firetv are also blocking the Echo updating. Had to move to a seperate leg of the home wifi to see the internet properly. im still on 3173 on both new uk echos. Waiting for them to update as I write.
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Just set up a new Dot within a few mints of being on net it updated to 561179520. I have 2 US Echo’s on UK account one on 4172 the other on 4008
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On the Dot, yep still 320 not 520, have gone thought the setup again, get the update message, do the view but no update. 😦 That’s a Wireless router behind a DD-WRT router firewall, maybe something to do with BT being the broadband provider, possibly, but firetv’s updated fine before. Maybe I need to expose the Dot and the echo’s to the unclean raw internet….bad bad….don’t like to do that but may have no choice but to turn wifi on the first internet facing DD- wrt router..scary stuff.
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all up to date now 4172 on both echos and 520 on the dot. The issue is DNS and ensuring your patient enough, I had to wait 3 days on one echo to go from 4008 to 4172 muted. Also I if you are BT Broadband user, there is some issues somewhere, but BT DNS 62.6.40.178 and 162 seem to work fine (eventually!)
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