Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

My Echo Connect is return eligible through Mar 18, 2018. Right now I plan to return it. First, I believe Echo Connect was designed and supported by people who have no idea how a landline works in the US. Second, I believe the product manager has never used a home phone. The way this product supposedly (I never got this to work) looks up contacts in a list to announce INCOMING callers smells like a cell phone. That’s just not the way our home phones work. My Echo Connect is connected to an Obihai Obi200 with Google Voice providing free in/out-bound calling and Callcentric providing low cost Caller ID name/number (CNAM) and E911 services. This setup has performed beautifully since May, 2016. I selected the option for Echo Connect to use my home phone service and home phone number as Caller ID during setup. I verified Echo Connect is using my home phone service and number to make OUTBOUND calls. I have a first generation Echo, 4 second generation Echo Dots, and an Echo Spot. I purchased Echo Connect primarily to announce INCOMING callers rather than having to chase down a handset to look at the Caller ID. I thought, given I have working Caller ID on my home phone; Alexa would simply announce INCOMING callers from the provided Caller ID. Nope! Furthermore, Alexa won’t even announce callers from my mobile phone contact list Amazon got during setup. Alexa merely chimes incessantly “incoming call, incoming call, incoming call…” Echo Spot displays “Incoming Call”. Come on Amazon, even my 10 year old Uniden handsets correctly display Caller ID name/number (CNAM) for INCOMING calls. Alexa makes OUTBOUND calls from my cell phone contact list (correctly identified on my Echo Spot) so why can’t Alexa at least identify INCOMING callers that were uploaded from my cell phone contacts? Between 5 or 6 Uniden handsets ringing and 6 Echo devices barking out “incoming call, incoming call, incoming call…” Echo Connect creates quite a stir when the home phone rings. My family presently sees Echo Connect as a nuisance and wants it disconnected ASAP. What I would like is for Alexa to announce ONLY when she recognizes the caller from a contact list that I can input/edit on my Amazon Fire tablet or PC. Ideally, I would hear nothing for unrecognized calls. This is an Amazon device. I full well expected Amazon to have fully integrated Echo Connect with their ecosystem like Xfinity & Google, for example. I expected incoming Caller ID to be visually displayed on other Amazon products like my Amazon Echo Spot, three Amazon Fire tablets, and three Amazon Fire TVs. I expected Alexa to be able to look up and dial businesses. Nope! Neither. The Echo Connect video states I can make calls to anyone (businesses, mobile devices and more) using my voice. I thought this worked like the Google Assistant on my cell phone so I asked Alexa to call a local steakhouse. Alexa was able to provide the address and phone number but when I asked her to dial the “Texas Roadhouse”, Alexa stated “I couldn’t find that device or contact name”. I do not want to read in numbers Alexa already has or to first enter every business I might occasionally dial into my cell phone contact list. Pros: - Echo Connect uses a standard micro-USB power connection. - Very easy to set-up (knowing that it was going to go offline for about 5 minutes to update firmware) - Seems to recognize my cell phone contacts for OUTBOUND calls even with “+1” (I travel internationally) prefix. This may be my problem for Echo Connect recognizing INCOMING calls? Cons: - No Ethernet connection. - Echo Connect is huge. It’s 50% larger than an Echo Dot! and 4x to 5x as large as a 4-tuner HDHomeRun device. What’s in this thing? - Echo Connect is a home phone product but requires an activated cell phone to set up. - There is no way to edit uploaded cell phone contact list. Some business contacts I would never want to call from my home number cause confusion. One has the same first name as I and Alexa calls (butt dials?) him a lot. - Other than putting them into my cell phone contacts, there is no way to add contacts other members of my household might want to make or receive calls from. - I should be able to but cannot set-up/edit contacts on any Alexa app or PC. - No Caller ID announced from working home phone Caller ID name/number (CNAM). - No Caller ID announced from even my uploaded cell phone contact list Amazon uploaded during setup. - There’s an unreasonable time delay between picking up a call on a handset and when Alexa quits barking out “incoming call, incoming call, incoming call…” - Often my answering machine gets the incoming call before I can convince Alexa to answer. - There is no way to adjust the outgoing call volume so the person on the other end can hear me. - Echo Connect is not integrated with the rest of the Amazon ecosystem. Echo Connect does not display contact/Caller ID on other Amazon devices.