What is Alexa Cast and how do you use it?

Introduced at the end of July, Amazon’s new feature Amazon Cast makes it easier to send Amazon Music to compatible devices straight from your phone. Amazon Cast marks yet another front on which the company is competing with Google and their own Google Cast feature, aiming to beef up their Amazon Echo smart speaker range.

The app, broadly similar to Google’s offering, lets you control what is playing on your Alexa-enabled device using just your phone. Generally, you can control music playback by voice or Bluetooth, so this new feature – while not revolutionary – is an additional, convenient and simple way to do so.

At launch, the feature is limited to using the Amazon Music app in order to control playback. We imagine that it will evolve, letting you stream music, films, podcasts and more using any app that works with Alexa-enabled devices. At present, the range of supported devices includes Amazon’s Echo speakers, third-party Alexa-enabled products and also some Fire devices.

However, there are no details on where Amazon Cast will go next, and therefore there’s no word on whether third-party apps – such as Spotify – will use the feature.

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How to use Amazon Cast

Amazon Cast is very simple and intuitive to use. Just follow these easy steps in order to get going.

• First of all, ensure that your Echo device is connected to the internet and that both your Music and Echo devices are logged in to the same Amazon account.
• Download the Amazon Music app from the App Store or Google Play.
• Open the Amazon Music app on your mobile device, and sign in.
• Look for the Amazon Cast icon at the top of the page, next to the search icon. If music is already playing, the Amazon Cast icon will be at the bottom, in between the shuffle icons.
• Tap the Alexa Cast icon and you’ll be taken to a screen showing all compatible devices within range.
• Select which device you want to play music on.
• And there you have it – the music should play from your chosen speaker. The app will stay in sync with what’s playing on the speaker so you can control what you listen to remotely.