If seeing a video of the Amazon Voice Call is helpful, we have one on our website demonstrating Amazon Alexa 'Voice Call' feature using synthetic speech on an SGD. The video highlights both the sender and receiver side of the interaction. There is also a brief comparison of synthetic speech vs. natural speech transmission through the Echo. NOTE the message with the SGD was encoded in advance with a comma between each word to optimize clarity.   A link to the video is here too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weEbmtGOWWA

On 5/11/17, 2:03 PM, "xxxxxx@alsa.simplelists.com on behalf of xxxxxx@improveability.com" <xxxxxx@alsa.simplelists.com on behalf of xxxxxx@improveability.com> wrote:

    This is exciting and I played with it a bit last night.  I will say that
    for some reason it would not recognize my sister's name.  I tried a
    couple things to get it to work, but I actually could not resolve the
    issue - even with changing the name to something totoally different, it
    simply would not recognize her contact.

    My sister does not have an echo, but she called me with the app and I
    was able to answer and hang up totally independently and hands free!

    We are living in exciting days!

    But, this will not be comfort for those that already think that Alexa is
    listening to all of there conversations in the home! :)

    Sincerely,

    Antoinette Verdone, MSBME, ATP
    Owner, Rehabilitation Engineer
    ImproveAbility, LLC
    Office/Text: 512-522-1705
    Cell: 512-497-6026
    Email: xxxxxx@improveability.com
    Web: www.improveability.com
    Fax: 888-501-1009
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    -------- Original Message --------
    Subject: [no phi] Amazon echo for hands-free calling
    From: Edward Hitchcock <xxxxxx@sralab.org>
    Date: Thu, May 11, 2017 11:24 am
    To: "'xxxxxx@alsa.simplelists.com'" <xxxxxx@alsa.simplelists.com>

       Just thought I would mention that I set up the new calling feature on
    our Amazon echo today. It does seem to work as advertised. I can use my
    voice only to call a contact (who must have the Alexa app installed and
    enabled for calling), have a conversation with them by speakerphone
    through the Alexa echo, and then hang up hands-free. It does not appear
    to support calling someone with a landline, they must have the Alexa
    app. I can also send text messages by voice. If they send me a text
    message I can use Alexa to play it.

     There is no voicemail. Sending a voice message at least at this point
    appears to be received as a text message.

     As expected, I am able to use a communication device to send the voice
    messages to place the call as well. A little bit tricky with some of the
    sequencing of course, but doable.

     Exciting!

     Edward Hitchcock
     Occupational Therapist

     355 E. Erie St, Chicago, IL 60611
     312-238-1000 office
     312-238-0000 fax
     xxxxxx@sralab.org

     sralab.org

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