Alexa Loses Control Over Aux Input on Amazon Echo Speakers

If you’ve been relying on an older Amazon Echo device to play music through its 3.5mm aux input, you might notice that Alexa voice commands for play and pause are no longer functioning. A Reddit user shared that they received a notification from Amazon regarding this change, which has since been confirmed by the company. Claudia Chavira Velez, an Amazon spokesperson, stated, “We recently notified the very small number of customers using voice requests to play or pause audio from the aux audio input on select Echo devices that this functionality will no longer be supported.”

The notification did not provide any reasons for the removal of this feature, nor did it address any changes to audio output capabilities, such as connecting an external speaker to an Echo Dot. However, Amazon clarified that the physical connection remains operational on devices equipped with the port, including the Echo Plus (2nd gen), Echo (3rd gen), Echo (4th gen), and Echo Studio (1st gen). Users can still manage audio playback through the Alexa app and can connect Bluetooth speakers.

It’s worth noting that it’s been quite some time since Amazon launched an Echo speaker with a 3.5mm aux port, and last year, the company also discontinued a feature that allowed users to opt out of sending voice recordings to the cloud.