Optimize Your Amazon Echo With These 4 Prime Membership Perks

This story is part of 12 Days of Tips, helping you make the most of your tech, home and health during the holiday season.

If you’ve got an Amazon Echo speaker, but no Prime account, consider purchasing one through New Year’s tech sales. The new year is just days away, and it’s likely to bring deals on the newest Echo Dot and older models. Having a Prime account can bring some surprising and useful perks to your Echo. 

As a Prime member with an Echo speaker, you don’t have to listen to ads while playing music. You can also get better deals by shopping with Alexa — especially during big shopping events.

See below for four Amazon Echo features only Prime members have access to below. For more, check out these hidden Amazon Prime perks.

Listen to Amazon Music without ads

Prime users with an Echo speaker don’t have to worry about ads playing and interrupting their one-person dance parties. Since Amazon Music comes with the Prime membership, Echo owners can immediately start listening to ad-free music once they connect their device to their Amazon account.

If you decide to upgrade your account to Prime, your Amazon Echo should automatically adjust. If it doesn’t, try unplugging your Echo device and reconnecting it.

Watch Prime Video shows and movies on your Echo Show.

Molly Price/CNET

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Shop with Alexa for extra discounts

When you shop using your Amazon Echo, you can get Alexa voice deals. To hear the deals, ask “Alexa, what are my deals?” Alexa will let you know which Prime deals are available and how much you’ll save by ordering the items. You’ll have the option to add the item to your cart, buy it now or move on to the next deal.

As a Prime member, you’ll get free shipping on these items, plus exclusive access to deals for Prime Day.

Watch Prime Video on your Echo Show

If you have an Amazon Echo Show, you can stream movies and TV shows from Prime Video. To get started, say “Alexa, open Prime Video.” You can also request Alexa to show you your video library and Prime Video Watchlist.

Prime members can get 2 free audiobooks from Audible’s premium section

As a Prime member, you can download two free titles from Audible’s premium section when you sign up for a free trial. Everyone else only gets one free book to download. You can listen to the audiobooks on your Alexa devices by saying “Alexa, read my audiobook.” You can also ask to hear a specific audiobook in your library and ask Alexa to read faster. 

Note that your username for Audible and Amazon needs to be the same to listen on your Echo speaker.

For more Alexa tips, check out these five hidden Alexa features to try on your Amazon Echo. Also, here’s why you should put an Echo device in every room of your home.

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