Echo & Alexa Forums

Creating audio out jack on Echo?

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AlBot

Creating audio out jack on Echo?
« on: June 02, 2015, 10:54:01 pm »
From https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Amazon+Echo+Teardown/33953 it looks like you just pop the bottom off, and you have two sets of twisted red/black cables that hook to the sub/tweeter.

Could I just splice the tweeter/sub red-red together and tweeter/sub black-black together to the female end of a headphone jack, then I'd have an audio out port?

I'd like to hook it to my main house-speakers and just control all of the music via voice.

Also, it'd be nice if I could jump off one of the microphones and run a mic-out so I could run a mic to another room of my house, then I could control all the music from anywhere.

Offline jwlv

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Re: Creating audio out jack on Echo?
« Reply #1 on: June 03, 2015, 02:30:30 pm »
It seems that jumping off the speaker wires can be do-able. I don't see any problems with that, unless you're trying to drive too many speakers throughout your entire house. And even so, you can probably wire it to the high level input of an amplifier.

As for extending the microphone, I think it may negatively affect your Echo. It seems to me that the 7 microphones are finely tuned so that the Echo knows in which direction you are speaking from. That is how it filters out background noises. Whenever you speak to Alexa, the blue ring on top lights up. The lighter/brighter portion of the blue ring indicate the direction you are speaking from. If there is background noise such as from a TV, Alexa can usually understand me if I stand still and speak. If I'm walking around the room and speak, Alexa will almost always fail in understanding what I said.

Giblet

Re: Creating audio out jack on Echo?
« Reply #2 on: June 25, 2015, 09:10:01 am »
I would add a 220 ohm 1/4 watt resistor from each of the tweeter/sub red leads to the center pin of the phone jack to bring the output voltage down to headphone levels.

Even the Aux-Input jacks on a receiver don't want speaker levels, and I wouldn't want to bypass crossover circuitry on the amplifier (tying the leads together would defeat the crossover and likely damage the tweeter).

Side-note: does anyone else think Alexa sounds like she's at the bottom of a plastic trash bin?

Every room has different acoustics, granted, but Alexa is extremely weak on treble.

wjflier2

Re: Creating audio out jack on Echo?
« Reply #3 on: July 15, 2015, 10:09:55 am »
Extending the microphone is as easy as using and old cell phone as an intercom.

ScarlettPhoenix

Re: Creating audio out jack on Echo?
« Reply #4 on: July 15, 2015, 12:10:21 pm »
Side-note: does anyone else think Alexa sounds like she's at the bottom of a plastic trash bin?
Every room has different acoustics, granted, but Alexa is extremely weak on treble.

Her sound has changed since the beginning. I agree with some of the other posters from another board that she is talking much softer these days.

Ultramanv

Re: Creating audio out jack on Echo?
« Reply #5 on: September 24, 2015, 09:38:50 am »
I like this idea as then you could connect a bluetooth transceiver and send audio to any bluetooth receiver.. My house has alot of speaker lights (MusicLites) installed in diff rooms and i was looking for a way to stream Echos music to them...