Motorola - MOTO-AXH01 Alexa Built-In Wireless Home Telephone System - Black

I found this phone to be an interesting product. First, it’s lightweight in comparison to my older cordless phone. It comes with a charging station and a large puck that is its base, though you cannot put the phone on it. So, you need power for the charger and power for the puck. I’m not sure why you couldn’t have the puck also hold the phone so that the charger could be a secondary charger. As it is, the puck just takes up space. This brings me to a minor annoyance. Manufacturers seem to be going backwards in thinking. First, we had corded phones, then cordless, then wireless (cellular) for ultimate freedom. This unit requires you to use the enclosed Ethernet cable to your router. I have a limited number of Ethernet ports on my mesh wireless system. Our ISP provides a modem, but it only has one Ethernet port, which hooks up to one node, with the other port used by my work computer. My security camera system requires Ethernet. One of my game systems requires Ethernet. This phone requires Ethernet. I’m running out of ports. I don’t understand why, in this case, the phone isn’t truly wireless. It limits the places where I can install the phone. That all said, the phone is easy to set up. You will need to have both the Alexa app as well as the Motorola HelloVoice app on your phone for this system to work. I know that the Alexa app is also available on tablets, but I did not check to see if HelloVoice could be used on tablets or just the phone. There is a small instruction card that comes with the unit to walk you through set up. The Motorola phone synced with my cell phone’s contact list. One nice thing about this unit’s Alexa is that you do have to activate it; it doesn’t “listen” like items like the Echo Dot. If you are concerned about the “listening” capability, but want to try Alexa, this may be a good choice for you. It’s a fully functional Alexa unit on its own. If you already have Alexa, it would allow you to make calls with your Alexa units. The standby battery lasts for days. The sound is clear. The phone has a speakerphone option, but it’s not intuitive – I had to press the green phone button twice to activate it. The MOTO-AXH01 Alexa Built-In Wireless Home Telephone System is a great introduction to Alexa if you are new to the system, or already have the AI in your home and want to add a phone to the mix. I took away one star because of the need to be hooked up to the Ethernet rather than be truly wireless.

If you are in the market for a smart cordless landline phone with Alexa built-in, then this one has all the bells and whistles.  It has 2.0” full color display, hands-free speakerphone, backlit keypad and Alexa built-in to the phone. In order to set the product you will need to have an amazon account for Alexa setup, an iOS/android smartphone with Motorola hellovoice app and the amazon Alexa app installed. Search ‘Motorola hellovoice’ and ‘Alexa’ on appstore or googlestore to install it. Setup is kind of easy. First charge the handset for at least 2 hours out the box before fully setting up. Once charged,you need to have the telephone line and internet hardwired ( from the router using Ethernet cable) to the back of the hub and follow the step by step setup wizard on your hellovoice mobile app that was downloaded.  You will need to sync your contacts from your mobile phone via app if you need to use the existing contacts and have limited options to edit contacts from phone. It does saves time on inputting contacts on handset as it gets transferred from the smartphone contact list. Nice feature on this phone is that since the hub is connected to internet all the time you can start receiving call or check call history from anywhere from your mobile through hellovoice app.  Love this feature for not missing any calls. Integral Voicemail recording option from the handset is limited and you need to use the carrier voicemail option for recording. Alexa functionality is similar to other echo devices like dot, show and spot except you need to press the middle dedicated button for Alexa.  You can ask the weather, time, smart home functions, Spotify or amazon music like other echo devices which is quite handy.  With the dedicated Alexa button you can just say “Alexa call mom” or call other echo’s for drop in, or connect skype to Alexa. Another feature you can block up to 1000 numbers by either pressing the soft key with ‘Block’ when a call is received from a number that is not in the contact list or block from the hellovoice app on the mobile. You can also purchase additional handsets to add in different rooms if you need it later but it would be cheaper to purchase the 2 handset model(AXH02) or 3 handset model(AXH03) if you need more handsets. What is included in box: As shown in unboxing pictures - 1x Handset;1 x Base ;1 x AC power adapter for base; 1 x charging cradle; 1x AC power adapter for cradle; 2 x Ni-MH 750mAh rechargeable battery; 1 x telephone line cord, Ethernet cable; Manual and quick start guide. Overall great phone with new features like Alexa on a cordless landline phone. If you already own echo connect then this product is not required but will recommend this over echo connect for integrated all-in-one device.

The basic premise of having Alexa on a cordless phone works, but having it for over a week, it feels more of a concept than something that's ready for mass production. What works: I like the handset. The buttons are big, nicely separated. The color screen is easy to read. Audio sounds find on landline calls, and speakerphone is loud and clear. Batteries on the headset are standard rechargeable NiMh AAAs. No special 'packs', which is nice. The menu is like most other cordless phones, easy to navigate. Not the fastest but works fine. Alexa: This is an 'Alexa Enabled' device, not an Echo device, so it doesn't do everything an Amazon Echo does. For example, 'Drop-in' to this phone doesn't work, but one can drop-in from the phone. All other communication is possible. To invoke Alexa, one has to press the Alexa button on the phone, and works in speakerphone mode, except when on an Alexa call, which can be used like phone calls. When calling by voice using Alexa, it will dial using the landline, or if the contact is registered with Alexa, can also do an Alexa to Alexa call. If spelling a phone number (Alexa, dial 1-888-555-1212, it will dial it using the landline. It can also do any other Alexa request, including playing music, but don't. The phone's speaker is not designed for music playback. What doesn't work: Base: The base is intended to be hidden away next to your router. It's not part of the phone cradle. This is fine, but it has several limitations, in my view: - Proprietary power adapter with a barrel, not USB, and no option for battery backup. - It requires a physical ethernet connection. Alexa won't work without it. There is no support for Wi-Fi, so the base will likely be next to your router/modem and requires an available Ethernet port. - There is no voicemail. Most any cordless phone have built-in voicemail, except this, which only supports a voicemail provided by the phone company. Handset: - Buttons for the phone are logically arranged like most cordless phone, except for the Alexa button in the middle of the navigation buttons: Because the Alexa button is in the middle of the scroll up and scroll down buttons, it took me some mental training to stop trying to use the Alexa button to navigate the menus on the phone (Like looking at missed calls). - The screen is large and color, but low resolution and with contrast issues. It's adequate but could be better. The screen doesn't show Alexa notifications or cannot be used with skills. It will only tell you if Alexa is speaking, listening or processing. Alexa: - When pressing the Alexa button, there is a short beep, and either immediately followed by an Alexa tone, or the Alexa tone plays within a second or two. This is confusing because the screen says Alexa is listening before the Alexa beep comes in, so Alexa does not understand the commands that were cut off at the beginning, making a frustrating experience. App and Setup: I was able to install the phone without much issue, but it's complicated: First, it requires the "Motorola hellovoice" app. This is the same on both iOS and Android. When searching on the app stores (I use both Android and iOS), the app is made by "Meizhou Guo Wei Electronics Co., Ltd". This immediately made me suspicious. Why would I need an app from a developer in China? Later found out that this is the correct name of the company that makes this phone under the Motorola brands (and other consumer brands). It requires me to approve the amazon skill, which required one login with Amazon, then another to login to actually add the phone base to Amazon. After that it asked me to access contact information from the phone and it then immediately proceeded to upload all of my contacts to their servers to be able to sync it with my the cordless phone. I'm not aware of what privacy provisions are in place, but it's too late now, it copied all the contacts. This gets then transferred to the phone, and there is no way to filter or edit contacts on the phone. It's all or nothing. I have a lot of commercial contacts on my phone that did not need to be on the house's phone. Having hundreds of useless contacts is not useful. The app can also be used for check on the cordless phone's firmware, to see recent calls, even remotely, because all the call logs get synced with the 'Meizhou Guo Wei Electronics' servers. Conclusion: - I like the idea of having Alexa on the phone. However it's not that well integrated as it can be. - The base doesn't have Wi-Fi, and there's sometimes a delay between invoking Alexa, and it responding. - While it has Alexa, it cannot be set to listen for the wake-up word. - It requires a cell phone for the initial install. - The address book is all or nothing, there is no way to filter contacts and I didn't realize while installing it that it maintains a copy of all my contacts on the manufacturer's own servers, without proper consent. Because of this, I'm not sure who the target audience for this device is. It's too complicated for elderly users to set up, and it's not flexible enough for advanced users. If you don't mind these limitations, it's a nice cordless phone. This came with one base and one handset but there are sets with two and three handsets and a single base.

As a cordless phone it works well. I have it hooked up as a VOIP phone, and as a cordless phone it works very well. What makes the MOTO AXHO1 different it Amazon Alexa is built in. While it works great, it was very frustrating to set up. First, you need to download the Hellovoice and Alexa app to your smartphone. Once installed, you have to run the Hellovoice app, which has you connect to you Amazon Alexa account. After a few more steps the app runs an update for the base unit and handset, and this is where issues arose. The app kept trying to check for the update but couldn't find the phone and the update wouldn't run. Without getting into details, it took several resets before it finally worked, which took about 45 minutes. For Alexa functionality the remote base station is required to be continuously connected via an ethernet cable to your network. A seperate cradle for charging the handset can be placed anywhere it can be plugged into an AC outlet. The phone itself has a large color and display with easy to navigate menus. The buttons are responsive and the voice quality is very good. The speakerphone is loud and clear. Alexa functions as any other Alexa device - with the press of the dedicated Alexa button you can ask it to do anything an Alexa device does - ask aobut news, weather, play internet radio, run your smart home devcies, etc. With the handset it acts like a portable echo, allowing you to use it anywhere as long as it's withing the phones wireless range to the base station. The portability & convenience of having a Alexa device anywhere within the phone's wireless range makes this a great device if you have Alexa integrated into your phone. Unfortunately, the cumbersome setup process detracts from the experience, however once it's set up it works very well.

The Motorola - MOTO-AXH01 Wireless Home Telephone System with Alexa is another step toward the total automation of our everyday lives. In essence this is a very attractive, light-weight, streamlined, wireless telephone handset with a built-in Alexa button that allows you to use voice commands to make landline calls, place Alexa-to-Alexa calls/drop-in on other Alexa-enabled devices, make intercom calls between handsets, and also allows the handset to function as any other Alexa-enabled device would (responding to your questions and commands). The phone’s display is fairly large and well back-lit but the typeface on the screen may be a bit hard to see for those with poor vision. The buttons on the handset are minimalist and self-explanatory and the sound when using the handset or the speakerphone function is both loud and clear. The ability to make voice automated calls with one touch lends itself greatly to those with dexterity issues-those who have difficulty dialing a conventional phone or even holding its handset. The package includes all of the items (hardware and instructions) needed for a quick and easy setup. Setup requires the installation of 2 apps (Amazon Alexa & Motorola hellovoice) on a mobile device as well as the presence of an existing landline telephone and a hardwired Internet connection. The presence of other Alexa enabled devices in the home is a plus and the Alexa app allows you access to all (Kindles, Fire Sticks, Echo devices, etc.) that are registered to your Amazon account. The Motorola hellovoice app allows you to monitor incoming and outgoing calls from your mobile phone. The base unit of the device must be plugged into your router, into your landline telephone wall jack, and into a power outlet. The actual handset and wired charging base can be located anywhere in your home since it communicates wirelessly with the base. So far this unit delivers as advertised and I look forward to discovering other ways that I can utilize this phone system and Alexa to simplify my every day tasks.

This is an awesome upgrade, Alexa adds so many features to where it's more than just a regular house phone and feels much more modern. Setting it up and loading my contacts to it was super easy. You don't have to be extremely tech savvy as it's simple to use. I can especially see this helping with elderly people, so rather than having to dial numbers they can just ask Alexa to call whoever they need. Overall, the battery lasts long, the speakerphone option sounds loud and clear, and the intercom feature is pretty cool. It's a great buy if your in need of a new home phone or phone for the office.

This is more then a cordless phone or an Alexa enabled device. The combination of the two work well together. You can ask Alexa about a shipment or notification or make a call. The Moto is an internet enabled device which requires setting it up with either your Apple or Android device. First download the Motorola Hellovoice app to your IPhone or Android phone and follow the prompts on the screen to complete the setup. The app asks for access to your Amazon account, Alexa app, Cell phone contacts and the last process is to update the phone and the base unit. Once the Moto has finished the update your ready to go. It actually works very well. The sound quality on the hand set is great and you can ask all of the usual Alexa commands.

If all you want is a cordless landline phone, then this might be good, but if you're looking at the description and thinking this will be a phone to use with Alexa you'll be disappointed. The app is poor, and after you connect it still asks you to find the device each time. The phone itself only has one button for Alexa, and you cannot call from the contacts. Considering all the information about "Alexa" you'd expect to be able to do more then you actually can. You're better off just getting an actual Alexa device, or buying a regular cordless phone.