If you’ve been using an older Amazon Echo device as a speaker through its 3.5mm aux input, Alexa voice commands to play or pause from line in may stop working. Ars Technica points to this Reddit poster claiming they received a message from Amazon about the change, which the company has confirmed. According to Amazon spokesperson Claudia Chavira Velez, “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 message does not include any explanation for why the feature was removed. It also doesn’t mention any changes to audio output functionality like connecting an external speaker to an Echo Dot. Amazon’s statement notes that the physical connection still works on the devices that have the port: Echo Plus (2nd gen), Echo (3rd gen), Echo (4th gen), and Echo Studio (1st gen). Owners can control it from within the Alexa app, as well as pair Bluetooth speakers.
As Ars Technica points out, it’s been years since Amazon released an Echo speaker with a 3.5mm aux port, and last year, Amazon also removed an Echo feature that allowed users to opt out of sending voice recordings to the cloud.
Update, October 6th: Added comment from Amazon.