I’d imagine there are a few of you out there who purchased a bunch of Amazon Echo devices out of the gate instead of Google Home, since Echo had such a head start on Google’s smart speakers. And if that’s the case, you might want quicker access to Amazon Alexa from your phone to control your smart home or interact within the Alexa ecosystem.
Thanks to an update that arrived within the past few days, Android is now recognizing Alexa as a possible Assistant substitute in the way it has Microsoft’s Cortana. In other words, you can set Amazon Alexa to be your default Assist app instead of Google Assistant.
How do you make the switch? You’ll need the Amazon Alexa app for one. You can find that through the Google Play link below. And two, you’ll need to tell your phone to use it. You do that by heading into Settings>Apps>Default apps>Assist & voice input. You could also just search for “Assist” and you’ll likely see the “Assist app” option appear. Once you find that, you’ll tap on “Assist app” and then choose “Amazon Alexa” instead of Google.
With those steps complete, a simple long-press on your home button will load up Amazon Alexa and start listening for your command. So now, you can fire up Alexa and get info or have it complete tasks from any screen where you have access to your home button’s long-press action.
NOTE: I’ve tried this on a Pixel 2 XL running Android P and a OnePlus 5T running Android 8.1 and both worked.