About a week after adding Japan as the fifth country to receive Alexa and Echo devices, Amazon has now launched their voice assistant and smart speakers in Canada. In addition to Alexa and Echo devices, Amazon is also simultaneously launching Prime Music for all Canadian Prime members.
Unlike all other times when Alexa has become available in a new country, Canadian customers do not need to request an invitation to purchase the new hardware. Instead, three Echo devices are simply available for anyone to pre-order at introductory discounted prices.
The Amazon Echo is currently $99.99 CDN (~$78 USD), but will be $129.99 CDN (~$102 USD) after the introductory discount ends. The Amazon Echo Dot is $49.99 CDN (~$39 USD) and will eventually increase to $69.99 CDN (~$55 USD), and the Amazon Echo Plus is $169.99 CDN (~$133 USD) and will later increase to $199.99 CDN (~$156 USD). All devices will ship on December 5th.
Telus, a Canadian mobile carrier, is matching Amazon’s prices on Amazon Echo and Echo Plus pre-orders, but is also including a full year of Prime membership with your purchase.
Amazon says that Alexa in Canada will speak English with a Canadian accent and French is not available. They also say that 10,000 Alexa skills will be available for Canadian customers before the year ends, including skills from the Bank of Montreal, Air Canada, the Weather Network, TD Bank, and CBC.
Prime Music is also launching today in Canada. All existing and future Canadian Prime members now get access to over 1 million songs for free.
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Canda…
Dmn it! Sorry bout tht! I hve fixed it.
Clearly Elias is not part of the Eh team!
Forgot an A, ay?
Maple syrup mafia is going to feel insulted
As an Australian living in Canda ….. I am outraged on behalf of all Candans eh!
Pre-order from Telus and get a free year of prime:
https://www.telus.com/en/on/mobility/accessories/product/amazon-echo?INTCMP=Tcom_Home_BAN_amazon-echo-preorder&linktype=hero_banner
Thought I’d post my experience in case this helps anyone. I’ve been using Alexa in Canada (a US account) for the past year. I switched everything over to my Amazon.ca account on Day 1 (yeah, I’m an early adopter so I live for feeling the pain) but it’s a huge disappointment. :(
You’ll basically lose the majority of your skills. Whether they get activated in Canada by the end of the year or not is up in the air right now. There goes my nightly Jeopardy game!!
Don’t count on any video services…that includes Amazon Video, Amazon FireTV control, Video Cameras from your Echo Show, or even recipes. None of this looks to be supported any time soon, so be warned, you’ll lose it all! …well for the foreseeable future.
Finally, I’ve noticed you can’t do voice training or custom list like you can in the US version.
What you DO get is…
Amazon Music…if you have prime
Amazon.ca delivery status
some local Canadian skills (not much at the moment)
Anyways, hope this helps someone.
I’m in Canada and I’ve had a couple of FTV’s, 1 x Stick and 2 Echo Dot’s since they were released in the US and all have been setup on a US Amazon account.
As soon as it was announced I moved them all over to my Canadian Amazon account and as Jeremy said, you lose a lot of things – some I believe will be available before year end but that is my opinion.
One thing that has hacked me off though is the inability to use my FTV’s to stream from prime video. I contacted Amazon and they said they as the devices were bought from the US, they would not work in Canada for prime video.
One of the FTV’s is rooted and has an old ROm on that I’ve never updated. Does anyone know if I put the latest pre-rooted ROM on will that device work with Prime Video ?
My shield works great with Prime Video so know it isn’t that I need a VPN etc etc.