Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

How to send a note using Visual ID on Echo Show 15

Amazon’s Echo Show 15 is touted as the biggest and best of the Alexa devices. With a bigger screen for more information, plus the ability to handle lots of daily tasks, Echo Show 15 is meant to become a family home center. One of the things Echo Show 15 lets you do is set up Visual ID, which is Amazon’s facial recognition service. By seeing and recognizing your face using the built-in camera, the Show 15 can personalize results and responses just for you — or for members of the family. If you need a quick primer on that, read how to set up Visual ID here.

Difficulty

Easy

Duration

5 minutes

What You Need

  • Amazon Echo Show 15

One of the personalization options in the Echo Show 15 is the ability to send a note to a family member. It's worth pointing out there are two options here: Sending a Note and sending a Sticky. Here’s what to know about each and send them.

Notes and Stickys: What's the difference?

Notes are wrapped in little digital envelopes and are a cute communication tool. They’re not terribly proactive, in that you need to see them on the screen or ask if you have any. There’s no verbal alert from Alexa informing you that you’ve got mail. The Note notification appears and disappears from the screen seemingly at will.

Sticky notes are just like they sound; they stay stuck to the screen in the widget gallery and look like a digital Post-it note on the screen.

amazon fall 2021 event everything announced echo show 15
Image used with permission by copyright holder

How to get Alexa to send a Note

To write a Note, just say, “Alexa, send a Note to Erin.” Alexa will take the dictation via your voice and deliver it to that person the next time they pass by the screen and the camera recognizes them.

To send a Note to a specific person, the sender and recipient both need to have Visual ID and Voice ID enabled. If your recipient doesn’t have these features set up, you can still leave something for them — you’ll just do it as a Sticky instead.

how to send note using visual id amazon echo ssticky
Image used with permission by copyright holder

How to get Alexa to send a Sticky

Step 1: If your person is not part of Visual ID, you can simply say, “Alexa, write a Sticky.”

Step 2: You’ll dictate the contents of the note by voice, or you can type it in.

Step 3: The note will stay stuck to the screen as part of the widget grid until you tap and hold to remove it or ask Alexa to delete it.

Notes and Stickies make it easy to pass messages between family or household members on the go, whether they use Visual ID or not.

Erin Lawrence
Erin has over 20 years of experience as a journalist in the media and news industries, with time both on camera and behind…
How to use the Echo Show as a security camera
An Amazon Echo Show 8 sits on a wooden desk.

The Amazon Echo Show is a terrific smart display with numerous capabilities. You can use it to stream Netflix, your favorite playlists, and top podcasts. Need some help cooking dinner? Ask Alexa to pull up a recipe or two for you. Missing mom and dad? As long as they own an Echo Show themselves, Amazon’s Drop In will let you initiate a video call between two different Show devices.

Read more
The most common Echo Show problems and how to fix them
Amazon Echo Show 10.

If you're looking to add a smart display to your home, the Amazon Echo Show is a great option. Bringing the best of Alexa into the visual realm, the Echo Show allows you to tap into real-time video from your home's smart security system, have video calls with friends and family using Alexa's Drop In feature, stream from Hulu and Prime Video, run photo slideshows, and so much more.

But glitches happen, and the Echo Show is not without its small trail of troubles. Fortunately, many of these issues have straightforward fixes. In this deep dive, we'll be taking a look at the most common Echo Show problems and how you can fix them.
Echo Show screen is flickering
This issue has been with the Echo Show since the first-generation model. What we're talking about are pulsating horizontal lines stretching across the screen. Sometimes, the malfunction appears closer to the bottom of the display, where Alexa's indicator is, or up and down the entire display. Some Echo Show owners experience this infrequently, others all the time. If your own Show is flickering, there are a few things you can try.

Read more
What an Alexa red ring means and how to fix it
Amazon Echo Dot (4th Gen) on table.

It's never a good sign when a red light appears on your electronic device. The color almost universally indicates an issue – and seeing it on your Alexa device is no different. A red ring on an Echo or Echo Show makes it nearly impossible to use, with the voice assistant unable to hear your commands (no matter how much you raise your voice).

Read more