Problem
Seattle daughter wanted to give her elderly mother 300 miles away in Oregon an Amazon Echo as Christmas present. Mother does not have a smartphone (or tablet) or an Amazon account. Mother does have Internet and WiFi in her house.
Solution
Echo was purchased by daughter at local store to insure no affiliation with an Amazon account. Echo was then configured to work with daughter’s Amazon account and the mother’s WiFi credentials and mother’s location (for location-based Echo services, such as weather). A special radio station on Pandora was set up on the daughter’s account to stream mother’s favorite music.
Daughter created a simple cheat sheet for the mother.
Once working in the temporary setup, unit was boxed up with cheat sheet and shipped to mother. Mother opened the present, plugged the Echo in, waited for it to connect to the home WiFi, and within two minutes with the cheat sheet was able to use the Amazon Echo.
Very delighted mother!