If you ask me what are the best uses for smart speakers other than playing music, I'd put intercom functionality near the top of the list.

Amazon's Alexa assistant has long offered the ability to broadcast voice messages between Echo speakers, and so has Google Assistant on Google Home and Nest speakers. Last week, Apple also joined the fray, adding an intercom feature to HomePod speakers and the new HomePod Mini.

That means no matter which smart speaker ecosystem you use, you can cheaply and easily set up a home intercom system instead of having to yell across the house. So let's review all the ways you can do that:

Broadcast basics

First off, broadcasting only works between speakers that use the same voice assistant. Alexa can send a message to other Echo speakers, for instance, but can't communicate with Google Home speakers or HomePods.

With that in mind, here's how to send messages between speakers:

• Echo speakers: Say "Alexa, broadcast" (Also: "tell everyone" or "announce.")
• Google speakers: Say "Hey Google, broadcast" (Also: "tell everyone," "announce," or "shout.")
• HomePods: Say "Hey Siri, intercom" (Also: "tell everyone" or "announce.")

In all three cases, you can either wait for a prompt to begin your message, or you can include it in your initial voice command (for instance, by saying "Alexa, broadcast it's time for dinner.") Other speakers will then play back the audio exactly as you said it.

When you receive a message and want to reply, just use another "broadcast" voice command to send your own message back. You can also say "Hey Google, reply" on Google speakers or "Hey Siri, reply" on HomePods.

Specify a speaker

With Google Home or Nest speakers, or with Apple's HomePods, you can also broadcast to a specific room instead of all speakers.

For this to work, make sure you've assigned your speakers to a room first.

• Google speakers: In the Google Home app, tap on a speaker, hit the gear icon, tap "Room," then choose a room and hit "Save."
• HomePods: In the Apple Home app, long-press your HomePod, scroll down and select "Room."

Once you've done that, just include the name of the room in your voice command, for instance by saying "Hey Google, broadcast to the office" or "Hey Siri, intercom to the living room." (Alexa, alas, does not support this.)

Broadcast from other devices

Don't have lots of smart speakers at home? You can also broadcast messages from your mobile device to whatever speakers you've got, even from outside the house. It's great for all those times when you need to reach someone at home and no one's picking up the phone. Just use the Alexa app for Echo speakers, the Google Assistant app for Google and Nest speakers, or Siri on an iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch.

You can also broadcast from the road using Apple's CarPlay system (with HomePods), Google's Android Auto system (with Google Home or Nest speakers), or Amazon's nifty Echo Auto gadget (with Echo speakers).

Amazon's Fire TV streaming devices can handle broadcasts as well. Just use the Alexa voice button the remote to send a message, and if your TV is on, it'll play back any broadcasts sent from elsewhere in the house.

Make a two-way call

When a single broadcast message won't suffice, consider starting a two-way intercom call instead.

With Amazon's Drop In feature, you can talk through any other Echo speaker around the house by saying "Alexa, drop in on [room or speaker name]." Your speakers will light up with a green ring, and you can instantly start talking between them. You can also say "Alexa, drop in on all devices" to start a group call with all your speaker. To stop the call, just say "Alexa, hang up."

Keep in mind that if you've given Alexa access to your contact list, anyone in your contacts can drop in on you this way by default. To stop this from happening, open the Alexa app, then head to Devices > Echo & Alexa > [Speaker Name] > Communications > Drop In, then select either "My Household" (which cuts off external contacts) or "Off" (which disables Drop In entirely). Repeat this for each speaker and Fire TV device in your home.

Google Home and Nest devices support two-way intercom calls as well, but with a little more friction against unwanted calls. Just say, "Hey Google, call [room name]," and the speaker in that room will start ringing. Whoever's in the room can then say "Hey Google, pick up" and "Hey Google, hang up" to start and end the call, respectively.

What about two-way calls on HomePods? Well, that's one area where Apple hasn't quite caught up yet.
 

Paid features for Google Photos: The economics of Google Photos is currently one of tech's great mysteries. The service can host an unlimited number of your personal photos and videos for free, has no ads, and doesn't mine your photos for personal data. The only way it makes money for Google is through photo printing and optional Google Drive storage use for full-resolution uploads (which don't look vastly different from the compressed images that Google stores for free).

So perhaps it's no surprise that Google is trying out a new monetization scheme. As Engadget reports, Google is rolling out a version of its "Color Pop" editing feature that requires a Google One subscription, and the folks at XDA-Developers have found evidence of more editing tools that might also land behind a paywall.

I don't begrudge Google for that, especially compared to the alternative of data harvesting and targeted ads. But it's also interesting to see Google trying to make something out of Google One, which launched in 2018 as a suite of modest benefits for paid Google Drive storage subscribers. Between last month's launch of VPN service for top-tier Google One plans and the possibility of pro editing tools for Google Photos users, those benefits are starting to seem like less of an afterthought.

The downside of small phones: "Though I love the iPhone 12 Mini, I would never buy one for myself, and wouldn't recommend it to most people." That's the conclusion by Engadget's Chris Velazco after reviewing Apple's smallest iPhone since 2016's iPhone SE. (The iPhone 12 Mini is just a tiny bit smaller than the new iPhone SE, though it has a larger screen.)

On paper, the iPhone 12 Mini fulfills a lot of techies' wishes for a tiny phone that doesn't compromise on capabilities. The problem, as Velazco and other reviewers have pointed out, is battery life. Physics dictates that a smaller phone will have a smaller battery, and on the iPhone 12 Mini that translates to a phone that may not last through a full day. It turns out there's a reason our phones keep getting larger: We like bigger screens, yes, but we also use our phones more, which means we need longer battery life to keep up.

Someday, someone will solve the small phone dilemma, perhaps with new battery chemistry or with foldable display tech. But unfortunately for the iPhone 12 Mini, that day is not today.

Apple's "One More Thing:" Speaking of Apple, the company is having its last press event of the year later today. New MacBooks are almost certainly on the agenda, powered by Apple silicon instead of Intel processors for the first time. We might also hear about other Apple gear, like wireless headphones or the long-rumored "Apple Tags" item finders. As with Apple's earlier events, I'll be hanging out in the Advisorator chat room on Slack if you want to talk about news as it's happening. Join here.
 

New tricks in iOS 14.2: Last week, Apple released the somewhat-meaty iOS 14.2 update for iPhones and iPads. Here's a rundown of what's new:

• New emoji, including pinched fingers, a ninja, and a smiling face with a tear. Here's the full list.
• A Shazam shortcut in Control Center, so you can quickly identify songs that are playing. To enable this, head to Settings > Control Center, then tap the + icon next to "Music Recognition." Open Control Center (by swiping down from the top-right of your phone) and tap the new Shazam icon to name that tune.
• Change a HomePod's default music app from Apple Music to other services (starting with Pandora). In the Home app, hit the Home icon, select "Home Settings," then tap on your profile picture. Use the "Default Service" menu to switch what happens when you ask Siri for music or podcasts.
• Yearly spending overview for Apple Card. To see what you've spent, open the Wallet app and tap on your card, then hit "Activity," where you'll find the new "Yearly" toggle at the top.
• Optimized charging for AirPods Pro, which avoids charging them past 80% until right when you typically start using them. This is based on your usage patterns and can help battery life hold up over time. If you want to disable this, head to Settings > Bluetooth and hit the "i" button next to your AirPods.
• The aforementioned Intercom functionality.

Bring back some of Google's old icons: Last month, Google overhauled its logos for services like Gmail and Google Calendar, and a lot of folks were not fans of the new look. Fortunately, there's a new a Chrome extension called Restore old Google icons that reverts the logos for Gmail, Calendar, and Meet back to their old selves.

The extension isn't perfect. It only shows the new icons inside your browser tabs, not on the sites themselves, and the old Calendar icon doesn't show up properly in your dock if you install the site as a web app. But as a small act of resistance against arbitrary design changes, it works. (Now, if only someone would do the same for Slack.)

Slow down your spending sprees: Speaking of anti-corporate Chrome extensions, a new one called Slow tries to introduce a bit of friction to the buying process when you shop online. Once installed, you can click on the extension button and enter the URL for any sites where you frequently shop, like Amazon.com or BestBuy.com. The extension will then add a little interstitial message that you'll have to dismiss before checking out on those sites. It won't actually stop you from buying anything, but it might make you question your impulsiveness at a time of the year when the temptation to shop is persistent.

Need a more robust level of discouragement? Check out Icebox instead. The free Chrome extension replaces the "add to cart" button on popular shopping sites with its own "put it on ice" button, which sends the item to a holding area in the extension's main menu. You then have to wait a specified period of time—30 days by default—before you can complete the purchase. There's no way to bypass the waiting period aside from using incognito mode or a separate web browser altogether.

More on masked email: Back in June, I mentioned a masked email service called Abine Blur in my roundup of useful privacy tools after hearing about it from an Advisorator subscriber. (Thanks, Gib!) It's since become one of my favorite tools, so wrote a longer primer on it for Fast Company this week. Blur generates email addresses that you can use while signing up for things online, then forwards any emails sent to those addresses to your real inbox. If a sender starts spamming you, or you don't want to receive their emails anymore, you can cut off the forwarding with one click, and the sender will have no way to reach you.

While the idea of avoiding spam through masked or secondary email addresses has been around for a long time, Blur is easier to use than other methods I've tried, which helps ensure that I actually use it in the first place. If you missed my earlier newsletter or need a refresher, check out the FastCo story here.
 

• Got an Android phone? Now you can schedule text messages to send later.
• Spotify's Apple Watch app now streams directly over cellular connections.
• An update for WhatsApp makes deleting media files easier.
• Apple's iPhone 12 Studio site lets you try on different case combos.
• Better Business Bureau to T-Mobile: Stop over-hyping 5G.
• This new Leica camera does black-and-white only.

For today only, Amazon's holding a big sale on hard drives, thumb drives, and SD cards. You can view the full deal list here, but below are some highlights:

• WD Elements 10 TB desktop drive for $150. (Amazon Prime card holders also get 10% cash back instead of the usual 5%.)
• Toshiba Canvio 2 TB portable drive for $56.
• PNY 512 GB USB thumb drive for $70. (Prime card holders also get 15% cash back.)
• For the build-your-own PC crowd: Crucial P2 250 GB M.2 SSD for $36.

Also from Amazon: If you're an Amazon Prime subscriber, you might be able to get $5 in Amazon.com credit by visiting this link and then watching a video on Prime. (It seems to have worked for me.)

One other deal worth noting: Samsung's Galaxy Tab S6 Android tablet is on sale for $320, its lowest price yet and more than half off the original price. (You can also save a bit more by trading in an eligible phone or tablet.) It's a year old already, but still a very nice iPad alternative for Android enthusiasts, especially at this price.
 

Hey folks, watch for an additional email coming from me in the next day or two with some news regarding your Advisorator subscription. It's something I've been working on for a while and I'm excited to share it with you all!

In the meantime, drop into the Advisorator chat room on Slack, or send me an email with any tech questions you might have.

Also, one correction on last week's newsletter: With the new Apple One subscription bundles, I had written that the most expensive "Premier" tier was not launching until later this year. It is, in fact, available now, but without Apple's Fitness+ service, which is coming later. Sorry about the error.

Until next time,
Jared