About the Alexa Mobile Accessory (AMA) Kit


The Alexa Mobile Accessory (AMA) Kit allows any Bluetooth-capable device manufacturer to enable Alexa through a Bluetooth connection. With the AMA Kit, Bluetooth devices, such as headphones, speakers, and wearable audio devices become Alexa endpoints by connecting directly with the Amazon Alexa app on a mobile device. The AMA Kit, which contains documentation and development tools, is available to Alexa Voice Service (AVS) developers to simplify development of AMA-compatible devices.

Implementing AMA offers distinct advantages for both device manufacturers and their end users. Device manufacturers aren't required to develop and maintain a custom Alexa app for their devices. The AMA Kit helps you to streamline product development, software integration, and testing time, reduce product support costs, and maintain feature parity with all the features and functionality provided in the Alexa app.

For end users, an AMA implementation contributes to an Alexa experience that's consistent across Alexa Built-in accessories. With AMA, users pair your device, install the Alexa app on their mobile device, and perform a quick one-time setup to get started with Alexa.

Getting started

See AMA Kit Implementation Requirements for the list of Bluetooth, hardware, and security requirements that your accessory must support to implement the AMA Kit.

Contact your Amazon Business Development representative to get started.

AMA components

An AMA implementation has three main components:

  • Amazon Alexa app – Customers use the Amazon Alexa app to communicate with Alexa from their mobile devices. The app also acts as the Alexa endpoint for an AMA-enabled accessory. The app communicates with the accessory by receiving control and speech data and sending the Text to Speech (TTS) back to the accessory through A2DP or SCO BT/BLE profiles. When active streaming is in progress, the mixed TTS is on A2DP. Conversely, when a call is active, the mixed TTS is on SCO.
  • OEM Bluetooth-enabled accessory – The Bluetooth-enabled accessory performs the following operations for communication with Alexa:

    • Discovery, pairing, and connection establishment with Alexa cloud.
    • Performs any BLE to Classic Bluetooth protocol upgrade.
    • Establishes communications between the app and the Alexa services by sending directives and handling the events. The app communicates with the accessory by receiving control and speech data and sending the TTS back to the accessory through A2DP or SCO BT/BLE profiles. When active streaming is in progress, the TTS mixes on A2DP. Conversely, when a call is active, the mixed TTS is on SCO.

    The accessory supports push-to-talk (PTT) and/or Wake word Enabled (WWE) for near field and far field activation. For a better user experience, the accessory plays audio cues to signal the start and stop of speech. The device also communicates speech and messages to the app with the AMA protocol specifications, output TTS, and music on A2DP.

  • Accessory Companion app – Provide an accessory companion app for your users to update accessory firmware and to optionally pair the accessory with their phone. The companion app manages Over-the-Air (OTA) updates, maintains user profiles, enables PTT or WWE, and any accessory-specific settings. Pairing between the app and accessory utilizes the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) protocol.

AMA Kit architecture

The following architecture diagram shows how the main AMA Kit components interact with each other:

AMA Kit architecture

An accessory performs the following steps through the application layer:

  1. The accessory initially pairs with the OEM companion app through BLE.
  2. For devices that support a transport upgrade to Bluetooth Classic (BT Classic), the Amazon Alexa app broadcasts discovery of the accessory and connects to the accessory on the Service Discovery Protocol (SDP) profile.
  3. Control messages and user utterances communicate between the Alexa app and the accessory.
  4. This communication channel (control and voice messages) activates for transport upgrades only. Upgrades for iAP occur on MFi-certified devices.
  5. Text to speech (TTS) and music occur over the A2DP/SCO, which is then relayed on to the accessory audio hardware.

Access the AMA Kit

Contact your Amazon Business Development representative to request access to the AMA Kit.


Was this page helpful?

Last updated: Nov 17, 2023