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When the Echo Buttons first came out, I never thought I'd end up using them... until it became apparent to me, that my wife simply did not like talking to Alexa. Oh sure, she'd ask her for simple stuff... like playing music or finding out things from Wikipedia. But somehow, verbally asking Alexa to turn things on & off, just didn't resonate with her. So, I purchased the buttons, so that I could setup routines for exiting & entering our residence. The 2 AAA batteries for each button come pre-installed. You only need to pull out the paper tab, before using them for the first time. Pressing a button causes the it to briefly flash blue; as button press acknowledgement. Holding down the button for about 10 seconds, after the initial blue flash, causes the button to turn orange; as it enters Bluetooth pairing mode. Like an Echo remote, each Echo Button can only be paired to 1 Echo device at a time. The easiest way to pair a button is to say "Alexa, setup my Echo Button" to the Echo device you want to pair the button with. To ensure pairing success, do not put the button into pairing mode, until Alexa gets to the part of the directions telling you to. And if you wait until the directions finish, a pairing failure is likely to occur. You can also manually pair the buttons, using the Alexa app. Once a button is paired; you might notice something "strange" in the Bluetooth section of your Echo device's settings. Specifically, if you used the Alexa voice command to pair a button; it will show up in the list of paired devices ONLY if it is attached to an Alexa Routine, or if you manually paired it using the Alexa app. Otherwise it will not be listed, but will show up in the total number of paired devices count. In my particular use for the buttons, I used Velcro to attach the buttons to the wall; near our front door, and used a P-touch label maker to label them as "Away" and "Home" (see pictures). I then created Alexa Routines to perform the necessary ingress & egress actions required. When each button is pressed, they briefly flash blue to acknowledge the local button press. And once the Alexa Routine starts, they then flash a "long green" to acknowledge the routine is starting. Overall, the ability to use the buttons to initiate the start of a routine is probably going to be the killer application for the Echo Buttons.