Amazon Echo

AlbaCrush

AlbaCrush

Recycles dryer sheets
Joined
Apr 10, 2016
Messages
99
Location
Germantown
I've been debating buying one for myself for Christmas.

I'd love to hear some feedback from others who have one. Do you need to subscribe to a service to get the most out of it?

thanks
 
I've found it wanting. It can't even answer questions about its own capabilities. Needs work. If you must get one get the Dot on sale.
 
I have an Echo at our main house, and a Dot at the vacation home. I use it a lot. I stream music, have Alexa give my "flash briefing" every morning (a news update), add items to the shopping list and to do list, ask about the current weather and the forecast.

I play Jeopardy and have Alexa quiz me on state capitals. I get sports scores, schedules, and random information (how old is Ron Jaworski?)

For streaming music, Alexa can pair with Pandora /Spotify / I heart Radio. If you are a Prime member you can listen to free Prime music. I recently subscribed to Amazon Music Unlimited, and of course Alexa pairs very well with that, but I had no issues using the free versions of the three services mentioned.

I also have a couple of smart home devices controlled by Alexa.

The Dot is just the "brain" of the Echo, with a very basic speaker. The Echo's speaker is pretty good. If the $180 for the Echo is more than you care to spend you can get all the functionality with the Dot, but you'll want to plug in to a speaker for streaming music.
 
Have Dot and one $39 bluetooth speaker with a 60' range. DW takes the speaker into various rooms when interfaced with the Dot playing from Pandora. Very cool and no need for the Echo.
 
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I have a Google Home and an Amazon Dot. Since I have a Google Play music account and not not an Amazon music account the Home is better for me at this point. It seems to be much more "intelligent" as well, and the voice is less droid like. If you have a Chromecast, it's easy to stream music or YouTube to your TV with the Google device. . YMMV, based on the ecosystem you're in.
 
Once you get used to Echo you'll find you can't get along without it.

Yes, there is the obvious "ask a question, get an immediate answer" thing (how many miles in 136 kilometers?) but it is also handy for "To do" and "Shopping" lists. (Particularly in the kitchen with the remote.) Or to get the "News" read to you or the local weather (and forecast).

A less obvious thing is, for example: Here in Denver it can go from 70º one day to 10º the next -- I have a Nest thermostat that is programmable for the most part but fails when that happens. It is easier to simply tell Alexa to set a certain temperature than it is to manually adjust the thermostat.

Best $100+ I have ever spent.
 
I understand that everything you say to "Alexa" is uploaded and stored by Amazon ( for "research purposes only" ). You have to specifically request the voice file to be deleted, but then it begins recording your activity immediately again.

It seems like a neat toy but I'm not sure i want a hot mike in my home 24/7 (although it can be hacked to speak thru the old Billy Bass ).

_B
 
Beldar said:
I understand that everything you say to "Alexa" is uploaded and stored by Amazon ( for "research purposes only" ). You have to specifically request the voice file to be deleted, but then it begins recording your activity immediately again.
Click to expand...

I am not sure what you are saying. Echo's microphone is "live" only when it is triggered by the spoken word "Alexa." It, then, responds to your request verbally and the microphone is then deactivated until you say "Alexa" again. There are no "open mike" situations that you are unaware of.

In any event, I am unsure why Amazon (or anyone for that matter) would be interested in my asking for a "News Flash" or "How tall is the Washington Monument." On the other hand, it is a "learning" device and would need to track the accuracy of the responses and the type of query so there probably is some feedback required/needed.

Of course, if you forget to put on your tin-foil lined hat, it can read your mind.
 
We picked up a Dot on sale for Black Friday, $33. Really enjoying it. Have it paired with our main sound bar under the TV most of the time. Wife enjoys the instant unit conversion that she can get hands-free while working in the kitchen. It is also our new alarm for weekday mornings, which I set up completely by voice.
 
RonBoyd said:
I am not sure what you are saying. Echo's microphone is "live" only when it is triggered by the spoken word "Alexa." It, then, responds to your request verbally and the microphone is then deactivated until you say "Alexa" again. There are no "open mike" situations that you are unaware of.
Click to expand...

If the mike isn't live, how does it know you said "Alexa"?:cool:
 
Exrook said:
If the mike isn't live, how does it know you said "Alexa"?:cool:
Click to expand...

Good point.

Yikes! That means each of my computers, my cell phones , and even my exterior door locks (and probably others I don't even know about) are listening and reporting everything to some poor bored slob... I don't think I want to know all this.
 
Looking to pick up the Echo but I want to wait for another black Friday deal. I mis-read the ad and thought it was for the entire week and missed the sale. Has anyone heard of an upcoming sale or a website offering a reduced price?

Thanks!!!
 
Supposedly, the Echo only listens for the "Alexa" while waiting for you. Supposedly, nothing is passed on to the Mother Ship until you ask it to do something after saying it's name.

Supposedly, all the banks, insurance companies, retailers, government entities, etc. that you have given your personal information to are protecting it with top-notch, state of the art security controls. Yea. Right.
 
Thanks for all the input/advice. I had the wife order me the Echo for my Christmas gift when she asked me what I wanted. There is a big demand for the product and even with 2 day shipping, I won't receive it until December 27.

I noticed that there is an optional voice remote that Amazon sells for the Echo. Does anyone have this and is it worth getting?

Thanks
 
I don't have an Echo and have never used one, so take this with a huge pinch of salt. It strikes me as something of a convenience that is solving a "problem" which didn't really exist in the first place.

However, having said that, I was one of the last people to get a cellphone, and also one of the last to upgrade from a dumbphone to a smartphone. I still don't have a tablet. (I don't own a car, but do have hot and cold running water and an inside toilet :LOL:)
 
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Major Tom said:
I don't have an Echo and have never used one, so take this with a huge pinch of salt. It strikes me as something of a convenience that is solving a "problem" which didn't really exist in the first place.

However, having said that, I was one of the last people to get a cellphone, and also one of the last to upgrade from a dumbphone to a smartphone. I still don't have a tablet. (I don't own a car, but do have hot and cold running water and an inside toilet :LOL:)
Click to expand...



It actually makes a really great clock radio even it you don't use it for anything else
 
I tend to agree that it is a solution to a non existent problem. Both DW and i have e-readers and mini speakers ($8.95) and can stream Pandora or my music from the cloud
 
wyecrabber1 said:
Looking to pick up the Echo but I want to wait for another black Friday deal. I mis-read the ad and thought it was for the entire week and missed the sale. Has anyone heard of an upcoming sale or a website offering a reduced price?

Thanks!!!
Click to expand...

Amazon has the Echo on sale right now for $139.

I canceled my order for $179 since it didn't ship yet and reordered it for the $139 sale price. :)
 
Beldar said:
I understand that everything you say to "Alexa" is uploaded and stored by Amazon ( for "research purposes only" ). You have to specifically request the voice file to be deleted, but then it begins recording your activity immediately again.

It seems like a neat toy but I'm not sure i want a hot mike in my home 24/7 (although it can be hacked to speak thru the old Billy Bass ).

_B
Click to expand...

Do you have a smart phone? A tablet? If so, then they too could be "listening".

AND...if you have Facebook installed on either, you have already given permission to let them listen in. :D

As far as the Echo is concerned, I have had one for a while (was offered it super cheap when it under limited release) and just got a Dot for the bathroom. I find it quite useful, but truth be told...I don't have to have them. I got the Echo for about $50 "back in the day" and the Dot during a "flash sale" for about $30. I don't think I would pay the full amount at anytime, though.
 
I just read an article in Bloomberg Technology explaining why the companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc. want to hear what people have to say.

Link - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...osoft-and-amazon-love-the-sound-of-your-voice

"Voice recognition has come a long way in the past few years. But it's still not good enough to popularize the technology for everyday use and usher in a new era of human-machine interaction, allowing us to talk with all our gadgets—cars, washing machines, televisions. Despite advances in speech recognition, most people continue to swipe, tap and click. And probably will for the foreseeable future.

What's holding back progress? Partly the artificial intelligence that powers the technology has room to improve. There's also a serious deficit of data—specifically audio of human voices, speaking in multiple languages, accents and dialects in often noisy circumstances that can defeat the code.

So Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and China's Baidu have embarked on a world-wide hunt for terabytes of human speech. Microsoft has set up mock apartments in cities around the globe to record volunteers speaking in a home setting. Every hour, Amazon uploads Alexa queries to a vast digital warehouse. Baidu is busily collecting every dialect in China. Then they take all that data and use it to teach their computers how to parse, understand and respond to commands and queries."
 
Major Tom said:
I don't have an Echo and have never used one, so take this with a huge pinch of salt. It strikes me as something of a convenience that is solving a "problem" which didn't really exist in the first place.

However, having said that, I was one of the last people to get a cellphone, and also one of the last to upgrade from a dumbphone to a smartphone. I still don't have a tablet. (I don't own a car, but do have hot and cold running water and an inside toilet :LOL:)
Click to expand...

+1

what's interesting in how one is celebrated while the other is the national symbol for entitlement.

Can't help ya on this one op, all I need is wireless speakers. I'm actually a bit old fashion, lol I like going thru my pantry and making a grocery list on paper
 
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