|
I got this gadget yesterday, it's actually a pretty nice device and it works very well actually, as for the battery thing the thing is considerably bigger and heavier than your typical Bluetooth speaker, if you are looking for a portable speaker, you should be looking somewhere else.
mikemil828 fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Nov 21, 2014 |
#
¿
Nov 21, 2014 18:49
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 03:14 |
|
|
suddenlyissoon posted:How's the sound out of it? Comparable to any other bluetooth speaker? I'm not (really) an audiophile but I find the sound compares quite favorably to speakers of similar price, if given a choice between a Logitech UE Boom and this, Unless I had a serious need to take a speaker with me wherever I go, I'd go with this.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 21, 2014 20:24
|
|
|
Super Dude posted:Did you get an invite to buy one? I haven't heard anything from Amazon yet. Yes, apparently the first batch of invites was on the 18th.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 21, 2014 22:13
|
|
|
TraderStav posted:Does the echo only do mono? Yes, it's mono, instead of two small speakers it has one big downfiring speaker.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 22, 2014 05:09
|
|
|
TraderStav posted:Oh, that's poo poo. I thought the complaint was they the Moto hint was mono. I withdraw my comments! I'm pretty sure the complaint was really that as a headset you can only hear the Moto hint through one ear, it's kinda silly to compare the two, even if they have similar features they are meant for different purposes, you aren't going to be casually listening to music with the moto hint.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 22, 2014 18:17
|
|
|
It looks like a second, bigger round of invites just went out, so you guys might want to check your e-mail.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 25, 2014 18:41
|
|
|
Folly posted:Sorta. You could do an audiobook fairly well with it. And I have small kids, so I spend more time listening to music with only one earbud in that I'd like to admit. It seems pretty likely that the Amazon endgame for the echo is to have it become a centralized voice controller for Internet of things gadgets such as smart thermostats and wifi light bulbs among other things, it doesn't do that now however, mostly because it would be expensive to acquire the partnerships necessary to do this and they honestly don't know if all that many people would really comfortable with an always listening device. That's why incidentally they are doing this invitation system with the 180 day return policy, it allows them to gauge the interest of a particular product while avoiding a fiasco like the fire phone. If it turns out to be successful since the echo is mostly cloud based they can pretty easily add IoT functionality later, and if it's not they can back out without too much damage to their bottom line.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 25, 2014 21:19
|
|
|
Whirlwind Jones posted:Reminder that they're giving away Fire phones for free when like 6 months ago people bought them for $300. That's why they have the invite system, it's doubtful that they are making all that much of a surplus of them. Edit: For those on the fence it's probably the best Bluetooth speaker at 100 dollars you can buy. mikemil828 fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Dec 8, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Dec 8, 2014 19:07
|
|
|
baka kaba posted:Is it? The only major review I saw was CNET saying it's pretty bad for music I actually have the Echo (if you have any questions feel free to ask) and I haven't encountered any of the distortion issues that the CNET guy claims, not sure what the hell he's talking about.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 10, 2014 04:00
|
|
|
zandert33 posted:Silly question: Even if it is a problem you can always change the trigger name to Amazon.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 27, 2015 20:53
|
|
|
Well, it looks like the echo is doing well enough to warrant a couple of updates. Echo can control bluetooth devices using voice control now, which was my biggest beef with the device. Also they improved the voice recognition too so it may recognize things that it didn't before.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 31, 2015 02:03
|
|
|
New update, Pandora is now fully accessible on the echo, you can tell it play particular stations, create a station for a particular band and thumbs up/down songs by voice, baseball and soccer scores are also available. In other news this whole 'invitation to try out Amazon's weird products' thing seems to be working out for them, cuz they have a new weird product. The Amazon dash button, which is basically a button connected to wifi that is tethered to a specific brand (such as tide), just connect the button, tell it through the phone which product you wanna have it order. And when ever you need more, push butan and more gets shipped your way. Need mo diapers? Push the Huggies butan, need mo trash bags? Push the glad butan, and so forth. Unlike the echo, the various companies participating in this will pay for you button for you, tethering you to their product makes it a easy price to pay.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 2, 2015 17:04
|
|
|
Another update, you can now use Echo to control Phillips Hue bulbs and WeMo devices, just tell it to discover appliances and you can tell echo to turn stuff off and on at your leisure.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 8, 2015 18:45
|
|
|
Arsenic Lupin posted:I do wonder if Amazon is happy with the experiment, and when they'll broaden it. I'd like a second Echo for the bedroom because I am lazy. They are happy enough to be updating it far more often than they had been doing, speaking of which Prime Stations are now available in case you are bored with prime playlists.
|
|
#
¿
May 8, 2015 22:24
|
|
|
DarkSun6890 posted:Just got my invite email, and I'm torn. What's the process to listen to songs on pandora or my itunes library? Can I just ask Alexa to play "this specific song" in my itunes library, or create "Michael Jackson pandora station"? Do I need to use the app to do so? I don't store music on my ipad, but have a ton on my desktop. Basically I'm reluctant to pay the $25 for amazon music on top of the $150 price tag for the Echo. Pandora is easy, you create or play any stations you've previously created by voice, you do however have to link your pandora account to the echo first you can either use an app or a web browser to do this iTunes is more difficult the echo can be used as a Bluetooth speaker but it's unlikely that your desktop has Bluetooth, the cheapest and easiest solution would be to move just the music you want to play onto your phone or tablet and have the echo connect to that.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 20, 2015 01:05
|
|
|
Super Dude posted:Building those hooks into their software isn't a 5 minute project. The extremely small user-base of the Echo probably doesn't justify the cost of the development. Maybe when the Echo is more common in households you will see better integration with those services (I wouldn't hold my breath for iTunes though). Well that user base is going to get plenty bigger now, the Amazon Echo is now available for everyone, invitation or not. It has a 4.5 rating with over 18,000 reviews.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 23, 2015 16:53
|
|
|
Knifegrab posted:This device seems like its becoming really cool. I do have a question, is it possible to integrate audio output with echo? I heard the speaker on it is ok, but I would prefer to have it output to something a bit beefier. Is this possible? It doesn't have audio out capability. However since third parties can now use the echo's voice service, it's pretty likely that someone will make something that can.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 25, 2015 22:34
|
|
|
While Amazon may be trying to eventually kill Spotify, that isn't stopping it from being buddies in the meantime, Spotify is now a fully integrated service for the echo, no more Bluetooth needed.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 4, 2016 15:19
|
|
|
If you were interested in the Echo but didn't like that it's not particularly portable, you're in luck. 2 new Echo models are coming out soon, a portable Echo called the Amazon Tap and a mikemil828 fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Mar 3, 2016 |
|
#
¿
Mar 3, 2016 16:50
|
|
|
beefnoodle posted:I'd guess it's a way to reward existing customers. It's probably because they don't want to stock too many of the dots in case no one buys it, so they limiting who can buy it for now, just like how the Echo was initially invitation only.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 3, 2016 17:30
|
|
|
Medullah posted:Anyone have a recommendation for an Echo compatible smart thermostat? In other news, in a couple weeks Nest Thermostats will be able to work natively with all your Alexa devices. https://nest.com/blog/2016/03/03/nest-and-alexa-working-together/
|
|
#
¿
Mar 3, 2016 19:05
|
|
|
beefnoodle posted:Next give me native Sonos integration. Pretty please? Based on what the CEO of Sonos is saying in this blog they seem at least interested in Alexa so maybe Sonos integration might not be too far off? http://blog.sonos.com/news/industry-in-transition-invest-in-future
|
|
#
¿
Mar 10, 2016 17:06
|
|
|
Well you could call it the Echo too and have it respond, not sure when they added this but on top of using Alexa or Amazon to wake her up, you can use Echo too, might not be a bad idea as the device gets more media coverage the more likely it's gonna take orders from a tv program if you use the default.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 15, 2016 05:26
|
|
|
Taima posted:So I'm getting a Dot on the 31st. I'm trying to suss out how this is going to actually work... Read this: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/connect-audio-device#1TC=windows-7
|
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2016 05:44
|
|
I would really love to do this without springing for a mixer.
|
Thermopyle posted:I'm still really fighting with myself about buying one of these things. I mean, I want one, but that's more just because of the new and cool factor. I've heard this question being asked hundreds of times by many people but ultimately there is no point in answering it. Amazon already does a pretty good job in describing what the Alexa devices are capable of, so usually what people are really asking is "What Alexa will do for me that I can't do with google now?" and that is something only you can answer. I could say that Alexa is probably a bit faster than Siri or Google now in coming up with a response, and you could respond "Pfft, so what if I have to wait a couple extra seconds?". I could point out that it's unlikely that Google Now could read you books purchased from Google Play Books like how Alexa could read kindle books, and you could respond "Pfft, I don't buy e-books and if I did I can read them myself thank you very much". I could note that you could use the echo to repurchase stuff you already bought from Amazon by just asking, and you could respond "Pfft, I don't use Amazon.". The point is if you can't answer that question yourself then we aren't going to be able provide a satisfactory answer either.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 3, 2016 06:26
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 03:14 |
|
|
Thermopyle posted:I could but I wouldn't because that's an idiotic response. Tell that to the last person I told that to. Like I said I see this question a lot, mostly by threadshitters in other forums. Thermopyle posted:I'm not sure why you're so eager to dismiss these valid and useful responses to my question. In fact every answer in this thread that highlighted things that I can't do with Google Now are valid and interesting responses. You seem to be coming from a place where you feel the answers have to be a form of arguing me into buying one, whereas I just asked for cool things that Alexa can do that Google Now can't. Because like I said there is no point in answering the question. If the 25% of responses you've gotten that are valid haven't convinced you to dump google now and go with the Echo, then there isn't any point in elaborating any further.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 3, 2016 19:10
|
|