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We had a play date for my four year old and a couple of his friends. One is named, I poo poo you not, Alexa. A lot of the time we call her Lexi, but her name was said a few times and the Echo was obviously perplexed by whatever came after her name. For $100, we are enjoying it. The voice recognition is getting better and better. I'm very impressed with its ability to pick up commands over a loud TV and at significant distance. Our bedroom is on the second floor with our door facing out to a little balcony over the family room/kitchen where the Echo is located. Without getting out of bed, we can ask for the weather or a BBC news summary. I also like the shopping list feature. Is it necessary? No, but it's fun. I'm hoping that its popularity will drive Amazon to keep adding functionality. It would be great if they could integrate it with smart home products. They've got to improve the basic information gathering on it. It seems odd to me that you can ask questions that it should know and it has no idea how to get the answer. Hell, just default to Wikipedia and read that to me. Edit: Just saw this: Rubiks Pubes posted:Anybody done anything with some of the home automation hacks for it that are out there? Looks like I'll be doing some research over the weekend. 
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Jan 10, 2015 19:36
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It's not worth $100, but asking Alexa to open the pod bay doors makes me laugh.
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Jan 25, 2015 22:58
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One of the features I suggested in the big survey they sent was to make it a hands-free telephone hub. It seems perfect for it, I wonder why they don't implement it.
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Jan 31, 2015 03:44
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Grabbed some cheap, end-capped WeMo wall plugs at Target tonight. Apparently I'm not too old or too smart to find turning lamps on with voice commands hilarious.
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Nov 8, 2015 02:33
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Legdiian posted:How much did you end up paying for them? $25 quote:I have an Echo and a few Hue devices but I haven't done much more than "Alexa, All lights on/off". Is it possible to create scenes? No idea, I haven't had time to dive deeper into what they can do.
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Nov 12, 2015 17:50
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mikemil828 posted:In other news, in a couple weeks Nest Thermostats will be able to work natively with all your Alexa devices. Jesus, about time. Now make it a goddamned speaker phone Amazon!
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Mar 4, 2016 01:35
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BigFactory posted:You can sync your phone by Bluetooth and just push the speaker button? Here's what I mean. When I get a call, I want Alexa to tell me that there is an incoming call (and who if caller ID is in play) or a ringtone. Ask me if I want to take the call. Hands free from start to finish.
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Mar 4, 2016 03:03
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BigFactory posted:So how's single life treating you? Celebrated my 14th wedding anniversary in December. And my second son just turned one.
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Mar 4, 2016 19:57
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BigFactory posted:So who would get ownership of the echo speakerphone functionality? Even if you can pair multiply phones, which Echo can't do now, it would just be like very publicly sharing a land line. Add a third phone into the mix and it's a mess. I'm not sure what you are saying. If you could do multiple phones, the Echo could say, "There is an incoming call on Mr. Funny Pants phone..." or, "There is an incoming call on Mrs. Funny Pants phone..." If my wife didn't want me to hear, she could simply pick up her phone and take the call, just the same as she can already do. For outgoing calls, "Alexa, dial Mrs. Funny Pants' work number from Mr. Funny Pants' phone." It wouldn't preclude the ability to use your phone as you do now.
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Mar 4, 2016 20:14
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BigFactory posted:That seems super cumbersome to me. If I'm loading the dishwasher while my older son is complaining about his iPad's battery being dead and my one year old is screaming for more food while my dog is getting into something she shouldn't.... I can't see how getting up and finding my phone is more cumbersome than, "Alexa take call," or, "Alexa, call Mama Julianne's pizza."
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Mar 4, 2016 20:39
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Arsenic Lupin posted:At least in my kitchen, Alexa won't be able to hear you. Works fine in mine. You have to speak louder if there's some commotion obviously, but we use it all the time from there and it's about 20 feet from the oven. BigFactory posted:Neither could the person calling you. Hence the ability to not take the call. Which is exactly what I currently do if I hear my cell ringing and am herding the cats. If you really don't want to be bothered, you could even have a command like, "Alexa, set phone 'away'," that would automatically route calls to voicemail.
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Mar 5, 2016 03:30
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This weekend we decided to do an impromptu movie date to give our new babysitter a test run. My wife wanted to know what was playing and showtimes. I'm sure there's an "official" way to do it, but I just tried, "Alexa what movies are playing in Strongsville?" She hit the exact theater we wanted and listed showtimes as well. Echo isn't a necessity. It's just loving cool.
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Apr 4, 2016 05:02
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I got my wife a Dot for a late birthday present. We put it in our bedroom and she loves it. My five year old saw mommy talking to it in our bedroom, and he knows that we can't normally do that, so he looked around and saw the Dot. He calls it, "Alexa's baby."
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Apr 7, 2016 03:20
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What kind of range could you get between a Dot and a bluetooth speaker like the Anker on sale at Amazon today?
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May 3, 2016 03:29
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sellouts posted:Do people literally name their their thermostat "the thermostat" so the command "set the thermostat to 68 degrees" works or am I missing something? Our thermostat was named for the location, "dining room," so when we want to change the temperature it's, "Alexa, set dining room temperature to 72." I think we can leave out the "temperature" and it will still work.
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Jul 3, 2016 06:36
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sellouts posted:I was hoping it'd be as simple as "Alexa, turn the air conditioning on" or "Alexa, set the temperature to 72" but I guess people have multiple thermostats. There's an IFTTT recipe that uses the phrase, "Alexa, trigger I am cold." Not too elegant, but a bit shorter.
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Jul 3, 2016 17:04
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Call Me Charlie posted:lol get $10 off any order over $20 placed with Alexa They have to have something to replace it. If they put out something a good deal cheaper, I'd Dot the poo poo out of my entire house. Changing the thermostat at night without leaving your bed rocks.
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Jul 8, 2016 16:19
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beerinator posted:Trigger is the keyword to tell Alexa you're starting an IFTTT command. "Trigger find my phone" is one of the greatest things ever.
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Jul 21, 2016 13:54
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89 posted:"Alexa, turn lights on" Isn't it great? It's so loving stupid, but I still crack a little grin every time I do it.
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Jul 22, 2016 22:29
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Three Olives posted:Don't buy the Harmony Hub without the basic remote unless you hate yourself. I fully endorse the Hub (Although there are a shitload of refurb units around at much better pricing) but controlling your TV just through Alexa and your smartphone is stupid. Would it make sense if you already have a Harmony One (old model)?
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Nov 26, 2016 02:19
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Three Olives posted:Absolutely 100% don't do this. Remember how Harmony works, it's entirely based on remembering the state of your devices because it put them in that state. The hub is just a Harmony that plugs into the wall and is connected to WiFi, it has no way of communicating with the Harmony One to sync state status which means using them together would just create constant conflicts unless you close out each activity on each device before using the other one and just pay the $35 for the simple remote if you are going to do that dumb thing. Thanks!
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Nov 26, 2016 03:25
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Fun milestone today. My six year old has apraxia of speech, which means he talked really late and he still speaks with a noticeable impediment. He tried to use the Echo when we got it but couldn't speak clearly enough to even get Alexa's attention and didn't bother trying for the last year. His grandma is here for Christmas and we were having the Echo do Christmas jokes. After several he decided to try and boom, Alexa understood him. Not just her name, she could understand the question he asked. Awesome for my son of course, but huge props to Amazon. His speech is not clear but the Echo managed it.
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Dec 24, 2016 18:25
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Just wanted to mention that an Anker Sound Core plus a Dot makes a drat good quasi-Echo for a lot less money than an actual Echo. We've got an Echo and now two Dots and put the new Dot in our bathroom with the Anker. Wife loves using it while she gets ready, showers, etc. The Anker sounds way better than any $30 speaker has a right to sound.
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Dec 31, 2016 06:29
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WithoutTheFezOn posted:Does that speaker shut off after X minutes of nothing being streamed to it (and require a button press to turn on again)? It seems a lot of Bluetooth speakers do that, and that kind of ruins the whole Xtreme Laziness thing the Dot is all about. I just ran up and looked and it's on. It hadn't been used since last night. Also, it hasn't been plugged in since the day before yesterday.
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Dec 31, 2016 16:32
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WithoutTheFezOn posted:Thanks for the info, looking for a second speaker and Amazon comments were contradictory on that point. That's the one.
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Dec 31, 2016 16:52
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Rubiks Pubes posted:Sound core would probably work better than my old Logitech speakers I am using now. Do you just leave it plugged in? My main thing is that I don't want to deal with having to worry about charging something. It will run while plugged in.
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Jan 1, 2017 00:56
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The Anker Soundcore blue tooth speaker is on sale for $27 on Amazon. The battery life is insane and though you can obviously get better sounding speakers for more money, pair one of these with a Dot and you get a drat good sounding Franken-Echo.
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Jul 13, 2017 17:19
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Subjunctive posted:Can't drive Bluetooth speakers attached to the Dot? That's weak. Yep. I think that's a "gently caress you" to people who pair solid but inexpensive Bluetooth speakers (Anker Soundcore, etc.) with Dots to create a cheap makeshift Echo. That really sucks and makes the feature worthless to me.
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Aug 29, 2017 21:44
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KS posted:The only thing the Echo is better at is multi room support -- every Echo waking and only the nearest responding. Wait, what? We have to literally aim our heads and sometimes even cover one side of our mouths so that the upstairs Dot doesn't hear what we say to the Show in our kitchen (which is adjacent to our family room).
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Apr 22, 2019 04:13
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Croatoan posted:Your house is weird then. It's only happened to me like once or twice. You're partially right. The family room has a stupidly (and wastefully) high ceiling that acts like an amphitheater. I can face away from the upstairs bedroom, yell out a command, and that one will hear it easily. The thing is though, both the Show and the Dot upstairs will both take the command if I don't focus my voice the right direction.
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Apr 22, 2019 19:03
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WithoutTheFezOn posted:Well wait, what do you mean by “hear” and “take”? Because multiple dots hearing commands is a normal thing, but only the one closest to you is supposed to respond (if there is an audio response). Yep, both will do the command. "Alexa, give me a twenty minute timer." Twenty minutes later, the Show and Dot go off together.
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Apr 22, 2019 22:59
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