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Looks like they've sent out another wave of invites. I just received one.
Call Me Charlie fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Dec 19, 2014 |
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Dec 19, 2014 17:20
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If anybody has any questions about this, mine should be showing up tomorrow. I'm wondering if it has the same voice search issues as the Fire TV where it can't find Baby, I'm A Star because of the comma or Sign 'O' The Times because of the ' ' around the O. At least I can turn around and get double my money out of it if I don't like it. beanieson posted:I signed up (kinda late afternoon) on the first day and never got an invite. When did you invited goons make your request? Early first day. But I wonder if they're giving preference to prime members who also use Amazon Music. I also pay the $25 a year extra for my stuff. Call Me Charlie fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Dec 22, 2014 |
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Dec 22, 2014 19:42
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Ok, some first impressions. - The lights on top look really good. Amazon made the right decision to make it do all sorts of flashing during set up. But the only time you see it after that is when you say Alexa or adjust the volume. - Another cool touch, when it prompted me to say "Alexa, play some prime music." in the tutorial, it played a Prince playlist because I've listened to him a lot in the past. - The app holds your hand through the entire set up. Thankfully there's a browser version if you want to use it from a laptop. - Browser app shows to-do list, shopping list, timer, alarm, now playing, amazon music, iheartradio, tunein, settings, things to try, help, general feedback, voice training. Funny how none of the reviews I've read online mention the app since it's essential to the whole experience. - Everything you say to Alexia pretty much instantly pops up in the app on a card. Even weirder, you can click the phrase Alexia thought you said and it will play the recording of what you said. - If Alexa doesn't know the answer to a question, it will queue up the question in your app to search Bing. Click it and you usually get the right answer. - The mics are sensitive. I can stand in my doorway, talk in a normal voice and it still picks me up. - The windows on how long it listens after saying Alexa or the end of what it thinks is the command is a bit short. I've been cut off before. - It sounds good to me but I don't have any bluetooth speakers to compare it to. - Voice detection is better than on the Fire TV. It found Sign 'O' The Times with no problem. - They were smart to include a remote. Adjusting the volume and skipping tracks is the exact type of thing you don't want to use voice with it. - But "Alexa, next track" doesn't work  - Alexia loves shuffling. The only way to get it to play an album in order is to say "Alexia, play the album _______" - When you have multiple versions of a single song in your library, it will play the most recent version. - It reminds me a lot of the early stages of voice recognition where you have to use the proper phrasing to get the proper response. Like "Alexia, play SomaFM PopTron" will freak it out but say "Alexia, play SomaFM PopTron from TuneIn" and it will find it. - When it has doubt about what you said, it will ask for confirmation that ______ is what you wanted. You get three chances to clarify before Alexia just gives up. Funny stuff. - "Alexa, add 'go to dinner' to my to do list" Alexa adds gin + dinner to my to do list. - "Alexa, play The Black Album." Alexa plays some Black Heat. - "Alexa, add some M&Ms to my shopping list" Alexa adds some Eminem's - "Alexa, who is Stanley Kubrick?" No hit. "Alexa, Wikipedia; Stanley Kubrick" Hit. Turns out that she thought I said 'Who Theory Kubrick' the first time. Not so funny stuff. - "Alexa, how many seasons of South Park are there?" Sorry, I couldn't find the answer to your question. - "Alexa, when is the Super Bowl?" Super Bowl XLVI was on Sunday February 5th 2012 - "Alexa, who won the 1972 Superbowl?" Sorry, I couldn't find the answer to your question. - "Alexa, who is the WWE champion?" *error boop* Overall, it's pretty cool. Having a device that you don't have to mess around with is nicer than I thought it was going to be. It needs some definite work before it gets a primetime release. More refinement when it comes to questions. More connection between my other devices (if I could control my Fire TV through it, I'd be happy) and more content sources. It's pretty barebones at the moment but the potential is there. I'm still not sure if I'm going to keep it or not.
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Dec 23, 2014 23:35
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topenga posted:I caved. They're selling for like $200 on ebay 
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Dec 28, 2014 14:54
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Arsenic Lupin posted:The word recognizer is *terrible* for classical music. "Alexa, Play Beethoven" told me that I didn't have any Beethoven in my Amazon music library. Ha. It did recognize Beethoven, but something glitched in its searching my library "Alexa, Play i by Magnetic Fields" was also a dead loss. In general, it responds by shuffling music far too often. If it doesn't know that you own an album (for instance, because Amazon's autorip service was blocked), and the album isn't on Prime Music, it plays samples from that album, which is outright annoying. It could be because your Beethoven was under another artist name. A lot of his stuff from the Amazon store is under his full name or the conductor/orchestra that performed it. You can change that on the web player through your browser but it also changes the cloud files. I guess the same thing could have happened with The Magnetic Fields. I don't have them in my library but 'Alexa, play samples from the album I by The Magnetic Fields' worked for me. The sample thing is in there because it either has or will have the ability to buy music directly from the store. I'm not sure because I have no desire to test that out. Last thing I want is for it to spaz out and charge me for something I don't want.
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Dec 31, 2014 02:50
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Arsenic Lupin posted:No, it correctly expanded it to "Beethoven, Ludwig van"... which actually might be the problem, depending on whether the album indexed it correctly as "van Beethoven, Ludwig". In any case, automatic indexing of classical records sucks in general, judging by my Olive Symphony. True. Alexia could be expecting you to say Beethoven Ludwig Van or Van Beethoven Ludwig as the artist. Their system is kinda weird like that. I could tell it to play St. Vincent but it wouldn't include the album I have with David Byrne & St. Vincent because it's listed as it's own artist.
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Dec 31, 2014 06:22
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TheJoker138 posted:I'm going to assume the voice stuff doesn't work with non-amazon music though, right? Yeah. Voice commands only works for services natively supported by the Echo (Amazon Music, iheartradio, TuneIn Radio)
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Jan 12, 2015 04:09
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It's probably worth clarifying. Prime Music = free music service tied to Amazon Prime. big draw (besides the free music) is the curated playlists. Amazon Music = not only their MP3 store and purchases from there/autorip but also a $25 a year service where you can upload your own music into the cloud Saying any song, album, artist or genre and having it play is the coolest feature of the Echo IMO. It also helps when you have it on random because you can ask Alexia what's playing and she's ramble off the artist, track name and album.
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Jan 12, 2015 04:40
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Super Dude posted:Why would someone pay $25 for the Amazon Music service instead of $15 for Prime (which includes Music, Instant Video, Kindle Library, and shipping)?  ?Prime doesn't include the $25 a year subscription to upload your own music into the cloud.
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Jan 12, 2015 05:24
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New updatequote:Echo has new updates to help get you through the work week...
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Mar 13, 2015 19:24
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KS posted:Out of the box, "Alexa, play music by Michael Jackson" results in the Free Willy song 100% of the time. I feel this is useful knowledge. It's the only Michael Jackson song on Prime.
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Apr 3, 2015 02:48
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Some developer got this to work with Nest and Wink devices. quote:After Amazon gave select developers access to an SDK for its Echo wireless speaker last month, we now have a few examples of what you can do with it. Developer Jeffrey Bachand has built apps allowing Echo to control his smart lights, which are connected to Quirky's Wink hub, as well as his Nest smart thermostat. In the video below, you can see the apps in action. Unfortunately, there's still no way for developers to publish apps to the Echo platform, but you can be sure Amazon will fix that soon once there are more apps lined up. Bachand also notes that the NDA for SDK testers has just ended, which means you can expect to see more Echo apps soon. Amazon added support for Belkin WeMo and Philips Hue devices to the Echo earlier this month, but the addition of third-party developers should dramatically increase the amount of devices it works with. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS6dNFpGbfs http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/23/amazon-echo-nest-wink/?ncid=rss_truncated
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Apr 23, 2015 19:43
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New Leaf posted:I just got my invitation and picked it up with Prime. Am I going to be disappointed if I don't really do a lot of media through Amazon already? We are new Prime subscribers and this thing looked pretty neat. You can pay $25 a year to upload all of your music into Amazon's cloud. It's worth it if you have a large collection and want it where you can access it with voice commands (otherwise, you can just pair a different device to it via Bluetooth and stream them from there - like Arsenic said)
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May 5, 2015 22:21
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Medullah posted:Is there any restrictions on what can be uploaded to Amazon cloud music? I figured I'd drop the $25 even though I have all my stuff on Google music, but it seems like it's barely uploaded half the songs. No restrictions that I know of. Amazon Music Importer scans everything and sees if it can match any of it to what's on their servers. It seems extremely hit and miss in what it matches. After that, it uploads what's missing. You may want to do it in chunks if you have big library.
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May 10, 2015 20:11
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quote:Now you can quickly access your Google calendar events with Echo—just use your voice. If you want to know what's on the calendar for the day or check if you're free for dinner with friends, simply ask Echo. I love how they keep adding features (even though I use mine as a glorified kitchen timer)
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May 30, 2015 04:42
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Legdiian posted:Edit - So I happen to have exactly 1 album in my Amazon Music library. The artist is "Zero 7". It hears "zero seven" according to the history in the app but says "I couldn't find songs by zero zero seven in your music library". I want to like this thing but it's not making it easy on me. Try saying the album name 
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Jun 11, 2015 09:12
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DarkSun6890 posted:Basically I'm reluctant to pay the $25 for amazon music on top of the $150 price tag for the Echo. Just pay the $25 a year to upload your own music. The biggest draw of having an Echo is yelling out a random song or album or artist or genre for Alexa to play.
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Jun 23, 2015 01:04
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JHVH-1 posted:I was curious about the Alexa SDK stuff and signed up for developer access a while back. It looks like they have documentation about their "Alexa Skills Kit" up now https://developer.amazon.com/appsandservices/solutions/alexa/alexa-skills-kit/getting-started-guide They pushed out a big press release today about a 100 million dollar fund for development and opening up Alexa to third party products for free. quote:Amazon today announced the Alexa Fund, up to $100 million in investments to support developers, manufacturers, and start-ups of all sizes who are passionate about creating new experiences designed around the human voice. The Alexa Fund—named for Alexa, the cloud-based voice service that powers Amazon Echo—is open to anyone with an innovative idea for how voice technology can improve customers’ lives. Alexa Fund investment decisions will be made based on the potential for unique or novel applications of voice technology that leverage the Alexa Skills Kit or the Alexa Voice Service, which were also announced today. The Fund launches today with seven initial investments. http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150625005704/en/Amazon-Introduces-Alexa-Fund-100-Million-Investments#.VYws5LTD_d7
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Jun 25, 2015 17:48
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They finally added support for multiple timers and alarms. quote:Cooking more than one dish or need another alarm to get up in the morning? Amazon Echo is now ready to help with multiple timers and alarms—just ask: I hope they add the ability to have different tones for different timers or custom music for alarms.
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Aug 1, 2015 01:26
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smackfu posted:It is pretty nice to play music with a voice command though. Same with setting timers with voice command.
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Sep 8, 2015 03:56
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gariig posted:I agree with the The Wirecutter about the Echo as a Bluetooth speaker. I disagree with that. It's sounds pretty good and the only time it really buckles is if you crank the volume all the way up. So I guess if you're trying to fill your entire house with music, it's a bad choice.
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Sep 8, 2015 23:42
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The first non-Amazon Alexa device is up for preorder. Triby - $199 - Ships October 30th.  quote:Amazon’s Alexa voice service debuted with the Amazon Echo and it’s now available on the new Amazon Fire TV. But Amazon’s answer to Siri, Cortana, and Google Voice Search isn’t just limited to Amazon hardware. It's worth mentioning that it can only make free calls to people with the with the Triby companion app on their phone according to the description on Amazon. "Triby can make and receive phone calls, in HD quality and for free, with any device running the Triby companion app outside the home. It is an internet phone." And I don't know if it's always listening like the Echo or if you have to hit the button on top like in the video. http://liliputing.com/2015/10/triby-is-connected-speaker-with-amazon-alexa-voice-features.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Agk-6PkocOU http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...RW3V22EXNXCFHZG Call Me Charlie fucked around with this message at 11:02 on Oct 17, 2015 |
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Oct 17, 2015 10:42
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Some guy on Reddit put Alexa on a $10 Chip that has audio out. Maybe you could hack that together?quote:For the 3rd instillment of my “Putting Alexa on all the Things” series I’ve got Alexa up and running on a CHIP. http://sammachin.com/the-10-echo/ Medullah posted:You might want to look into Chromecast Audio for that. Or a Fire TV Stick if you have actual speakers hooked up to your TV. It has Alexa built in. Call Me Charlie fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Jan 8, 2016 |
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Jan 8, 2016 18:06
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I also just picked up a Raspberry Pi Zero but for this project the CHIP seemed like a better platform and it was a good opportunity to try it out. The advantages of the CHIP over the Pi zero are that it has onboard WiFi and a built in audio in/out interface (with a small mod) The Pi would have required USB adaptors to have WiFi and the Mic in working along with needing a memory card so although the Pi Zero is $5 and the CHIP is $9 in total BOM the CHIP works out cheapest.
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There's a rumor that Amazon is going to launch their own spotify style $9.99 a month music service and offer a discounted rate for Echo owners ($3-4 a month) quote:Amazon is prepping a Spotify-killer, music sources tell The Post. http://nypost.com/2016/01/27/bezos-set-to-expand-empire-to-take-on-spotify-sources/ Prime Music will continue to exist alongside this new program.
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Jan 28, 2016 20:20
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Super Dude posted:What would be different about it? Larger selection. Prime Music = a decent collection of select albums/songs that are free to listen to Untitled New Music Program = a much larger (spotify sized) collection of free albums/songs that you pay an extra $3-10 a month for Amazon Music Storage Subscription = $24.99 a year to upload all of your personal music into Amazon's cloud Arsenic Lupin posted:Note that actually owning a song and thus having it in your Amazon Prime library doesn't mean it's available for streaming: that's a separate license. Not true. Whatever you upload into your Prime library is available for streaming. Regardless of license or legality (I have a ton of bootlegs in my cloud and I can call them all up on my Echo) Call Me Charlie fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Jan 31, 2016 |
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Jan 31, 2016 06:04
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saltylopez posted:Does this only work with Spotify Premium? Or can free users of Spotify also use this service (without Bluetooth)? Spotify Premium only.
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Feb 4, 2016 19:56
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EugeneJ posted:Can Alexa on like a $50 Fire tablet do the same things as Echo? Like instead of buying Echo for every room, could you just buy a bunch of Fire tablets and keep them plugged in and listening for commands? There's no Alexa on $50 Fire tablets so no.
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Feb 7, 2016 01:56
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EugeneJ posted:Shouldn't the end-game of this be that in a few years smart phones have high-quality external speakers that cooperate with Siri/Alexa/Cortana? No. Amazon got smashed out of the phone game and they've moved on to cornering the smart home market. Having an omnipresent thing centered in your home that's directly tied into Amazon's ecosystem (another thing that disconnects customers from the concept of money when ordering items) is more important than having it on smartphones. They're taking the Android approach. Make it open. Make it free. Get everyone's support by default.
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Feb 7, 2016 20:14
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EugeneJ posted:Maybe they're waiting to put GPS in the Fire tablets before they enable Alexa on them? If I had to guess, they're probably working on finishing their integration with the Fire TV before they bring it to tablets. They have a ways to go to bridge the gap from what we currently have (a fenced off, limited, Alexa) to a unified system where you can control everything through voice (launch programs, open specific things, move active playlists between devices, buy things) And they're already competing with Siri/Cortana. They have a giant headstart with pushing Alexa outside their own devices and getting companies on board to add support. https://developer.amazon.com/appsandservices/solutions/alexa/alexa-fund
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Feb 7, 2016 22:09
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EugeneJ posted:Does Echo have a GPS now? Or does it rely on a connected device to relay its coordinates for Uber/Dominoes/etc? It has a device location (address) you can edit in the settings on http://echo.amazon.com or through the app. I think it defaults to your shipping address when purchased through Amazon. Call Me Charlie fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Feb 7, 2016 |
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Feb 7, 2016 22:43
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LODGE NORTH posted:The thread title perfectly encapsulates how I feel about this thing. Is it worth it? It depends. Do you have all of your music in Amazon's cloud or have a Spotify Premium account? Do you have an Audible account or any Kindle books? Do you have any smart home things that can connect to it? Do you use Google calendar? Do you want to put it in your kitchen and use it as a really expensive voice timer/measurement converter? Do you frequently have trouble spelling words you know how to say? A desire to get answers to basic questions or have a computer read part of a wiki entry to you? Are you easily amused by random things like playing Jeopardy or asking Alexa what the status of your pizza order is? If you answered yes to any of that....yeah. It's one of those weird things that goes from 'neat novelty' to 'how'd i live without this?' after a few weeks of use. LODGE NORTH posted:The only thing that has me hesitant is that I see myself often confusing its functionality with Siri. As in, I can see it being 11PM one night and saying "Alexa, wake me up at 8 AM" and being told she can't do that and then being upset that I have to interact with my phone. Just things like that. You can set an alarm (but you'd have to say something like 'Alexa, set an alarm for 8 AM') Call Me Charlie fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Feb 12, 2016 |
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Feb 12, 2016 08:07
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Pretty big news.quote:Last month, Ecobee3 became the first smart thermostat compatible with Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant. Now, along with the announcement of the new Amazon Tap and Echo Dot, Amazon has revealed that Alexa will gain compatibility with Nest and Honeywell thermostats later this month. It’s been possible to control smart thermostats like the Nest with the Amazon Echo and Fire TV indirectly through an IFTTT recipe for some time, but the method has always been missing key components to make it a viable solution. With built-in support added by Amazon, you’ll soon be able to control most aspects of these smart thermostats with your voice. http://www.aftvnews.com/alexa-will-be-able-to-control-nest-and-honeywell-thermostats-this-month/
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Mar 3, 2016 23:48
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BigFactory posted:With how weird alexa is about what she hears sometimes, that could be dangerous. Kind of related but one of the things I suggested to the Echo team was the ability to set presets in services like iHeartRadio and TuneIn where you could go 'Alexa, play TuneIn preset 3' and it would play whatever radio channel you had tied to that number. If they ever add the ability to control a phone, that would be also be a good idea. Where it can only call user set presets.
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Mar 5, 2016 01:33
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sirbeefalot posted:I was just gifted an Echo and its pretty amazing already. Honestly worth keeping around just for hands free music control and unit conversion when cooking, everything else is gravy at this point. I could see setting up a few Dots eventually around the house. My wife doesn't trust it one bit though. Tell her that it listens for the wake word locally and only uploads to the cloud when it detects the wake word. Plus you can listen to any recording it makes online and delete them from Amazon's servers.
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Mar 7, 2016 01:30
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Rubiks Pubes posted:Alexa doesn't say OK anymore when I tell her to turn lights on and off, she just dings The Echo subreddit has been going crazy over this.
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Mar 15, 2016 01:29
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Taima posted:Can you disable it saying "ok"? I am getting a Dot on the 31st, in large part to control my Hue lights, and I don't want it to say stuff, I just want it to turn off the lights. Like in Star Trek. The Star Trek computer didn't say poo poo when you turned on the lights. It just turned them on, because that is the way it says ok: by turning on your poo poo. That is the response. No.
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Mar 23, 2016 04:39
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Verviticus posted:has anyone had any luck getting alexa to play a specific album on spotify by voice command? if a song and album share the same name, im pretty sure its just impossible, but i want to believe Did you try 'alexa, play the album [whatever] by [artist] from spotify'?
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Mar 31, 2016 09:19
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bull3964 posted:I really don't understand why tap can't be set to be always listening. My phone is and it's battery powered. From what I read, it has a single microphone instead of an array like the Echo/Dot so it wouldn't work as well while always listening. Amazon always seems to err on the side of caution when it comes to walling people off from situations that would technically work but not work well enough to meet their expectations. Call Me Charlie fucked around with this message at 04:23 on Apr 1, 2016 |
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Apr 1, 2016 04:18
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bull3964 posted:Nope, not even then. That's how they advertised it, but it wasn't necessary. Actually, they patched being able to order a Dot without ordering through Alexa. You think they'd want people buying in but I guess they're scared of idiots going 'my music sounds like poo poo NEGATIVE FIVE STARS' from trying to use it like an Echo with no connected speakers.
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Apr 2, 2016 17:58
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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. It's perfect for kitchen stuff. Voice timers, unit conversions, music. Not having to worry about battery life or having to interact with a touchscreen is very nice. The mic array is also way better than a single mic setup. It can hear you from a good distance away and you'll be shocked how clear the recording is if you listen to them on the site. Of course, it's better if you're in Amazon's ecosystem. Being a prime member, having an Audible account, having some kindle books and paying the extra $25 a year to put all your music in the cloud, it all makes the Echo much more useful if you don't have smart home stuff to control. Thankfully that's starting to disappear as things like Spotify add support. Call Me Charlie fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Apr 2, 2016 |
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Apr 2, 2016 21:02
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