Amazon Echo...do want.

[M0oG0oGaiPan]

yeah i got mine a while back and have been too lazy to sell it. what are you guys using this thing for?

 

[JTsyo]

Got the echo in the mail last night after waiting for 5 months. Fun machine and does everything fairly well. Most machines never understand me as I have a very deep voice. Kinect and Siri fail often. This was 10 feet away and 95% understood what I was saying. Cant wait until it gets google music integration and it will be the perfect.

For 100 this was a great deal. 200 a little bit pricey.

I don't see that happening. Google music is a direct competition to Amazon music. The whole point of the Echo is to get you locked into the Amazon marketplace.

 

[clamum]

Just got an email today that mine was shipped and should be here Friday, May 29. That's about a month early based on the original email that I got from them. Looking forward to trying it out!

 

[Jeraden]

We still enjoy ours, though a lot of the novelty has worn off. It's basically a voice-activated music player 90% of the time. Which honestly I'm ok with, makes things very convenient for everyone and has pretty good sound quality. We use the timer feature a lot too, as well as the weather/temperature readouts. It's a fun conversation piece when people come to visit also, so that's always fun showing it off to new people.

 

[clamum]

Well I got mine in a day early, this past Thursday.

I haven't done a lot with it yet, but it seems to work great for the most part. I've used the weather feature, and had it play NPR. Haven't done any music listening on it yet though.

One thing I've noticed is it's rather spotty when trying to add things to a to-do list. Even speaking carefully it fucked up. I did the voice training thing too. But we'll see, I haven't played with it very much yet.

I'll most likely keep it though. For $100 I think it's a cool little device.

 

[EvilYoda]

Half a year later, I'm just now getting around to unboxing and using my Echo. (It's been so long I opened it up and realized I had forgotten how big it is) (yes, that's what she said)

 

[sportage]

I use mine all the time.
Mostly for home automation i.e. lighting control.
Naturally, one needs to replace switches with ECHO compatible switches which cost around $50 each.
Nice to walk in a dark house and ask ECHO to turn on one lamp, or all the lights.
Or "turn off all lights", when you leave simply by voice.

ECHO is nice for playing music. Just ask it to. "PLAY JAZZ".
Amazon has since made some enhancements like linking to calendar so you can ask ECHO what is on the agenda for today. Or reminders such as birthdays and that dreaded reminder "today is your anniversary". And off you go in a panic, gift shopping.

ECHO is ok.
Very adapt for home automation via speech.
In the future, a lot of possibilities.

I'd like to see the ability to communicate live with other ECHO users i.e. friends and family members that own an ECHO. Like a personal telephone party line. And possibly group communication, i.e. talking live with several friends and or family at the same time.
Group discussion as it were.

I'd like to see ECHO add the ability using VOIP to make calls to anyone by simply asking ECHO to dial a number.
And or link your cell number to ECHO for the ability to accept incoming cell calls to your phone via ECHO. Just sit there and when a call comes in announcing the caller, tell ECHO to answer or not to answer.

A lot of hands free possibilities.
Too bad Apple doesn't own the ECHO device. Apple could and would do a lot with the possibilities of ECHO and hands free automation/communications.
After all, ECHO is always live, always connected thru the home Wi-Fi, and very accurate with voice response.

Like having HAL9000 in your living room. Without the attitude.
And who knows? Maybe one day ECHO could rotate and open your pod bay doors?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Would be fun to see something like this but that is more open source oriented. The issue with most of this automation stuff that comes out is that it's so proprietary. I don't want to buy a $50 switch that will go obsolete because it's made for 1 single product when I can buy a $5 relay that is universal.

I wonder how hard it is to do voice activation stuff in code, I'm guessing there must be libraries that help. I totally should add that capability to my house. My home automation server is already called HAL9000 after all. I need to completely redesign that system though. My plan is to use a Raspberry Pi instead of a full blown server.

 

[notposting]

Would be fun to see something like this but that is more open source oriented. The issue with most of this automation stuff that comes out is that it's so proprietary. I don't want to buy a $50 switch that will go obsolete because it's made for 1 single product when I can buy a $5 relay that is universal.

I wonder how hard it is to do voice activation stuff in code, I'm guessing there must be libraries that help. I totally should add that capability to my house. My home automation server is already called HAL9000 after all. I need to completely redesign that system though. My plan is to use a Raspberry Pi instead of a full blown server.

Actually the Echo just links to the relatively generic Phillips and Belkin stuff, but they are just using stuff like Zigbee. Buy the Phillips hub and get generic bulbs after that.

So far, Amazon seems to be progressing nicely and hopefully they get the SDK out of beta soon and really open things up. They've also made it so you can easily reorder items from the mothership by voice. And so it begins... :biggrin:

 

[Rudee]

Useless garbage that will be collecting dust within a year.

 

[sportage]

Noticed Amazon is now offering their ECHO for an 5-payments option. Kinda like the home shopping channel. Charge your card 5 payments over 5 months. That payments option is new for them ???? Wonder if Amazon will expand this for other products? But then again, I guess Amazon can do this for their ECHO cause they own and make the thing. Where as offering payments on non-Amazon manufactured items would put Amazon at risk for the balance and liability. I doubt they would take on that financial burden.

 

[clamum]

I moved to a new apartment in August and I haven't even unpacked my Echo, lol. I actually like the thing, it works quite well and is neat, but it's more of a novelty for me than anything else.

 

[cronos]

Noticed Amazon is now offering their ECHO for an 5-payments option. Kinda like the home shopping channel. Charge your card 5 payments over 5 months. That payments option is new for them ???? Wonder if Amazon will expand this for other products? But then again, I guess Amazon can do this for their ECHO cause they own and make the thing. Where as offering payments on non-Amazon manufactured items would put Amazon at risk for the balance and liability. I doubt they would take on that financial burden.

They sometimes offer payment plans for their tablets and Fire TV as well. This started maybe two years ago.

 

[HopJokey]

I moved to a new apartment in August and I haven't even unpacked my Echo, lol. I actually like the thing, it works quite well and is neat, but it's more of a novelty for me than anything else.

It's a really, really good alarm clock.

 

[sportage]

I use it mostly for playing music for the pets home alone.
Seems to calm them down.
Just ask it to play rock or jazz as I leave the house, and there is goes.

Plus, when I want to take a quick nap laying back in the old chair, just tell it to timer 20 minutes. No fussing, just command it.

What I would REALLY would love to see on this device is some connection to VOIP phone service, even if VOIP only thru Amazon for a fee.
I'd love to just say "ALEXA, DIAL Julie", or dial 1234567.
Then use as a speaker phone.
And.... pick up or answer an incoming call.
I don't see why not since ECHO is already WiFi connected and so is VOIP.

 

[soulcougher73]

Looks like Amazon has added some new add on accessories for the Echo. The Echo Dot and Echo Tap.

Dot: http://www.amazon.com/b/?node=14047587011
Tap: http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-PW3840...=UTF8&qid=1457024898&sr=8-1&keywords=echo+tap

 

[echo4747]

Looks like Amazon has added some new add on accessories for the Echo. The Echo Dot and Echo Tap.

Dot: http://www.amazon.com/b/?node=14047587011
Tap: http://www.amazon.com/Amazon-PW3840...=UTF8&qid=1457024898&sr=8-1&keywords=echo+tap

Will the Dot allow me a wired connection to a stereo reciever so I can play music thru my hi=fi system?

 

[SearchMaster]

Will the Dot allow me a wired connection to a stereo reciever so I can play music thru my hi=fi system?

Looks like it - it has a 3.5mm jack and one of the pictures has it sitting next to a stereo receiver.

 

[John Connor]

So this Dot is like a miniature Echo, right?

 

[ultimatebob]

This thing just seems like a device that is ripe for hacking. Between the always on microphone, internet connection, and hooks to tons of different web services it seems like it's an easy target for a malware infection that lets people spy on your conversations.

 

[zerocool84]

So this Dot is like a miniature Echo, right?

You need a separate speaker for the Dot to connect to for it to work. It's not standalone like the Echo.

 

[EvilYoda]

Still can't wake to anything other than a tone...bah.

 

[Craig234]

Still can't wake to anything other than a tone...bah.

They should let you get awoken to Alexa saying repeatedly "re-ordering diamond earrings".

 

[John Connor]

If I had Echo I would wake up to something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egPPL6u5G3w

 

[Dulanic]

You need a separate speaker for the Dot to connect to for it to work. It's not standalone like the Echo.

It has a speaker. But by no means is it great quality. Good for talking not so much for music etc...