Amazon Echo

[TNWNGR]

Some of you might already have one of the Amazon Echo devices others might be curious, just as I am. Itt's essental a Pringles can shaped mini speaker/MP3 player/voice activated inter active computer. I wanted a music player that tied into my WIFI and became intrested in the Echo. To cut to the chase I ordered one and it arrived via UPS today. Obvisouly this thing benifits Amazon in that it makes Amazon orders easy so obviously they will continue to sell. So here's the deal, anyone in the know who has operating experence with these devices and tips or suggestions please chime in. I've already found on line info, I just want more mainstream, simplified info.

[No_0ne]

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Edited January 21, 2016 by No_0ne

[LagerHead]

I wanted a music player that tied into my WiFi too. That's why I got a smart phone. ;)

 

Seriously though, we did briefly consider getting one of these, but I already have a bluetooth speaker and an iPhone, so I basically have one already.

[TNWNGR]

I wanted a music player that tied into my WiFi too. That's why I got a smart phone. ;)

 

Seriously though, we did briefly consider getting one of these, but I already have a bluetooth speaker and an iPhone, so I basically have one already.

 

Yep. I've got the I-Phone already but not a Bluetooth speaker, overall the pricing on the Echo and its other features looked pretty good. Bedside's I already have Amazon Prime so it was just the cost of the device.

[musicman]

How does it sound? We have 2 Bluetooth speakers so far, but can use a couple more. I'd like to get to the point where I have one in every room, so I'm not trying to find where the wife most recently hid one after its last use.

Funny enough, both of them are mine. (Gifts to me... one birthday, one Christmas.) I rarely ever get to use them. :/

[TNWNGR]

It sounds good, I used to have a Bose system that would take an MP3 player and sounded amazing, this ones equally nice. Essentially its a pretty good voice activated speaker connected to a cloud storage set up and is interactive. Even better its portable, for now I'm just trying to figure out its ins and outs.

[R1100R]

I've had one for quite some time. I got mine through the invite program before they were offered for sale. I love mine. It is one of the coolest toys I have. Children can't stop messing with it. It reminds me of the Computer from Star Trek. LOL

[btq96r]

A microphone that's always on and connected to the network...if that's not a privacy invasion waiting to happen, I don't know what is.

[analog_kidd]

Our son bought us one for Christmas. It's a pretty cool gadget. We keep our in the kitchen and mostly use it for setting a timer for cooking and playing music. It sounds really good for music, and with our Prime subscription, it taps into Prime Music and plays just about anything we want.

 

We put the Alexa app on both our phones and use the Echo to make a shopping list. From the app, we can manually enter items and they show up on our common list. So I can be at work and think of something I need, add it to the list and it shows up on my wife's phone. We have used another list sharing app in the past that was much better. The Alexa app doesn't organize your items.  But it's kind of convenient when you use the last of the peanut butter and from the kitchen say "Alexa, add peanut butter to my shopping list" and it gets added.

 

My grandson found out there is a Fart Noise app that Amazon includes with it. I've resisted so far from installing it, but I'm sure he will wear me down the next time he is over.  I also use it to tell me a joke each day ;-) 

 

It is a little creepy that it is always listening. Every now and then we will say something in normal conversation, that it mis-interprets as the "Alexa" command and then listens to the rest of the sentence and answers back with some weird, random answer. Lots of things are going with this model though, I suppose. Windows 10's Cortana can be listening, Google Now on Android Devices, Siri on Apple. Welcome to the future. I guess.

 

I'd love to hear how everyone else uses theirs, or what kind of questions you ask it.

[enfield]

I may be paranoid, or maybe just realistic, but I cover phone/tablet/computet camera lenses and mics that I'm not using. Foam tape seems to be good on the mics.

[TNWNGR]

A microphone that's always on and connected to the network...if that's not a privacy invasion waiting to happen, I don't know what is.

 

There's a slightly hidden button switch on the top of the device where it can be turned off when you don't want it operational. As to the other privacy aspects...want me to talk about smart phones?

[NextExit]

Call me old but I've never understood this whole "speaker in every room" thing. I just turn up the volume on my stereo system and have no problem hearing it anywhere inside (or outside) my house. ;) Forget those little 2 inch speakers and get some nice floor standing speakers. :cool:

[Monkeybat]

iTunes, iPhones iPads and apple TVs. My home is networked. All devices connect and all devices can stream any movie or song on iTunes. It's a pretty flawless setup. I checked out the echo and didn't really like it. Saw little use for it. I think the setup I have is about the best you can get and its cheap for me considering we already had phones and iPads. I just bought the cheap $59 apple TVs to hook up to my TVs and some Ethernet cable. Apple remote turns every device into a remote control. You can even manipulate volume with your phone. Basically I've got what would feel like a really high end networked setup but it's just cheaply pieced together and it works better than any other setup I've seen no matter the cost.


Sent from the Fortress of Solitude.

[Murgatroy]

Dammit, now I want one.

 

I have just recently started using the voice commands on my smart phone. For a tech savvy guy, I am pretty resistant to change.

[btq96r]

There's a slightly hidden button switch on the top of the device where it can be turned off when you don't want it operational. As to the other privacy aspects...want me to talk about smart phones?

Didn't know about the button, not sure I'd trust it 100%.

As to a smartphone, yeah they're at risk, but with Android I can put on a crowd vetted OS and still have all the functions since the code is open source. I doubt that's something Amazon is going to allow for this.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk, because I felt that Oh Shoot wanted to know that particular bit of information.

[musicman]

Call me old but I've never understood this whole "speaker in every room" thing. I just turn up the volume on my stereo system and have no problem hearing it anywhere inside (or outside) my house. ;) Forget those little 2 inch speakers and get some nice floor standing speakers. :cool:

I have no less than 3.5 kilowatts of floor-standing bombastic goodness between my man-cave, garage, and TV room. However, I often want to listen to some tune-age late in the evening or early in the morning and not damage the great relationships I have with my neighbors. ;-)

That, and wifey doesn't share my penchant for metal. :-(