Back in July, I bought an Amazon Echo during their Prime Day sale. It’ll be going on sale for the holidays, or at least Black Friday, so I figured I’d tell you about some of our experiences with it.
No, I have not linked it to smart home devices yet, but I do plan on integrating a few light switches and maybe an outlet or two.
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So far, I’ve been using it as a baby bottle timer, as a weather reporter, a clock, and to play music for my son.
Yea, I know I have only scratched the surface. It’s regularly priced at $180, and it can do much more than we’ve been tasking it with.
So far, I’ve got just one complaint.
Amazon posts updates to the device or their services, and things just change.
Instead of finding certain songs that it used to play, it’ll bug me about signing up for their new music subscription service. It’ll do this again, and again, and again.
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When I ask about how much time is left on a timer, it now goes through a longer process, telling me how many timers there are, even if there’s just one, and then it tells me the time remaining.
And it doesn’t get songs right anymore, it guesses more wrongly about which one I want played.
And sometimes it’s just wonky.
If I ask it to play Godsmack, Voodoo, it won’t. I have to ask it to play Voodoo by Godsmack.
Still, even with these quirks, it’s a neat device that we use daily.
My next step is to install some smart light switches and dimmers for it to control. After that, maybe a thermostat. Maybe the outdoor lights, too, which are currently controlled by a Z-Wave device that I need to reprogram.
There’s a new Amazon Echo Dot, a smaller and far less expensive version of the Echo. It’s regularly priced at $50, and lacks the music-playing speaker(s) of the full-size Echo.
The Dot is designed for integration into an audio receiver or other speaker system you already use for music, or for use in areas where you just need the Alexa connectivity.
There’s a speaker inside for communication and feedback purposes, and apparently the Dot can play music, just not very well.
A lot of places will be selling the Dot for $40 during the holiday season. Maybe I’ll move our Echo to the kitchen and get a Dot for the living room.
Buy Now(Echo)
Buy Now(Echo Dot)
Oh – one more annoyance. If I ask for the temperature, it gives me the full weather report every time. And if I don’t catch the temperature, I have to wait until the entire report is over before I can ask it to start over. At that point it’s quicker to whip out my phone.
Chad
We have had an echo for about as long. We added a few smart bulbs for our living room lights and echo is great for dimming & turning them on or off. We’ve also added a few smart outlets and Echo controls our coffee pot saving us a few trips to the kitchen. It’s great for ambiance music while doing kitchen chores. We enjoy playing Jeopardy 6 on the device. The only thing I wanted it to do that it does not is integrate with our Chamberlain WiFi equipped garage door opener. I wanted to be able to ask Alexa if the garage door was open then tell it to shut but Chamberlain did not integrate Alexa in their system. sigh.
Cr8on
I’m kinda waiting for gen 2 for such a device, especially since Google has come out with Home, I’m interested to see how the companies react to the competition which typically means a better and cheaper for the next gen.
Stuart
Well, the new Dot is a 2nd generation device.
With these things, the hardware isn’t the big deal, but the software, and that’s something that can be and is updated over the air.
Cr8on
I kinda think of the Dot as a companion device, while yes it does work as a standalone. If the Dot as 2 gen device it would improve the Echo experience, however its just a striped down version.
lets take Chromecast for example, while the 1st gen is still a capable device the 2nd is IMO significantly improved, showing even modest update in hardware can really make a difference.
Stuart
What i meant is that this is the second Dot. The first was only available to Echo owners, and at a higher price.
They have the Echo, the Echo Dot, and a portable one that’s more meant as just a music player.
Charlie Thompson
I have an Echo and don’t really use it a lot but I want to get a Dot for the shop and some smart outlets and hook to my dust control so I can say Alexa turn on dust control that way I wont have to hunt down my remote for it. #TIACREW
Mister Mike
What happens when you say, ” Tea, Earl Grey, Hot” ?
Does an Amazon drone drop a thermos on your front lawn 15 minutes later?
Stuart
We’re not quite there yet.
Google’s voice recognition and interpretations are pretty darned good.
I bought a new car with Android Auto. The GM system is good, Android is excellent.
If I ask the car to navigate to a Home Depot on the interstate, it doesn’t know what to do and asks me who to call. If I ask my phone thru the Android Auto voice commands, it just does it.
It used to be that my phone would get things wrong more often than right, whether calling or navigating anywhere.
Now, inaccuracies are the exception.
It’s not perfect, and there’s some glitching with the Amazon music playing integration.
There has been talk about smart appliances for years, and home automation is nothing new. But I fully expect for more integrations in the years to come, such as wall-mounted Amazon Echo Dot-like microphones or touchpads.
Google/Alexa, send the car to pick up my kids.
Google/Alexa, order Italian food.
Google/Alexa, play that music video my son likes on the living room TV.
There needs to be a wall-mount standard that Amazon, Google, and other brands adhere to.
Koko The Talking Ape
Yep, Google’s voice recognition in general seems to work better. Google’s Echo-killer, “Google Home” is just out. Supposedly it sounds better and understands you better, but supports fewer smart-home products (for now.) And its list price is lower.
Benjamen
I never tried that one, I won’t spoil the response…
My kids like asking Alexa to tell them a joke.
Jonathan
I think the tech is cool and years ago –I would have been on the bleeding edge and an early adopter.
While I’m far from a a Luddite, I even use Statefarm’s BT beacon with my smartphone for their “drive safe and save program” in my work truck. The Google Now, Apple Siri, Echo, Home, Alexa, and Sears Alfie and smart TV’s etc. all give me pause. Yet somehow this speech albeit fictional is almost prophetic in the rise of smart devices to AI robots ( HAL anyone)?
” Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit murder because of greed, spite, jealousy. And we still visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we’ve done. Like we did with the Cylons. We decided to play God, create life. When that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn’t our fault, not really. You cannot play God then wash your hands of the things that you’ve created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can’t hide from the things that you’ve done anymore.”
Commander Adama from BSG miniseries re-imaged.
firefly
One of the most annoying thing about cloud connected device, not just the Echo in particular, is that software will change at the moment of notice. In previous version of google map I was able to launch navigation and view the map separately. They took that feature away with an “upgrade”.
rob
I bought my first Echo when they launched in Nov 2014, I am now up to 8 devices in three locations (home, work, 2nd home). Overall I love them, from playing music to the home controls (Hue, WeMo, Nest, Rachio) I think they’re great. With support coming from Sonos and Eero early next year and Harmony support a few weeks ago they’re well on the way to being the top player in the smart home market.
I wish we’d see support for SiriusXM streaming (music and sports). The two other things I wish they had support for are Chamberlain Garage Doors and Bloomsky Weather devices. I have an issue with the weather when you ask-it’s not always the local temp. I’d love to see it work with hyper local weather devices.
Benjamen
“If I ask for the temperature, it gives me the full weather report every time. And if I don’t catch the temperature, I have to wait until the entire report is over before I can ask it to start over.”
Yes it gives the full weather report to me too, but the temperature is right there at the beginning. It says “right now in location it’s XX degrees…”
You can always say “Alexa Stop” and it’ll stop.
I had never had Alexa give me the Amazon Music Service ad before, so I asked it to play a song that I knew wasn’t in the Prime Music Catalog and sure enough, there was the ad. I know recently Amazon dropped a bunch of songs because I can see a few in my playlists. The song is still there, it just says unavailable. My fear is that this will happen more and more now with their pay service.
I listen to stations on Amazon Music on my phone and if I like a song I’ll add it to a playlist. I usually just ask Alexa to play a certain playlist then, sometime I’ll have it play a local radio station. I rarely ask it for a certain song.
I have to say, we don’t use the Echo very often though. If I’m in the house I have my Bluetooth headphones on and I use my phone. But I am impressed at how easy it was to pair with my phone when my headphones died one day.
Also my wife was listening to an Amazon playlist on her phone, when she got into the kitchen the echo seemlessly started playing where she left off. I’m not exactly sure what she did, but she was impressed.
I still haven’t figured out if it is even worth the reduced $129 I paid.
Jay
Don’t get it. What’s the draw? From the comments the device doesn’t seem to do much. Will check back when it can take out the trash or bring me a cold one.
Dennis
Does it bother anyone else that for Echo to work there is a microphone running on it 24/7, with the audio being uploaded and processed in the “cloud”? And as I recall, Amazon via their user agreement has the rights to do with that data whatever they want. I mean they could just use it to give you the weather, or they could use it to find your shopping preferences. Or they could use it to see what TV shows and movies you watch, what you talk about to your family and friends, etc. And since they own that voice data they can store it as long as they want, sell it to whomever they want, and it is susceptible to illegal hacking and legal subpoenas. Seems like we give up more and more privacy for the sake of convenience.
Koko The Talking Ape
Yah, that does bother me. Could a Sessions-led Justice Department take note every time you talk about heading to Standing Rock or organizing a union or protesting the forced registration of Muslims? Sure it could.
IF the voice recognition occurred inside my home computer, I would feel better. I am sure Google could sell a voice recognition application that worked as well as its cloud-based service, but that doesn’t fit its business model, where you pay for the device as well as the privilege of giving them piles of personal information they can use to develop or sell other services.
Adam
I would tend to agree with the ‘big-brother’ view-point, but as we have seen in the last year, when their are REALLY bad things happening in government (or while trying to get into government), there is usually someone out there ready to expose it.
It seems as if Amazon did anything that wasn’t Kosher, and that was released, there would be an absolutely huge backlash imo.
Stuart
But that’s the thing – voice recognition requires huge sample sizes and patterns in order to improve.
Eric Blank
I just picked up an Echo Dot for $40 with the Black Friday sale. So far it’s been loads of fun. I have a couple smart plugs and lights that I hooked it up to and everything works as advertised.
It seems to be fairly forgiving as far as figuring out what I’m trying to tell it. For example, I can say “Alexa, turn on the light in the bedroom” or “Alexa, turn on the bedroom lamp.” Both phrases work.
I’ve only had it for about 4 days but so far I’m pretty impressed. I wish I would’ve bought a few more for Christmas presents when it was on sale.