Amazon Echo

Author
Discussion

Russ35

2,491 posts

238 months

Wednesday 30th November 2016
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Spoke to soon. It now seems to want to play a foreign radio station when I ask for 'TalkRadio'. It was working fine last night and until about 5mins ago.


Cotty

39,387 posts

283 months

Wednesday 30th November 2016
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Well that's odd my Dot has always given me weather reports in Celsius but my new Echo gives them in Fahrenheit. I though they would sync and give the same readings. However both are reporting thats its bd cold tonight.

Luke.

10,944 posts

249 months

Wednesday 30th November 2016
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Paddy_N_Murphy said:
I dare say a half decent Broadband is required for these little house entertainers ?
Mine is fair to ste at 3mb down, but the killer is only 0.15mb Up !

to poor to party ?
You should be fine. Sound is very undemanding.

Philemon

1,590 posts

195 months

Thursday 1st December 2016
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I have a 200mbs connection and find that both my Echo and Dot stutter streaming TuneIn when my wife and I are using it heavily (streaming Netflix/Prime Video concurrently). Usually solved by reboot of Echo/Dot.

Not sure why?

Ste1987

1,798 posts

105 months

Thursday 1st December 2016
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Cotty said:
Well that's odd my Dot has always given me weather reports in Celsius but my new Echo gives them in Fahrenheit. I though they would sync and give the same readings. However both are reporting thats its bd cold tonight.
I had this as well. You have to change the settings in the smartphone app

Russ35 said:
Spoke to soon. It now seems to want to play a foreign radio station when I ask for 'TalkRadio'. It was working fine last night and until about 5mins ago.
I had this issue with Radio X, as there's a station with the same name overseas. If you try asking for TalkRadio UK, you should get the one you're after

Northbloke

643 posts

218 months

Thursday 1st December 2016
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Don't have young kids anymore but this skill is quite cool:

https://www.alexaskillstore.com/Short-Bedtime-Stor...

"Alexa tell bedtime story to Debbie"

Personalised story with your child's name in it.

Very short story though.

ascayman

12,732 posts

215 months

Thursday 1st December 2016
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Going to fire mine up this evening. Any must have 'skills' I should be adding?

Baron Greenback

6,961 posts

149 months

Thursday 1st December 2016
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Dam amazon price gone up to full price!

Cotty

39,387 posts

283 months

Thursday 1st December 2016
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ascayman said:
Going to fire mine up this evening. Any must have 'skills' I should be adding?
If you commute by train then National Rail is good for checking if there will be any delays.

Russ35

2,491 posts

238 months

Thursday 1st December 2016
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Ste1987 said:
Russ35 said:
Spoke to soon. It now seems to want to play a foreign radio station when I ask for 'TalkRadio'. It was working fine last night and until about 5mins ago.
I had this issue with Radio X, as there's a station with the same name overseas. If you try asking for TalkRadio UK, you should get the one you're after
Tried that and I get 'Uk Talk Radio' not 'TalkRadio' banghead

So I've enabled RadioPlayer and that seems to work ok with 'Ask radioplayer to play TalkRadio'


Anyone looked at installing a Dot in their car and a hotspot from their phone?

Edited by Russ35 on Thursday 1st December 22:49

MrOrange

2,031 posts

252 months

Friday 2nd December 2016
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Russ35 said:
Anyone looked at installing a Dot in their car and a hotspot from their phone?
That, sir, is a mighty fine idea and a task for Saturday

ascayman

12,732 posts

215 months

Friday 2nd December 2016
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Cotty said:
If you commute by train then National Rail is good for checking if there will be any delays.
Got this thanks thumbup

Northbloke

643 posts

218 months

Friday 2nd December 2016
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It does the traffic as well if you set your commute up first in the App. "Alexa traffic".

Some useful links:

https://www.alexaskillstore.com/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display....

As things are being added at quite a pace I've signed up for the weekly newsletter as well (not sure where!) with hints, tips and new stuff. Pretty good.

essayer

9,008 posts

193 months

Friday 2nd December 2016
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You can replay the recordings of your voice commands from the Alexa webapp eek

tom77

108 posts

195 months

Friday 2nd December 2016
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ask Alexa to 'open the pod bay doors'

THIS - is the coolest thing it does

johnxjsc1985

15,948 posts

163 months

Friday 2nd December 2016
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tom77 said:
ask Alexa to 'open the pod bay doors'

THIS - is the coolest thing it does
my wife wanted to know who Dave is.....laugh

johnxjsc1985

15,948 posts

163 months

Friday 2nd December 2016
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tom77 said:
ask Alexa to 'open the pod bay doors'

THIS - is the coolest thing it does
"beam me up Scotty".

foxsasha

1,416 posts

134 months

Friday 2nd December 2016
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Just bought an Echo for the kitchen and a Dot for the living room. Also just recieved a Phillips Hue starter pack with a trio of colour bulbs and I've a Bluetooth sound bar on order. Had our boiler serviced Wed, turns out it's knackered so will be getting a new one and having smart controls added at the same time. Getting into this smart home stuff. Wonder how far you can go with it.

anonymous-user

53 months

Friday 2nd December 2016
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I think home automation is an awesome thing but I can't help but feel the con is that we buy Echos, smartlights, smart thermostats and after a year or two the software is no longer supported and you have to keep buying new hardware e.g. the Echo is compatible with Philips Hub v2 but not v1 - you end up in a constant cycle of playing catch up.


bristolracer

5,527 posts

148 months

Friday 2nd December 2016
quotequote all
RaymondVanDerDon said:
I think home automation is an awesome thing but I can't help but feel the con is that we buy Echos, smartlights, smart thermostats and after a year or two the software is no longer supported and you have to keep buying new hardware e.g. the Echo is compatible with Philips Hub v2 but not v1 - you end up in a constant cycle of playing catch up.
Bingo !
But you mustn't spread that thought about
We absolutely must keep chucking stuff away so we can buy more stuff
Buy more stuff
Need more stuff

Ooh look at us we are carbon neutral but you consumers keep putting our products in the landfill