Amazon Echo

[pmanson]

PixelpeepS3 said:

timely find of this thread for me - was looking into using the dot as a 'hands free' solution to control the sonos in the bathroom when the missus is having a soak rather than my original plan of having a cheap tablet in a waterproof case on suction pads on the tiles

seen a few vids on youtube of this working, "hey alexia, tell sonos to play 90s greatest hits in the bathroom" etc but reading posts about it not understanding what you're saying now concerns me - the voice system in the S3 was perfect for the first few months and now literally everything i say it doesn't have a clue (most of the time with comical results, unless i need something quick in which case i wanna bash fk out of it!)

I think you need to wait for Sonos to release the software integration with Alexa. Via Yonomi i can switch most of my Sonos boxes on/off but if I ask Alexa play a certain playlist it trys to play it on the echo (at which point it switches off whatever we're listening too on the Sonos).

Shame really i've been thinking about getting my son an Echo Dot for his room

[Bullett]

Why have an alexa to control a sonos to play spotify. Don't need the sonos for that, you can play spotify directly.

It's ok for playing a random playlist but trying to play specific tracks can be tricky. I usually end up selecting stuff via the app in that scenario.

[Nimby]

https://xkcd.com/1807/

[theboyfold]

There are a lot of interesting things Alexa related on this channel

https://www.youtube.com/user/wolfsweb

[Sheets Tabuer]

I have no idea whats going on with mine but 3 nights on the trot at 3am it has said "I'm sorry I can't help you with that" and today I picked up my phone to see my echo is playing spotify. Looking at the command history shows nothing has been said to the bloody thing.

[MrOrange]

Sheets Tabuer said:

I have no idea whats going on with mine but 3 nights on the trot at 3am it has said "I'm sorry I can't help you with that" and today I picked up my phone to see my echo is playing spotify. Looking at the command history shows nothing has been said to the bloody thing.

Mine has just the "play Spotify" thing. Was listening to Radioplayer then sometime after 3pm it switched over. Nothing in the app to suggest a command had been given. Wierd.

[tankplanker]

I finally caved and bought two Dots, one for the living room and one for the main bedroom.

So far I have it:
1) Controlling both sets of harmony remotes so I can turn on the TV in either location for the Nvidia Shield or Xbox
2) Controlling the Hue and Wemo lighting across the house (around 30 lights) via Smarthings. This means I can have different scenes activate for a room depending on what I say. Best one turns off downstairs lights, turns on upstairs lights via one command
3) Playing radio stations via my Pure bluetooth speaker in the bedroom and the amp in the living room
4) Using tasker and autovoice controlling the Nvidia Shields, this was a balls ache to setup, but I can do voice searches for Google Play Music or Netflix, Kodi and they'll auto play. Auto voice itself is easy to setup, its the passthru to Kodi via Yatse that was painful.

I want another one for the kitchen as the one in the living room is a bit far to issue commands, plus it'll hook up to the Pure speaker in the kitchen for music playback.

I also need to get google play music working with the Dots outside of the Shields for playback without needing a Shield on.

[Baron Greenback]

^^^ Are you using Nvidia Shield K1 or TV? Got a K1 wondered how I can use it with my Echo!

Want to use https://music.amazon.co.uk/ and output on my Echo also not obvious how to set it up!

[GetCarter]

swerni said:

Sheets Tabuer said:

I have no idea whats going on with mine but 3 nights on the trot at 3am it has said "I'm sorry I can't help you with that" and today I picked up my phone to see my echo is playing spotify. Looking at the command history shows nothing has been said to the bloody thing.

Ours seem to come on randomly as well.

No idea why

Same here.

[ajprice]

Mine is lighting up when the Alexa advert comes on TV, doesn't do anything else or answer the TV though

[tankplanker]

Baron Greenback said:

^^^ Are you using Nvidia Shield K1 or TV? Got a K1 wondered how I can use it with my Echo!

Want to use https://music.amazon.co.uk/ and output on my Echo also not obvious how to set it up!

TV, but anything that is running Android should be able to use tasker/auto voice.

However with amazon's paid music service, you just add it to your account then the Echo should just see that you have it and offer a better range of music when you request via voice on the echo?

[tenohfive]

My dot seems to throw a wobble when connected to a BT speaker - it'll play music fine, skip a few tracks - then glow red at every command.
Connect it with an aux in cable and it works fine. Odd.

Still very glad I got one mind.

[LDN]

I disconnected mine; didn't think it was quite up to the job - its 90% there but not quite and I had enough frustrating exchanges with it that I just pulled the plug.

[gpb1]

Have linked mine to a couple of Raspberry Pis I had to run a couple of scripts. Was surprisingly easy and now I can turn on and off a couple of Energenie sockets I had and also the screen on my photoframe via Alexa.

[poing]

tankplanker said:

I want another one for the kitchen as the one in the living room is a bit far to issue commands, plus it'll hook up to the Pure speaker in the kitchen for music playback.

I have a bedroom and living room dot but also need one in the kitchen. Found myself in the kitchen on Saturday shouting commands at her then realised the back door was wide open so god only knows what my neighbours thought I was doing.

Alexa, what time is it? ALEXA WHAT fkING TIME IS IT? Thanks.
Alexa, next. ALEXA, NEXT oh ffs ALEXA NEXT! Stupid deaf cow.
Alexa, give me the pancake recipe. ALEXA.....

You get the idea.

I came real close to buying the Logitech car thing but the reviews were poor on Amazon. My car already has voice control so I have no idea why I need this! https://www.logitech.com/en-gb/product/zerotouch

[untakenname]

Xiaomi Yeelight finally has an offical skill https://www.alexaskillstore.com/Yeelight/43841

Works really well, makes it a decent alternative to the philips hue range.

[ajprice]

http://mashable.com/2017/03/14/amazon-echo-now-wor...

There's an unannounced update for the big Echo which enables Bluetooth speaker pairing, matching what the Dot has always been able to do.

[V8 Animal]

Mine puts the kettle on but doesn't make the tea.

[babelfish]

My Echo Dot is connected to an amp and setup in the main Kitchen/Living area. It gets used mainly to:

• play radio stations
• play music
• turn the TV on/change channels via harmony hub
• change the heating via Tado

It's not perfect but I think it's a great gadget even though things like the harmony hub needs a lot of config to work well

BF

[sybaseian]

I have an echo in the lounge and a number of dots (some of which are connected to my sonos systems via RCA audio cables).

even thinking about getting some and using them in some of my cars