Amazon Echo

[SCEtoAUX]

Well a few days in for me and I do like the instantaneous ability to just ask for any album ever, and Alexa plays it.

I'll look into the lighting stuff for sure but what has surprised me is how useful the shopping list thing is. Just say what you want and it appears a day or so later. Way more useful than I thought it would be. I think the wife is involved somehow but I'm not interested in what goes on behind the scenes.

Quick question. I know that the cheap music deal only works on one device, so can I buy a Dot and just use it as what would effectively be a microphone in another room? Echo lives in the kitchen, Dot would live in the lounge. I don't want to listen to music from the Dot.

[Gary C]

LeadFarmer said:

page3 said:

We’re finding Alexa quite good although not for what we were expecting too.

Music integration is utterly terrible and we now don’t bother. Classical is laughably badly recognised. Apple Music doesn’t work at all. Spotify just shouts obscenities.

Sonos support is poor. Renaming devices doesn’t work. I don’t want to “play living room” I want to “play Sonos”. No can do.

Mine works perfectly when I say "Alexa, play radio two on Sonos" or "Alexa, play Queen, A Kind of Magic on Sonos".

I do have to specify it being played on Sonos though, as it will play on the Dot otherwise and I don't think there's a way to set a default speaker.

and whe you have more than one sonos zone, it makes no sense to say play on sonos. However, they are working on making a dot default to a specific sonos zone. This will not only make it easier to play music in the area you are in, but it will also stop the annoying mass mute that occurs on every zone while you command your dot.

i do find it difficult though to understand why its taking them so long. I assume it was down to the Amazon SDK or similar not being released to sonos early, but they do seem to swim in treacle.

I mean, I found, solved, programmed and tested software to control a nuclear reactor while refuelling in less than 6 months, and the QA on that was much higher than any multi room music system.

[RammyMP]

I've just got a Dot for my birthday. I find it irritating that I now need to subscribe to another music service as Apple Music (which I find to be pretty poor anyway) isn't compatible.

I'm now going to buy some TP Link plugs to turn the lights on and off!

[ecsrobin]

RammyMP said:

I've just got a Dot for my birthday. I find it irritating that I now need to subscribe to another music service as Apple Music (which I find to be pretty poor anyway) isn't compatible.

I'm now going to buy some TP Link plugs to turn the lights on and off!

Bin off Apple Music and get amazon music. I’ve used Spotify, amazon, Apple and google music. Personally I think amazon is the best one to use.

[Shnozz]

ecsrobin said:

RammyMP said:

I've just got a Dot for my birthday. I find it irritating that I now need to subscribe to another music service as Apple Music (which I find to be pretty poor anyway) isn't compatible.

I'm now going to buy some TP Link plugs to turn the lights on and off!

Bin off Apple Music and get amazon music. I’ve used Spotify, amazon, Apple and google music. Personally I think amazon is the best one to use.

Exactly. I was paying for all 3 services and binned off Apple. I have Amazon music as part of prime but just pay for Spotify in addition. Its worthy of the additional cost.

[V8 Animal]

Alexa down in Seat cars

[Nigel_O]

AnotherGuy said:

Thread derail : Just out of interest - why LightWaveRF?

I did two or three hours of research before ordering. From what I managed to find out on t’internet, the light wave stuff looks good, is reliable, has a decent mobile app and interfaces well with the Echo

I already have led lamps in the vast majority of my light fittings, so I didn’t want to splash out on Hue (I have no interest in coloured lamps - just on/off and dim). I have three or four ceiling light fittings I want to control (easy with LWRF) - the rest are all plug-in devices, so half a dozen LWRF plugs will do the trick.

They should turn up tomorrow, so I’ll have a play and report back.

In the meantime, the Echo turned up today - exceptionally easy to set up. Even Wifey is mildly impressed with how easy it is to use.

I’ve also linked it with my son’s Spotify Premium account, which which it works perfectly well.

Most impressive is the accuracy - “she” rarely misses a request (we’re already referring to her as “she” because mentioning her name wakes her up....)

[tenohfive]

El stovey said:

Is there a reason people seem to be buying hue stuff?

There are loads of smart bulbs around that are cheaper and don’t require a bridge.

I got a free hue bulb with my echo plus and it’s ok but no better than my other smart bulbs plus you can only control it on the echo app not the other one I use for all my other smart devices.

That's mainly it - there were a lot of deals around BF with Hue bulbs that put them cheaper than the alternatives like Innr or Tradfri. I've got a mix of Hue and Hive bulbs connected to my ST hub; they all work the same, so I don't really care what I get.

[gr1340]

I took advantage of the 2 Echo Show’s for £160 and I’m very impressed.
It sounds as good or better than the original Echo but being able to watch prime video is a great alternative to music which I don’t really listen to much.
When it’s not being used it scrolls through my photos which the kids like the see and displays any timers and reminders on the screen which is helpful.

[anonymous-user]

gr1340 said:

I took advantage of the 2 Echo Show’s for £160 and I’m very impressed.
It sounds as good or better than the original Echo but being able to watch prime video is a great alternative to music which I don’t really listen to much.
When it’s not being used it scrolls through my photos which the kids like the see and displays any timers and reminders on the screen which is helpful.

I was going to get that but thank god it had run out before I could. The show looks good but I don’t need one, let alone two of them.

Please can people stop posting tempting links for stuff I don’t need.

[B17NNS]

Echo Spot looks nifty. Usual caveat about cameras in bedrooms aside.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/27/16375186/amazon...

[carreauchompeur]

El stovey said:

I was going to get that but thank god it had run out before I could. The show looks good but I don’t need one, let alone two of them.

Please can people stop posting tempting links for stuff I don’t need.

Ditto very nearly bit the bullet as I couldn't think of a good reason not to. I definitely do not need them!

[LarryUSA]

Nigel_O said:

Most impressive is the accuracy - “she” rarely misses a request (we’re already referring to her as “she” because mentioning her name wakes her up....)

We changed our wake word to Echo to avoid this, so we can call her Alexa without waking it up. Stops people messing with it or the TV sound starting it off too...

[SCEtoAUX]

LarryUSA said:

Nigel_O said:

Most impressive is the accuracy - “she” rarely misses a request (we’re already referring to her as “she” because mentioning her name wakes her up....)

We changed our wake word to Echo to avoid this, so we can call her Alexa without waking it up. Stops people messing with it or the TV sound starting it off too...

I found that changing to "computer" was nowhere near as reliable as "Alexa". I know you can do voice training but we've stuck with Alexa for now.

Before I bought it I assumed you could make anything your wake word... shame :-(

[anonymous-user]

They really need to introduce a setting where you can stop Alexa saying OK when it does something.

[chasingracecars]

El stovey said:

They really need to introduce a setting where you can stop Alexa saying OK when it does something.

I find that useful for turning on devices I can’t see, Alexa confirms she has done something.

[tedmus]

chasingracecars said:

I find that useful for turning on devices I can’t see, Alexa confirms she has done something.

Yes but she also confirms things when she hasn't done them in my experience, I end up getting narky with her

[sas62]

tedmus said:

Yes but she also confirms things when she hasn't done them in my experience, I end up getting narky with her

Same. I have an upstairs heater that Alexa confirms she has switched on. Fortunately I can hear it through the floor so even though Alexa confirms OK, I can hear when it has not been switched on.

[B17NNS]

SCEtoAUX said:

Before I bought it I assumed you could make anything your wake word... shame :-(

Agreed. I'd quite liked to have been able to call her Dave.

[Cotty]

B17NNS said:

Agreed. I'd quite liked to have been able to call her Dave.

Is that so you can change your automatic garage opener to Pod Bay Doors.