Amazon Echo

Author
Discussion

ajprice

27,471 posts

196 months

Friday 21st April 2017
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Origin Unknown said:
Is there a way in which you can alias a command to Alexa? I listen to a internet radio station called "Release FM" but only once in 20+ times of trying can I get Alexa to correctly understand what I'm asking. Keeps playing a Ukrainian radio station called Lux FM. Using the iPhone app, it reports "Alexa heard "play release f.m." so it's not my accent!
I'm not sure that it will work for radio stations but from what i know of it, Yonomi can have 'routines' set up so that saying 'movie night' will set up the TV, hue lights, Netflix etc. in one go.

Northbloke

643 posts

219 months

Friday 21st April 2017
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GetCarter said:
Spooky.

Alexa. Play music by Steve Carter.
Aha, is that your stuff then GC?

I often say "Alexa play relaxing music" which usually comes back with bl**dy Elton John even though I've told "her" a hundred times I don't like it.

What I'm after is just some pleasant non-intrusive background music...just like yours! Got any other stuff I should know about?

It reminds me of the background music to the game Osmos. Very nice. That's not yours is it?

https://youtu.be/jrzhlTn1_ds?t=37

Anyway, well done.

Cotty

39,533 posts

284 months

Friday 21st April 2017
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Northbloke said:
What I'm after is just some pleasant non-intrusive background music...just like yours! Got any other stuff I should know about?
I particularly like Ask the Mountain, for a chill out tune. The rest of the album is also worth a listen. Alexa should be able to find it easily.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Digital-Music/Collectio...

GetCarter

29,377 posts

279 months

Friday 21st April 2017
quotequote all
Northbloke said:
Aha, is that your stuff then GC?

I often say "Alexa play relaxing music" which usually comes back with bl**dy Elton John even though I've told "her" a hundred times I don't like it.

What I'm after is just some pleasant non-intrusive background music...just like yours! Got any other stuff I should know about?

It reminds me of the background music to the game Osmos. Very nice. That's not yours is it?

https://youtu.be/jrzhlTn1_ds?t=37

Anyway, well done.
Osmos not me.

I did a whole bunch of it in the 90's when 'New Age' music was all the fashion. Thats what Alexa seems to be playing, but I don't know where 'she' is getting it!

As for more of same: Mark Isham is the king of this sorta music... he does other stuff too... but a lot of his stuff is about as laid back as you can get >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E2sftmBOf0

Edited by GetCarter on Friday 21st April 16:09

Origin Unknown

2,297 posts

169 months

Friday 21st April 2017
quotequote all
ajprice said:
Origin Unknown said:
Is there a way in which you can alias a command to Alexa? I listen to a internet radio station called "Release FM" but only once in 20+ times of trying can I get Alexa to correctly understand what I'm asking. Keeps playing a Ukrainian radio station called Lux FM. Using the iPhone app, it reports "Alexa heard "play release f.m." so it's not my accent!
I'm not sure that it will work for radio stations but from what i know of it, Yonomi can have 'routines' set up so that saying 'movie night' will set up the TV, hue lights, Netflix etc. in one go.
Thanks, I'll look at another way.

PixelpeepS3

8,600 posts

142 months

Monday 24th April 2017
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is anyone running these things multi-room ?

what happens if two units pick you up at the same time?

GetCarter

29,377 posts

279 months

Monday 24th April 2017
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PixelpeepS3 said:
is anyone running these things multi-room ?

what happens if two units pick you up at the same time?
I am... they never have yet.

tankplanker

2,479 posts

279 months

Monday 24th April 2017
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PixelpeepS3 said:
is anyone running these things multi-room ?

what happens if two units pick you up at the same time?
I am, with multiple on the same floor, I set different keywords.

Collectingbrass

2,210 posts

195 months

Monday 24th April 2017
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PixelpeepS3 said:
is anyone running these things multi-room ?

what happens if two units pick you up at the same time?
I am, one in the lounge and one in the bathroom in a 2 bed flat, with the same wake word. They use echo location and I've always had the one nearest to me carry out the required action. Well, as well as Alexa ever does; good help me if she starts expecting Valentines cards and flowers on her birthday.

davek_964

8,812 posts

175 months

Monday 24th April 2017
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Mine woke me up with an alarm this morning, which is great. However - no matter how many times I repeated myself it absolutely refused to stop the alarm tone. Eventually, it did shut up on its own.

Once I got up, I discovered that my router has died overnight - hence although the alarm still worked, any attempt at voice recognition was doomed to fail!

ooo000ooo

2,530 posts

194 months

Tuesday 25th April 2017
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Me - "alexa, set a timer for 40 minutes"
Alexa - "timer set 40 minutes"
.
.
A while later

Me - "Alexa, how long is left on the timer?" (Don't want to burn the Sunday roast)
Alexa - "timer for 40 minutes, cancelled"
Me - "balls"


anonymous-user

54 months

Tuesday 25th April 2017
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Voice control of home heating is cool. I've got a honeywell lyric, directly supported and it's works really really well. Loving my alexa, apart from the telly randomly setting her off.

sybaseian

1,826 posts

275 months

Tuesday 25th April 2017
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I have an echo running in one of my old cars.

The audio system does not have an aux-in or usb, so I have connected it via a bluetooth fm transmitter.

using my phone as a wifi hotspot.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/i19/Wireless-Bluetooth-...



Edited by sybaseian on Tuesday 25th April 08:56

MarkRSi

5,782 posts

218 months

Tuesday 25th April 2017
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OpulentBob said:
Voice control of home heating is cool. I've got a honeywell lyric, directly supported and it's works really really well. Loving my alexa, apart from the telly randomly setting her off.
Anyone got theirs to play nice with the Hive heating system?

nyt

1,807 posts

150 months

Tuesday 25th April 2017
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One of my Echos keeps cutting out when listening to the radio.
The other Echo is fine so I'm pretty sure that it's not my infrastructure.

Amazon's '2 day' response is now into its third week. Their customer support has been disappointing. Every time I chase they tell me that investigations may sometimes take 'slightly' longer than 2 dgreat proays and thank me for my patience and understanding.

Not the end of the world, I can easily move to Google Home and save my 'Prime' subscription. But I thought that it was worth warning everyone that although it's a great product if stuff goes wrong then you're on your own.

IIIRestorerIII

842 posts

228 months

Tuesday 25th April 2017
quotequote all
nyt said:
One of my Echos keeps cutting out when listening to the radio.
The other Echo is fine so I'm pretty sure that it's not my infrastructure.

Amazon's '2 day' response is now into its third week. Their customer support has been disappointing. Every time I chase they tell me that investigations may sometimes take 'slightly' longer than 2 dgreat proays and thank me for my patience and understanding.

Not the end of the world, I can easily move to Google Home and save my 'Prime' subscription. But I thought that it was worth warning everyone that although it's a great product if stuff goes wrong then you're on your own.
I think I had this issue. I can't remember if the fix was to use Tunein radio or if you are already using that then try your other wifi network if you have 2g/5g ones.

Ste1987

1,798 posts

106 months

Tuesday 25th April 2017
quotequote all
MarkRSi said:
OpulentBob said:
Voice control of home heating is cool. I've got a honeywell lyric, directly supported and it's works really really well. Loving my alexa, apart from the telly randomly setting her off.
Anyone got theirs to play nice with the Hive heating system?
I got my Hive installed at the weekend and one of the first things I did was set up Alexa to control it. Setting up on the phone app was a ballache, but managed to do it on the PC. So far so good it's working fine, but I've found I can't seem to set Hive to Schedule mode through the Echo.

MarkRSi

5,782 posts

218 months

Tuesday 25th April 2017
quotequote all
Ste1987 said:
I got my Hive installed at the weekend and one of the first things I did was set up Alexa to control it. Setting up on the phone app was a ballache, but managed to do it on the PC. So far so good it's working fine, but I've found I can't seem to set Hive to Schedule mode through the Echo.
Well that's weird... it was one of the first things I tried as well, but couldn't get it to work, just tried now (without configuring anything today) and it works! I'll see if it goes back into Schedule mode...

MrOrange

2,035 posts

253 months

Wednesday 26th April 2017
quotequote all
IIIRestorerIII said:
nyt said:
One of my Echos keeps cutting out when listening to the radio.
The other Echo is fine so I'm pretty sure that it's not my infrastructure.

Amazon's '2 day' response is now into its third week. Their customer support has been disappointing. Every time I chase they tell me that investigations may sometimes take 'slightly' longer than 2 dgreat proays and thank me for my patience and understanding.

Not the end of the world, I can easily move to Google Home and save my 'Prime' subscription. But I thought that it was worth warning everyone that although it's a great product if stuff goes wrong then you're on your own.
I think I had this issue. I can't remember if the fix was to use Tunein radio or if you are already using that then try your other wifi network if you have 2g/5g ones.
We had the same issue. The solution was to use "Radioplayer" instead.

Cotty

39,533 posts

284 months

Wednesday 3rd May 2017
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They are trying to make Alexa sound more human

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-446...