Amazon Echo

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Discussion

ecsrobin

17,019 posts

164 months

Friday 17th November 2017
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I guess it depends how you’re using it.

For me I’ve had Phillips Hue lights for over a year, I want the functionality they offer from being dimmable (with no dimmer switch) and the changing white hues (blue for concentrating, yellow for relaxing) or rarely I’ll use the colours.

So to do this I used to have to control it with my phone, that was good but relied on me carrying my phone around the house. Now with hue as I get up to go to elsewhere I can tell the light to turn on pop in the room and back and get it to turn off. It may sound like it’s not useful but when you’ve got your hands full (Fridays I allow my housekeeping staff a day off so have to carry items myself) it becomes so useful.

As for the smart plug I’ve just got. I’m 4ft from the switch and could do it myself, but as it’s now coupled with the lights I can say one saying and it will turn off 3 lights and a TV and associated peripherals.

And then of course there’s the radio/music side of things. I used to only listen to music in the car, now I find myself listening to music more than I watch TV, it’s also handy when cooking to be able to skip a track or set an alarm.

If I had a garage I’d certainly fit one in there, dirty oily hands whilst working on a car, listening to music and being able to call people all hands free, why wouldn’t you for £35?

tenohfive

6,276 posts

181 months

Friday 17th November 2017
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It's the hands free thing that swings it for me. Most things can be done easily, but almost without fail will require me to stop doing one thing to do another. With voice control I don't.

I've had my Dot a few months now and can honestly say I use it most days. Not for anything taxing - mostly it's either setting a timer whilst cooking (whilst my hands are still dirty), asking the time or turning a lamp on. I've had it long enough that none of those things are novelties any more. I'm using Alexa because it's just a little bit easier than the alternative.

Worth spending a lot of money for that convenience? Probably not. But £35? Definitely.

Blown2CV

28,697 posts

202 months

Saturday 18th November 2017
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echo plus is out now which i believe provides (or uses?) home automation hub. I mean yea i guess the greater number of things i could do hands free in the house the more useful it might be.

However... what do people think of the snoopability? Presume all the supporters will downplay this aspect.

Also, what happens if you want to switch to another type of device... you basically have the lose all the 'learning about you' the Echo has done. That would be frustrating i imagine.

ecsrobin

17,019 posts

164 months

Saturday 18th November 2017
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Blown2CV said:
echo plus is out now which i believe provides (or uses?) home automation hub. I mean yea i guess the greater number of things i could do hands free in the house the more useful it might be.

However... what do people think of the snoopability? Presume all the supporters will downplay this aspect.

Also, what happens if you want to switch to another type of device... you basically have the lose all the 'learning about you' the Echo has done. That would be frustrating i imagine.
The plus has a built in zigbee hub. Potentially it cuts out having to have other hubs like hue and smartthings however as has been found with hue it reduces functionality.

I have no concerns with snooping, I generally think it’s an older generation thing and to be fair if anyone wants to listen into my conversations they’re going to be pretty bored, maybe if I was in the boardroom it may be a concern.

Echo doesn’t learn it just adds functionality so if you swapped over to google or Siri you’d just reset up your automation kit which is straightforward on all the devices.

Watchman

6,391 posts

244 months

Saturday 18th November 2017
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One of my three Dots couldn't "see" my home automation last night. I tried deleting skills and recreating then but in the end I had to deregister the offending Dot and re-register it.

Edited by Watchman on Saturday 18th November 10:09

Coxey

407 posts

106 months

Saturday 18th November 2017
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My wife bought me an echo dot, I'm looking to get a wireless speaker and quite fancy the Bowers and Wilkins Zeppelin. Will it work with the dot or do I need to buy a Sonos?

Thanks

ajprice

27,316 posts

195 months

Saturday 18th November 2017
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Coxey said:
My wife bought me an echo dot, I'm looking to get a wireless speaker and quite fancy the Bowers and Wilkins Zeppelin. Will it work with the dot or do I need to buy a Sonos?

Thanks
If the Zeppelin has Bluetooth then the Echo Dot should pair and connect to it.

Digitalize

2,850 posts

134 months

Saturday 18th November 2017
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Coxey said:
My wife bought me an echo dot, I'm looking to get a wireless speaker and quite fancy the Bowers and Wilkins Zeppelin. Will it work with the dot or do I need to buy a Sonos?

Thanks
I'd question why you want to connect the Dot wirelessly to the speaker, especially one as good quality as that. The Dot has a 3.5mm output on the back which will be better quality than Bluetooth.

tenohfive

6,276 posts

181 months

Saturday 18th November 2017
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ecsrobin said:
Blown2CV said:
echo plus is out now which i believe provides (or uses?) home automation hub. I mean yea i guess the greater number of things i could do hands free in the house the more useful it might be.

However... what do people think of the snoopability? Presume all the supporters will downplay this aspect.

Also, what happens if you want to switch to another type of device... you basically have the lose all the 'learning about you' the Echo has done. That would be frustrating i imagine.
The plus has a built in zigbee hub. Potentially it cuts out having to have other hubs like hue and smartthings however as has been found with hue it reduces functionality.

I have no concerns with snooping, I generally think it’s an older generation thing and to be fair if anyone wants to listen into my conversations they’re going to be pretty bored, maybe if I was in the boardroom it may be a concern.

Echo doesn’t learn it just adds functionality so if you swapped over to google or Siri you’d just reset up your automation kit which is straightforward on all the devices.
The issue with the Echo Plus not having full functionality - is that a software issue? I'm just wondering if it's worth getting one cheaply and waiting for Amazon to release an update as I don't have any Hue lights (yet.)

On the snooping front, I do consider it but web security with Amazon is a big thing - I believe they make more money from Amazon Web Services than they do from their US retail business (we're talking billions) so I believe they've got a vested interest in being as secure as possible.

Big Worm 1

521 posts

163 months

Saturday 18th November 2017
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Has anyone else had any issues setting up the multi room music function? When i try and do it, all my devices are showing available but when i tick one, the others become unreachable! The create group button is greyed out and i can't save even save one device at a time.

dmsims

6,450 posts

266 months

Saturday 18th November 2017
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Big Worm 1 said:
Has anyone else had any issues setting up the multi room music function? When i try and do it, all my devices are showing available but when i tick one, the others become unreachable! The create group button is greyed out and i can't save even save one device at a time.
Just tried it with 2 and it worked

B17NNS

18,506 posts

246 months

Saturday 18th November 2017
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tenohfive said:
The issue with the Echo Plus not having full functionality - is that a software issue? I'm just wondering if it's worth getting one cheaply and waiting for Amazon to release an update as I don't have any Hue lights (yet.)
It's a 'Phillips wanting to sell you a bridge' issue.

tenohfive

6,276 posts

181 months

Sunday 19th November 2017
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With the talk of the Echo Plus selling for £109.99 from midnight, I'm quite tempted by the idea of getting one, bundling in a smart plug and ordering a Smartthings motion sensor for change from £150. The only reason I'm hesitating is the mention of ST routines being more detailed and having more potential than the Echo's routines.

The ST starter kit is £99.99, chuck in a second gen Echo and it's not much more. And that route brings presence and multi sensors bundled.

Decisions decisions.

gpb1

572 posts

143 months

Monday 20th November 2017
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I've got 4 Dots and have the multi-room audio set up BUT slightly disappointed that each Dot can only be in one group at a time. Ideally I wanted to set up an upstairs, a downstairs and an everywhere group but can't do that yet.

768

13,601 posts

95 months

Monday 20th November 2017
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Blown2CV said:
However... what do people think of the snoopability? Presume all the supporters will downplay this aspect.
It's a possibility but I don't care about it because the risk is sufficiently low. If there was an issue with the security of the TLS connection, or Alexa sending data without you mentioning the keyword I've little doubt someone would spot it. If you're discussing state secrets at home it might be worth reconsidering.

Blown2CV said:
Also, what happens if you want to switch to another type of device... you basically have the lose all the 'learning about you' the Echo has done. That would be frustrating i imagine.
I don't think it learns on an individual basis, other than the ability to differentiate between users. That's not a significant factor in switching.

768

13,601 posts

95 months

Monday 20th November 2017
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Blown2CV said:
i could understand it for usage scenarios where you need to interact with the 'computer' as a cumbersome dialogue, where voice might work better... but if all you want to to is put the radio on a single station or start playing an pre-existing playlist... i don't understand what voice control really gives you.
If you've got raw chicken on your hands in the kitchen, or you're flat on your back between sets lifting weights in the gym, or you've got engine oil on your hands in the garage, or you just can't be bothered to get off the sofa in the lounge at the end of a long day, or it's even just further away than the time it takes to issue the voice command then I find it useful.

Mosman

778 posts

204 months

Monday 20th November 2017
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durbster said:
Mosman said:
Not sure what the effect of using the same Amazon Music account in several places at once is? Certainly you can't ask Alexa to play a playlist from Spotify - which is a shame as I do prefer Spotify.

Another consideration is that multi room music does not work with Spotify - probably some licencing issue there.
Are you sure? If I got an Echo I'd want to use it for Spotify.

This suggests the Echo supports Spotify Connect (and therefore multi-room) here:
https://support.spotify.com/us/listen_everywhere/o...
Quite happy to be corrected but I have Spotify set as my default music source and when I ask it to play something "everywhere" it reports it cannot play Spotify on groups.

tenohfive

6,276 posts

181 months

Monday 20th November 2017
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Well my house is slowly getting smarter. SmartThings Starter Kit added, absolute doddle to get everything working and connected to Alexa. I'm just trying to suss out how to get my TP Link plugs working with ST - they're not natively supported but it seems there's a community work around. I've not read the instructions yet but it seems that once you've sussed out how to do it once, it's pretty straightforward doing it for anything else. There's certainly no shortage of info on the forums.

I'm just hunting for some deals on Hue lights now. Best I can see is 3 normal ones for £30 (3 for price of 2 technically) at PC World.

Has anyone on here got a latest gen Echo and can comment on music quality? I've got a few cheapish Anker SoundCore BT speakers and that level of quality is fine - if it's less than that, not so much. The Dot just doesn't cut it and I never did get around to sussing out why it dropped BT connection (which isn't ideal anyway, so I can justify getting a full fat Echo.)

B17NNS

18,506 posts

246 months

Monday 20th November 2017
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tenohfive said:
I'm just hunting for some deals on Hue lights now. Best I can see is 3 normal ones for £30 (3 for price of 2 technically) at PC World.
Just go with whatever deal is the cheapest to get the bridge.

Then get your bulbs from Ikea or Innr.

dmsims

6,450 posts

266 months

Monday 20th November 2017
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B17NNS said:
Just go with whatever deal is the cheapest to get the bridge.

Then get your bulbs from Ikea or Innr.
Well this is timely smile and I wholeheartedly agree - why anyone would pay Hue prices is a complete mystery

I have just fitted some tunable white GU10's from Innr

Same size as a normal GU10

Quality is superb, brighter and nicer than both the LAP and Philips bulbs they replaced

I have them set somewhere between daylight and warm white in the kitchen