Amazon Echo

[anonymous-user]

DoctorX said:

All my home automation things already drive the missus mad but I think coming facing to face with a hovering camera which she goes for a piss in the middle of the night might end in divorce.

If she attacks you at least you might capture the evidence on the echo drone bezoz cam?



Just showed my wife the pictures of the cool new drone we might need.

Me - Hey honey Amazon are making in indoor echo drone camera (shows her a photo)

My wife - That thing won’t be flying around here (gives me that look)

Looks like a maybe for us,

[DoctorX]

[otolith]

B'stard Child said:

We have similar cats

That feature comes as standard, sir.

Actually, the dog would probably have a go at it too, but unlike the cat he would trash the house in the process.

[illmonkey]

We're not getting on very well with Alexa recently. It started off as a beautiful relationship, but it's gone sour quickly.

Main issue is her stopping a playlist after a short period of time. Usually about 30-40 mins. You ask her to play again and get told she stopped as there was no activity on Alexa. Like we're meant to interact with her constantly, rather than just want music on all day whilst we WFH...

She cuts you off far too quickly. If you pause for a millisecond, she takes it you've finished and processes. So you have to re-request it and process what you want to say.

The music, if you use apple or amazon, is the same lists of songs. I get they are playlists, but they pick the shortest playlist of popular songs. How do you get more range of songs?

[xeny]

illmonkey said:

I get they are playlists, but they pick the shortest playlist of popular songs. How do you get more range of songs?

There's nothing to stop you creating your own playlist AFAIK? Also, Spotify free works (albeit with adverts) and Spotify tends towards longer playlists than Prime Music in my experience.

[LordGrover]

How about good olde-fashion'd radio?
Alexa, play radio three.

[illmonkey]

Creating my own playlist when I want to listen to a genre almost seems a pain! I have some playlists and she still stops playing them well before they should end, so doesn't fix that issue.

Don't want radio, just background music without pointless discussions and news etc.

[xeny]

There's a skill for RadioParadise, and I think that's fairly interruption free.

[illmonkey]

I'm going to try radio and see if it cuts out like with playlists.

[Shnozz]

I have just put one in the garage. The echo (pardon the pun) in there renders it almost useless. Alexa cannot understand any of my instructions!

[Derek Smith]

I entered a competition where the second prize was a bit of software I fancied. Unfortunately, I won first prize - and Echo.

It's no good to me. I really fancied the software.

[davek_964]

illmonkey said:

We're not getting on very well with Alexa recently. It started off as a beautiful relationship, but it's gone sour quickly.

Main issue is her stopping a playlist after a short period of time. Usually about 30-40 mins.

Mine has started doing this recently - but worse, also seems to have started randomly playing the music on a completely different device some of the time, even though it's the device I'm talking to which answers that it's about to play the music.

[fat80b]

davek_964 said:

Mine has started doing this recently - but worse, also seems to have started randomly playing the music on a completely different device some of the time, even though it's the device I'm talking to which answers that it's about to play the music.

We too have been suffering from new issues of poor recognition performance and random stopping.

My echo 1st gen, went through a phase of stopping playing audio suddenly and then despite understanding and responding, nothing would actually play until it had a hard reset. It has recently improved a bit though I think as we haven't had to reset it for a few weeks now.

We also often have the issue where the 1st gen in one room lights up when you address it but if you aren't careful, it starts playing in a different room. (2nd gen). I think they have been tweaking the sensitivity of devices and the 2nd gen ones have a much better pickup than the 1st....

[illmonkey]

davek_964 said:

illmonkey said:

We're not getting on very well with Alexa recently. It started off as a beautiful relationship, but it's gone sour quickly.

Main issue is her stopping a playlist after a short period of time. Usually about 30-40 mins.

Mine has started doing this recently - but worse, also seems to have started randomly playing the music on a completely different device some of the time, even though it's the device I'm talking to which answers that it's about to play the music.

It seems it's down to licensing costs. People are saying that Amazon pay per song played, to the artist, so it stops if you've not interacted with her, she assumes you've left maybe.

Although the same happens if we play from Apple, maybe the same case?

[illmonkey]

illmonkey said:

davek_964 said:

illmonkey said:

We're not getting on very well with Alexa recently. It started off as a beautiful relationship, but it's gone sour quickly.

Main issue is her stopping a playlist after a short period of time. Usually about 30-40 mins.

Mine has started doing this recently - but worse, also seems to have started randomly playing the music on a completely different device some of the time, even though it's the device I'm talking to which answers that it's about to play the music.

It seems it's down to licensing costs. People are saying that Amazon pay per song played, to the artist, so it stops if you've not interacted with her, she assumes you've left maybe.

Although the same happens if we play from Apple, maybe the same case?

I have been testing!

Radio lasted 5ish hours yesterday. Put music on from Amazon and it errored after about 45 minutes. Put more from Apple and it worked for a few hours.Put a 12 hour play list on this morning from Apple, and it's been on since 8.

I think Amazon/Alexa are doing as I said and cutting the music off to prevent royalty costs. Pretty stty if you ask me. I have prime, but not "Amazon music unlimited", which maybe different. But I'll just start using Apple for the music now anyway.

ETA: Not that it's a problem in lockdown, I imagine I can only stream on 1 device at a time, so if I go off in the car it'll stop at home. Suppose we just get a family account.

Edited by illmonkey on Tuesday 10th November 12:24

[AC43]

illmonkey said:

Creating my own playlist when I want to listen to a genre almost seems a pain! I have some playlists and she still stops playing them well before they should end, so doesn't fix that issue.

Don't want radio, just background music without pointless discussions and news etc.

I've tried Alexa and Google and they are dogst at finding and playing Spotify playlists.

It's a billion times better finding them and firing them up from your phone.

Plus you can then add songs from those playlists to your own curated lists.

Voice control of playlists makes very little sense to me.

[davek_964]

illmonkey said:

I have prime, but not "Amazon music unlimited", which maybe different.

It isn't - I have unlimited.

Mine cuts out Planet Rock too, not just Amazon Music. I haven't timed it, but it seems a bit random.

[illmonkey]

davek_964 said:

illmonkey said:

I have prime, but not "Amazon music unlimited", which maybe different.

It isn't - I have unlimited.

Mine cuts out Planet Rock too, not just Amazon Music. I haven't timed it, but it seems a bit random.

Saves me some testing, thanks

Seems my doorbell does something to the song playing, it fails to continue, then has to skip to the next song.

And just now it's cut off half way though a song and just went to static for 30 seconds.

fking useless product.

[james_TW]

I'm still waiting for the BBC Sounds skills to become multi room

Anyone know why this hasn't been done - Not as if the capability isn't there... I've mailed and tweeted and not had any kind of response...

[Semmelweiss]

james_TW said:

I'm still waiting for the BBC Sounds skills to become multi room

Anyone know why this hasn't been done - Not as if the capability isn't there... I've mailed and tweeted and not had any kind of response...

They are too busy sending out TV Licence Bills for the over 75's not receiving Pension Credit. Dido Harding has most likely been seconded to BBC Sounds, along with Chris Grayling, and they are single-handedly writing the code.