Anyone got one?
What are your thoughts?

Not something I would have bought myself but I was given one for Chrimbo by my mum. (Surprisingly good techie present, definitely beats a jumper and socks)

Have to say that the voice recognition has coped admirably with my weegie accent and it certainly feels like living in the future to be able to just request things and have Jarvis Alexa respond. e.g. mornings can go like this:

me: “Alexa, good morning”
her: “Good morning, {random interesting fact about the day}”

me: “Alexa, what’s in the news?”
her: “Here is your flash briefing: ” {plays news summaries from my selected news sources}

me: “Alexa, play Classic FM”
her: “Okay I’ll play Classic FM on TuneIn” {plays}

me: *starts boiling eggs* “Alexa, set a timer for seven minutes”

etc etc

But…

Not sure I’m okay with having a device sitting listening to my conversations, mundane as they are, and transmitting them to Amazon (or whatever hacker gets control of it).

Nor do I like leaving stuff on all the time anyway.

So for now I turn it off when I’m not using it which rather defeats some of the convenience factor.

Plus the music integration is apparently good, but for now you need an Amazon Music or Spotify Premium account, neither of which I have, so for now I’m limited to internet radio. (It may be possible to set it up to play stuff off a local NAS/iTunes/media server, not investigated that possibility yet as I don’t have one).

doesn’t it only listen/transmit if you say Alexa somewhere in the sentence?

Daisy, daisy, give me your answer do.

Ask her to open to pod bay doors, and see what she says.

doesn’t it only listen/transmit if you say Alexa somewhere in the sentence?

Yep, or if it thinks you might have said “Alexa”.

But history suggests it’s a matter of time till:

A) there is a scandal because it turns out they send back much more than that

and/or

B) someone hacks it (imagine the fun if they programmed it to listen out for other trigger words like “visa” or “password”)

There’s a current case in the US where the police are trying to get amazon to give them the recordings (if they exist) of someones echo who was murdered. Amazon I think are sticking to the we don’t record anything defense.

My bugbear with the echo dot is podcasts, it seems to have difficulty finding the most recent and doesn’t start from where you stopped but the beginning again. This may only effect bbc podcast I haven’t tried others.

Yeah that’s an interesting one. Even if they only hold onto the interpreted text of the query then it could still potentially be useful to police if it was accidentally triggered or the murdered guy tried to use it to call for help etc

It’ll become a bit more morally ambiguous when the police start requesting the Alexa records to provide evidence that the owner committed a crime.

Plus of course..

— PennyArcade

Not even Orwell predicted we’d be actively buying each other state surveillance AI bots as presents 😀

As I snidely said on the thread over Christmas, seems like a novelty item to me. Something you use the features of just because you have it and wouldn’t miss if they were gone? I did look at them when they were only available in the US as it looked like a nice gadget, but just couldn’t see any real use for it. Not that would improve my life anyway.

audio on the alexa is processed elsewhere. it is transmitted whether or not you say ‘alexa’ first, as the device doesn’t do any processing locally.
so yes, amazon are listening, or at least the machines are…..

Yeah it certainly doesn’t solve a problem.

Well at least not a “problem” that extends beyond mild inconvenience for an able-bodied person. (I imagine they’d be great for the less physically able).

Being able to hook it up to other services does open up some interesting possibilities, especially if you are into any form of home automation, but again the same thing applies: chances are you can already manage to turn the lights on, adjust the thermostat or turn on the TV yourself without a massive strain.

I’d have one for free though, no doubt (birthday in a few weeks, by the way) 😀

audio on the alexa is processed elsewhere. it is transmitted whether or not you say ‘alexa’ first, as the device doesn’t do any processing locally.

Not according to Amazon. They say the wake-word spotting is done on the device and only then does it start transmitting audio for interpretation:

1. How do Amazon Echo and Echo Dot recognise the wake word?

Amazon Echo and Echo Dot use on-device keyword spotting to detect the wake word. When these devices detect the wake word, they stream audio to the Cloud, including a fraction of a second of audio before the wake word.

2. How do I know when Amazon Echo or Echo Dot are streaming my voice to the Cloud?

When Amazon Echo or Echo Dot detect the wake word, when you press the action button on top of the devices, or when you press and hold your remote’s microphone button, the light ring around the top of your Amazon Echo turns blue, to indicate that Amazon Echo is streaming audio to the Cloud. When you use the wake word, the audio stream includes a fraction of a second of audio before the wake word, and closes once your question or request has been processed. Within Sounds settings in the Alexa App (Settings > [Your Device Name] > Sounds), you can enable a ‘wake up sound,’ a short audible tone that plays after the wake word is recognised to indicate that the device is streaming audio. You can also enable an ‘end of request sound’ that will play a short audible tone at the end of your request, to indicate that the connection has closed and the device is no longer streaming audio.

— Source: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201602230

Mine just keeps repeating itself.

My bugbear with the echo dot is podcasts, it seems to have difficulty finding the most recent and doesn’t start from where you stopped but the beginning again.

Most things it does are driven by ‘skills’ which are effectively apps. So if you cannot get it to do something very well, try and find another skill for it. There are quite a few related to podcasts.

Re the device – we use it almost entirely for playing music. Internet radios are still £150 odd, and we got the Dot for £40 and a portable speaker for £20 – no brainer.

And yes – they must have the device spot the wake-word, otherwise it’d be streaming every sound from millions of households all the time. That’d be an insane amount of data and have huge infrastructure cost for no actual benefit.

Internet radios are still £150 odd, and we got the Dot for £40 and a portable speaker for £20 – no brainer.

…but the TuneIn Radio app is free for your phone, so all you really gain there is voice control and less portability.

I quite like being about to turn the lights on & off using it with hue. The next step is a wall socket so I can boil the kettle before getting out of bed & going downstairs.

all you really gain there is voice control and less portability

If the only thing you use it for is internet radio…

The next step is a wall socket so I can boil the kettle dry before getting out of bed & going downstairs.

Fixed that for you.

but the TuneIn Radio app is free for your phone, so all you really gain there is voice control and less portability.

Yes but I dont’ want portability, it’s the kitchen radio. I didn’t want to use my phone because I have it paired to several devices as it is and it’s just faff. And voice control is handy. And it also does all the other stuff Alexa does.

We’ve got 2 echo dots (downstairs and one in the bedroom).
Yes it’s gimmicky but useful. Links to our soundbar for music and I’ve splashed out on some LIFX bulbs and a Harmony hub so lights and other gadgets are linked.
It’s most useful for those little things like timers and adding things to a shopping list.

Ifttt app helps sync things with trigger words. Eg when our alexa alarm goes off it turns on the lights downstairs and switches the news on TV.
As other gadgets and appliances break down I’ll replace them with smart ones.

Turning off all the lamps and the hifi in the living room with a voice command would be handy.

Doesn’t one need the hub as well as the sockets though? So a certain outlay to get started…?

Thinking about it.. a Dot in the living room would be pretty handy for reminding you when TV programmes you want to watch are on. There must be a Radio Times skill, surely.

Not according to Amazon. They say the wake-word spotting is done on the device and only then does it start transmitting audio for interpretation:

fair play. live and learn get shown to be wrong most of the time…

The lifx bulbs don’t need a hub. They work directly with the app but are expensive (£45 a bulb but 22year life of 3hrs a day) . Everything else needs a hub. We have the harmony hub which is £90.
So it is expensive but considerably less than a decent bike frame…

Edit:you don’t need sockets with the harmony hub as it’s a posh multi remote control. You can buy sockets for non-remote control devices if you want.

NSFW

[video]https://youtu.be/xrVzFIXiPl8[/video]

How loud is the speaker on the Echo Dot? Is it loud enough to use in a kitchen for listening to Radio 4/5?

Not sure, amusingly my Dot is actually uses my old radio as the speaker 😀

It’s not bad, but it’s cheap radio quality.

But with this cracking device available it’s really not worth it.

Also this if the above is too dear.

Molgrips – so you just connect it to the Echo by blutooth and leave the speaker permanently on?

Yes, although we sometimes turn the speaker off if we remember when we’re not needing it. That Anker one claims to have a battery life of 24 hours, which seems to refer to the actual music playing because it’ll sit there paired and idle for.. well.. weeks, as far as I can tell. Not had it run out but have charged it a couple of times in two months.

Probably somewhat less convenient than the all in one unit, but half the price.

Cool,

Just discovered today that you can do the reverse and pair the Dot to use as a voice-controlled Bluetooth speaker from your phone – which means you play anything you like on non-Premium Spotify on your phone or just stream from your music library. 😀

Been tempted as it also integrates with hive, so heating, sockets and lights!
Already have hive so might try it out.

Purchasing is switched on by default. I ordered 36rolls of Andrex when my mate was in the toilet when we went round for dinner.

Yeah I switched that off as soon as I got it!
Knowing my kids I’d have a dozen X-Boxes by Tuesday.