Some good advertising and a very early wake up on Friday saw me making a spur of the moment pre order of one of these (Prime price of £99)! Anyone else bought one? I hadnt even watched many videos or reviews of it. Been watching them since buying and it does look very good for the kitchen, I’m really rather excited, hence my post 🙂

I saw this and am interested in learning more. Although initially I was put off by the fact I live in a low tech home whereby you turn the lights off with a switch, and the heating is an – albeit digitial – thermostat on the wall, so I was wondering what use it’d be.

A wireless speaker with voice recognition. Why?

Pointless tech is pointless.

Ah yes. Just watch the video. Seems a bit, lazy…

In my house the voice recognition controller used to order stuff, put on music, check weather and news is me. So I quite like the idea of making myself redundant. If it put out the bins I’d definitely buy it.

I’ve not got any fancy wifi lights or Hive etc system, so will just be using it for playing music and asking questions like weather, sports scores and cooking questions eg weight conversions. Stuff you would like to do whilst busy in the kitchen and hands are full.
eg “Alexa, play BBC News from Tune In”
or “Alexa, tell me the football scores”

Something always on and connected to wifi, ready for my command.

Disclaimer – further expensive home automation purchases may follow!

I saw it demonstrated on the news and it looked very slick and clever.

I can’t think of a single use for it, so I’ll keep the £100.

I have many uses for that.

£150 now..

DrP

They were on offer for £99 to Prime users for last Friday only, hence my purchase!

meh…i don’t need one.. ( 🙁 )

DrP

Bit big brother though, recording your room 24/7 and sending it to Amazon central for ‘analysis’…..

Probably find the CIA/GCHQ designed it for them 😉

I would like this to connect to my hifi and play Amazon Prime Music. Easier than using an old phone for this purpose I think.

I was also mildly interested in the remote switching of plugs. So for example I can have it turn on the coffee machine at 7.15 before we get up and go downstairs, so it’s ready. Waste of resources, mind. A nice thing about it though is that the app is server-side so it’ll get more stuff all the time without you having to do anything.

Only major problem is if you live with someone called Alexa.

So for example I can have it turn on the coffee machine at 7.15 before we get up and go downstairs, so it’s ready.

Just buy one of these:

https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/SMTS800.html?ad_position=1o1&source=adwords&ad_id=45425533757&placement=&kw=&network=g&matchtype=&ad_type=pla&product_id=SMTS800&product_partition_id=174056225347&test=finalurl_v2&gclid=CMaqt-6ToM8CFYYy0wod2WgDKw

We plumped for one last Friday as well. Thought we would give it a go and if no go super easy to return to Amazon. We currently have a Sonos but really only use it for playing Amazon music and radio. ie not hooked up to some NAS drive with 1000’s of tracks. Like the idea of talking to get it to start playing or change tracks as the kids can then control it then, instead of playing with my phone. We also have a Hive so that will be handy.

What I want to try and do is see if I can get it to hook up to a bluetooth speaker and then play out of 2 speakers at the same time. We have just opened up our kitchen and conservatory and our Sonos 1 isn’t really powerfull enough to fill both rooms. Hopefully an Echo and a bluetooth speaker will be. Sonos is great but annoying that it is such a closed ecosystem.

I think it will be one of these devices you either love and use all the time or stop using it for much quite quickly.

Have pre-ordered the dot.

Don’t need a speaker, but have been looking for a streaming something to plug into the kitchen hifi.

The fact you can talk to it is a bonus!

Also, the Detective on Mr Robot has got one, and it looks cool!

Just buy one of these:

Will that also allow me to turn it on by voice whenever I want at the weekends? No, thought not 🙂

Somewhere there’s a thread about folk (especially kids) being addicted to technology and another about streets being so overwhelmed by parked cars that kids can’t play outside their own house….

Also, the Detective on Mr Robot has got one, and it looks cool!

Ahh, now it makes sense – i was scratching my head trying to think wtf is that lump of plastic she is talking to.

Amazon prime sent me a link to it but i didn’t pay any attention to what it does.

i was scratching my head trying to think wtf is that lump of plastic she is talking to.

Product Placement fail 🙂

Somewhere there’s a thread about folk (especially kids) being addicted to technology

Yeah that’s not the same as this though.

You want to wait for the next needless consumerism and planet destruction thread to link to here.

Well I’ve got Siri on my phone and don’t use it so I’m oot.

Well I’ve got Siri on my phone and don’t use it so I’m oot.

I knew she was two timing me, sneaky bitch….

Yes but Siri is useless. She cant even control apps and simple task on an iPhone. Personally and I have tried a quite a few times, I cant get Siri to really do anything useful. Even gettign her to dial numbers when driving never works

Apparently you can change its name from Alexa….

change its name from Alexa

Watch those psychiatry bills roll in when sorting out the multiple personality disorder of your new gadget.
Or the accusatory “who’s this Sally?” (or other female/male name).

voice recognition is crap beyond the initial playing around with it.

Does it do Scottish?

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FFRoYhTJQQ[/video]