[Closed] Amazon Alexa

Find it useful for music personally.

Got Google Home and Alexa in my Firestick

On the TV it's there for searching etc. great and simple

Google Home it's great,sets timers and reminders, plays music, radio and podcasts checks the weather, checks my schedule, searches the web, is a calculator, converter and heaps more

I got the echo music plan with ours so it's great to have access to a variety of stuff. Timers are good and smart home routines. The voice recognition is pretty bad though and if anything I think it's got worse over time.

I use mine every day for turning heating and lights on and off plus radio sometimes and the question of the day of course.

I thought it would be good for music but it appears that you need to upload your collection to Amazon storage.

So I'm trying out spotify at the moment, which is okay for pop music. Also having problems with voice recognition - Laurent Garnier took six or seven goes. And the german version of 99 red balloons took 4 days to find the right accent.

Use mine with Spotify every day. Also use the timer function a lot.

Oh n I'll randomly play shit music through it when she's working from home to piss her off

mainly used for music and weather but having a three year old and five year old it's a sodding ballache at times

I've just replaced mine with a Google Home Hub, which is brilliant.  I think the Echo has slightly better sound quality, but the Home Hub is more versatile, the screen is useful, and more importantly it doesn't randomly drop BBC radio streams.

Music, because I'm a Prime member I don't have to upload music.

Intercom, cos we have a three storey house.

Reminders and timers

Will soon be entering into home automation I think.

My daughter uses it at night to play her to sleep. You can tell it to turn off after a certain time.

My tip would not be to put it near the telly box when you’re watching the match and Alexis Sanchez is playing

Music service is pretty good if you are a Prime subscriber.  Works wells as an alarm clock.  Our five year old has a love/hate relationship with Alexa.

We mainly used ours for Spotify but eventually found that controlling the music via a tablet was much easier and comprehensive that shouting at Alexa (scrolling through a new album when you don't know all the song names is a pain on Alexa but takes seconds on the tablet).

You can make Alexa do farts though which is a big draw for the kids (and me).

We have 4 in total. Proper geek device, plays music and no if you subscribe to Amazon Music you don’t need to upload, controls various lights and recently setup to control the hot water. All by voice or Alexa app.

 (scrolling through a new album when you don’t know all the song names is a pain on Alexa but takes seconds on the tablet).

For the google music point of view you just ask for the latest album by XYZ and it plays it so maybe try that

We mainly used ours for Spotify but eventually found that controlling the music via a tablet was much easier and comprehensive that shouting at Alexa (scrolling through a new album when you don’t know all the song names is a pain on Alexa but takes seconds on the tablet).

You can control Alexa through the app too.  So if I want something specific I browse with my phone, otherwise I just say 'play music'.

I know I can control music through the Alexa app but it's far more intuitive with the Spotify app and not have to put up with Alexa dropping out.

We have a dot in the kitchen, used every day for shopping list, timers and voice controlling the Sonos to use Deezer.

Jeff

I acquired an Alexa recently, given to me by someone who no longer needed it.  I've been meaning to post this question for a little while.

So far I've found,

"Add (blah) to shopping list" (which is really handy).

"Play (something) on Spotify."

"Play (radio station).

"Tell me a joke."

"Play Lieswatter" (a cute little game by the people who made You Don't Know Jack.)

General Google-type questions, "Alexa, what time does ASDA close today?"

A friend of mine uses one for controlling smart light bulbs, which is neat, but I don't have such things.

That's about it.  I've not even looked at Skills, I don't know where to start.  Any other suggestions greatly appreciated.

"Alexa, talk dirty to me."

Wouldn't want one myself but asking a friend's Alexa about Skynet produced some interesting results.

Control Sonos with voice. Great for radio. Less so with Spotify as can never remember the names of my playlists.

Daily briefing - quick summary of bbc news and sport.

Timers

Intercom.

My ex dumped her ex because of the way he spoke to his Alexa.

No good for Scots 😉

Bedroom radio alarm clock. My missis bought me one about the second time as the DAB broke, it's the only thing it's used for.

I have a Dot and a Spot. Spot is mostly just a glorified alarm clock but also use it to "switch off all lights" after I've gone to bed.

Dot is mostly controlling lights, thermostat and setting timers when cooking. All use it to stream radio to a bluetooth speaker in my bathroom.

Nothing life changing but a bit extra convenience which for me is worth the money.

Genuine question, do people not have a mobile phone to hand?

Genuine question, do people not have a mobile phone to hand?

This is where I always get to when I think about getting one. Maybe if I saw a house where it's all linked up i'd feel different, but otherwise phone + good bluetooth speaker + oven timer + some light switches works for me

Can we just clear one thing up. The device is an Echo (or dot). The assistant is called Alexa. So you don't have an Alexa, you have an Echo.

That's better, carry on.

Never mind "Genuine question, do people not have a mobile phone to hand", how about:

Genuine question -do you lot not have arms and legs.

So far it looks like the vast majority of people use them for playing music and setting timers.

Genuine step forward in human AI(ish) interface then..

🤣🤷‍♂️

Well my only mobile is a company-issued Windows phone so it can't run 99.99999% of apps. I do have an iPad but why would I want to log in to it, open an app and tap something when I can just speak what I want to do?

A couple of Echo Dots here.. only use them for controlling Sonos (and the occasional kitchen timer if I remember) and it's pretty clunky for that (but getting there).

Genuine question, do people not have a mobile phone to hand

Alexa is "hands free" (my phone doesn't listen all the time).

We have a dot in the kitchen, used every day for shopping list, timers

I plan to pick up several of the new sonos speaker with built in Alexa, plan to use it for the above and then linking up musis subscriptions and playing music around the house. Cost difference between ones with Alexa and ones without is circa £20 per speaker with some other features so willing to take a punt TBH.

For the shopping list stuff, how does this actually work? I plan to use it for food shopping, do I need to set up an account somewhere which I can then view or does it just add stuff to a retailers basket and then order for home delviery?

I have an Echo Dot, it was only £30

Its good for music, the basic Amazon music prescription is only £4 a month. Its bluetooth connection can be a little flaky to my amplifier though.

It's probably worth the money just to here my four year old shouting "Alexa put Shotgun on" and it actually knowing what to do

I’m not knocking them, I do think at some point they will become the norm and useful.

At the moment though they play music and set timers ..

#jusayin

We have one in the kitchen. Primary uses for us are:

- listening to music, radio and podcasts ("Alexa play songs by Little Mix", "Alexa play Kerrang Radio on TuneIn", "Alexa, play the Infinite Monkey Cage from the BBC")
- setting handsfree timers while cooking ("Alexa, set a chicken timer for 12 minutes")
- news and weather ("Alexa, will it rain today?", "Alexa what's in the news?")
- jokes ("Alexa tell me a joke about penguins")
- games ("Alexa open the Magic Door", "Alexa play Yes Sire")
- ambience ("Alexa, play rainforest sounds", "Alexa, play fireside sounds")

Genuine question, do people not have a mobile phone to hand

I use Siri on my phone from time to time, but it's not nearly as good and the speaker is a lot quieter.

I think they are great. Ours control lights, and other smart stuff in the house. The fact it works with IFTTT means you can make it do whatever you want really.

Main issue is getting syntax right /lack of natural language recognition when you're using an App.

e.g.

I have to say "Alexa, Ask London Bus North" to get the next few buses going to the station. The actual functionality once you remember what to say is pretty good...

I have to say "Trigger..." when you want it to run an IFTTT routine.

I’m not knocking them, I do think at some point they will become the norm and useful.
At the moment though they play music and set timers ..
#jusayin

You obviously haven't seen the Google assistant booking a restaurant? ie. it has a conversation with a real person to accomplish a task. That is genuine AI.

At the moment though they play music and set timers ..

Just the most common usage I think. I do other stuff with it, just less commonly, e.g. I don't ask it "what is the capital of Uganda" or "how many millilitres are there in 12 fluid ounces" every day. But when I do it is useful.

In terms of AI and speech recognition I do think that Alexa (and the others) are a pretty major step forward towards consumer acceptance.

I sometimes ask mine what day of the week it is (as it doesn't appear on the Sky menu when flicking through channels and I don't buy newspapers), I guess this is a sign of old age :p

"Alexa,where is North?"

How do you get on with the voice recognition?  Does it work or is it like

Anyone else just not bothered?

I've never tried Alexa nor Siri and am just not remotely interested in either of them.

And yes, I'd have taken the blue pill in the Matrix and lived happily ever after.

For the shopping list stuff, how does this actually work?

You say "Alexa, add (whatever) to shopping list."  Then in store you open the phone app, select Lists / Shopping list and you get a list of everything you've added.  As you shop you tick off what you've got and it removes the items.  Works well.

The only slight issue is that you have to add multiple items individually.  I once tried "Alexa, add Coke and lemonade to shopping list" and got back "I've added coconut lemonade to your shopping list."