Amazon Echo - no thread yet?

edko

edko

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Mr. K said:
I did the same. And have it loaded on an old phone, it's great.

I've got the original Echo, three Dots and an Echo Show.

I got the Show for $125 with the Black Friday deal and an Amazon moving coupon.

It is the only one that's a bit iffy to me. It needs Netflix and then I'd have zero regrets.

The main reason I bought it was because I also bought a Ring Pro and obviously they work well together.
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The multi room music feature is great. I don't want to wire up a bunch of stuff in this house and the Alexas do the job fine for everyday listening.

I'm looking at a thermostat and one, possibly two outdoor cameras that would integrate as my next real purchases.
 
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Mr. K

Mr. K

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I had one Echo for a while, then they added drop in and multi room music. And suddenly it was the cheapest setup for intercoms and whole home music.

I have an Ecobee 4 I need to install which has Alexa as well.

I'm at a bit of an impasse after that because I'm not sure what to do that doesn't cost a ton or requires electrical work.

I have three Hue Motion Sensors, about eight White and three Color bulbs. And two WeMo plugs for random stuff like Christmas lights.

I don't really want cameras inside my house.

Guess I'll wait and see what comes next.
 
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DirkDonkeyroot

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Ronaan

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Damn. Bought a dot at 35 eurobucks now what do I do with it?

Not planning to do the whole lights stuff, too expensive when I can just use the switch. I'll put it in the kitchen and impress the wife with ... (this is where you guys come in)
 
A

a_skeleton_02

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Ronaan said:
Damn. Bought a dot at 35 eurobucks now what do I do with it?

Not planning to do the whole lights stuff, too expensive when I can just use the switch. I'll put it in the kitchen and impress the wife with ... (this is where you guys come in)
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Iconversions and timers.

The kitchen timer is hooked up to my surround sound so I'll hear it in any room of the house.

Other than that it can give you recipes and news and shit. If your not into home automation then it's not really worth it imo.
 
Ronaan

Ronaan

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a_skeleton_02 said:
Iconversions and timers.

The kitchen timer is hooked up to my surround sound so I'll hear it in any room of the house.

Other than that it can give you recipes and news and shit. If your not into home automation then it's not really worth it imo.
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Ah nice I can ask how many mililitres there are in a litre :p

If it ends up as a cheap kitchen radio I can live with that. Internet radios don't really come cheaper do they.
 
edko

edko

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I ordered a Smart Things hub and a Nest thermostat. Plan is now to Skynet the house as much as possible. Alexa, fetch me the tater chips.
 
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brekk

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I got a Google Home Mini around black friday that has paired well with my philips Hue setup that I got for free with my GS6. GF definitely likes being able to dim living room light while pinned by a cat on her lap.

Up until now I had been using the Philips Hue setup solely for timers on a couple lights.
 
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Springbok

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Over the holidays I got the Alexa Echo Plus (tall steel one), a half dozen smart light bulbs, ecobee 4, nest smoke/carbon detectors, arlo pro cameras.

This shit is awesome. I love the drop in feature, love the dimming light bulbs, love the ecobee, and being able to voice control it all is the shit. It's expensive, but very neat
 
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meStevo

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Finally got around to connecting the living room echo to the fire stick on the TV right above it. Damn this works well (for Amazon content at least, which is mostly what the kids consume). Now to get a harmony hub or something so it can turn the TV off and on and control the volume.
 
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Qhue

Qhue

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I have Alexa all over the house and use it as the default smart interface for the home. I am glad to see that Amazon and Google are going to war over the Virtual Assistant / Smart Speaker space since that should drive forward some impressive development of skills and whatnot.
 
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McCheese

McCheese

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Google Home's translation ability is really amazing. Alexa sucks in comparison.

I've been studying a couple languages, and it's incredible to be able to ask Google what a word means or how to say something in your target language. This is especially cool with a language that uses a writing system you're not familiar with, as it lets you easily and quickly check pronunciation of a word you might be reading in a book.
 
Oldbased

Oldbased

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I'm not sure why anyone would get the echo/dot other than better speakers when the new Amazon Fire 10" tablet is Alexa hands free and they do a 5 payments of $30 through Amazon.
I grabbed 2 this week and we are loving it. I can wake up the tablet across the room and tell it to load apps or play music/whatever. We have one in the kitchen as a mini tv using the Spectrum app to watch all our channels and the other as a music/audio book/lookup device. It's hard to beat a 10" tablet hands free with dolby sound for $150.
 
meStevo

meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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That works, depending on your setup. The need to mute one, play music simultaneously across multiple devices, always have them at certain locations, etc it's hard to beat $25 dots that in some cases we paid even less for due to bundles w/ smart plugs and whatnot. Our only issue is the microphones are clearly more sensitive on some vs others, have to keep some muted as a result.

A friend who is on that team says the video functions that the Echo Show can do are coming to the Kindles at some point (some skills say they don't work on that device, like Ring I think, but that one might have been updated recently)
 
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Omayga

Omayga

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anyone using Cloud Cams?

got some for the wifes office and the app / web interface is really slick, but if you are looking back through saved clips from a few days ago then the Amazon Drive is the easiest way to view that many files. My issue is that when they are saved on the Amazon Drive it seems to be some random file name that doesn't display the time of the video clip and the length of the video clip (like the app or web browser version does).

Anyone familiar with the Amazon Drive Cloud Cam storage options and if you can modify how it saves the files or what data it shows you in the storage? We have the Pro level storage (200 bucks a year) in case that matters. Amazon customer service was worthless in finding a solution.

thanks
 
meStevo

meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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Got the FireTV cube today, replacing the Fire Stick and the v1 Echo in the living room. It's really nice and 2nd only to maybe Kinect when it comes to navigating around an ecosystem, probably a little faster as well. I can tell it to play Xbox and it'll switch to that input, ask it to go home and it switches back.

Only problem with it is a systemic Amazon thing, their curation is just so poor. When I ask to play Black Panther it goes to the one with bonus features, and there are 2 others (theatrical and 4k). It should probably say 'this is what I found' and let me select which one. Better yet a search like that should default to showing me a result from my video library, and then 'show me more' should do the wider query showing me all options.

But really, there shouldn't be 3 entries for Black Panther in the video store. It should be 1, with different options, and they need to figure out how to handle special features instead of tack them to the end of movies with no menu.
 
Xarpolis

Xarpolis

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I got an email the other day from the Westworld promotions team telling me about a new game Alexa is offering. I know it's not the Echo, but close enough.

-------------------

Alexa Brings Westworld to You

QZHyZ-gbvJ6ps2_Y_I5SfqcOIMca1H4yU9hZEIkbt7J3J0xx59TPveiz0RoMIzDfiJbVZfap654Hfjyx39MY7HILgkXfhhfFvJDC2V9ySZ_AzpEv0GaNiW790jWnKDwRiQYjO-D5bhBwFnLolltxdK9DDR6RCN2455OiamX9nKclS92_qiuk6j--HJ4jjoR7=s0-d-e1-ft



Dear Westworld Guest,We are inviting our most valued park players to enter a new level of the park with “Westworld: The Maze” voice experience. Escape your reality and have a drink in the Mariposa, break out of Los Diablos, or brave the streets of Pariah — all from the comfort of your home. With 60 different paths to navigate, there is plenty to satiate your appetite until your next visit.

Just tell Alexa to “Open Westworld.” She’s no greenhorn, she’ll show you the ropes. This game is meant for you.

ENTER THE MAZE

Best regards,

Aeden
Guest Services Host
 
Oldbased

Oldbased

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Mr. K said:
Hmm definitely an idea I have a couple friends in that space. Thanks Zap.

Also, small rant, fuck eBay, what is the use of eBay existing when everything is the same or more than Amazon, Jet or Walmart? Then people who ask for offers bitch when you make it lower than market value. It's so dumb.
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Not to mention every single thing I ordered earlier this year from Ebay even when selecting US only/NA seller still came direct from China and was in most cases obviously some fake shit.
It's really bad on vaping/house shit ( like patio/garden/whatever ) and many don't even hide it anymore. They'll do authentic in the title with the original photos but somewhere down in the text you'll see 1:1 clone. Hah. F Ebay.
 
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