Amazon Echo - no thread yet?

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Vaclav

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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New friend down here just got his, seems pretty handy. Getting on the $100 discount list myself, just as a cooking timer that's trivial to set it seems great.
 

Khane

Got something right about marriage
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So, what is it?
A step towards never needing a computer screen or any visual aid. It's basically siri/google voice recognition though I'm not sure why anyone would buy it when you can technically do the same thing with your phone.
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
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It has a much better speaker than your phone which you'd have to dock/plug in to an actual output. If it had Spotify hooked into it I would consider purchasing it. But I'm still not convinced it really has much of a purpose.
 

Vaclav

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It has a much better speaker than your phone which you'd have to dock/plug in to an actual output. If it had Spotify hooked into it I would consider purchasing it. But I'm still not convinced it really has much of a purpose.
If you do music a ton, like entertaining and having background music - it seems pretty huge. It's a very good bluetooth speaker and microphone that IS usable as a phone - Tony was taking a call like 15 feet away from the unit and still hearing the call clearly and being heard fine.

You can easily manage a a shopping list with it as well - which is always a big deal for the wife and I - we've got a chalkboard for scratching shopping notes down, but half the time we forget to. "Alexa, Add Dildos to my shopping list" for example is trivial to do. [And although the example works well for this forum - it actually was something Josh did at the party as a joke - apparently removing things from the shopping list is web/app only right now though, he had to make an apology to Tony for that, heh]

Plus timers and of course stupid random googling/spellchecking.

Amazon Echo - Official site - Request an invitationfor the obligatory link. (Posted that while on wireless so just kept it brief)

Also note Tenks, they're looking at expanding the connected stuff over time, and of course you could spotify on another device and just use it as a bluetooth speaker still. (But there are 4 music apps connected to it already - I found spotify to be mostly redundant with Prime Music - slightly better, but not enough to validate the extra cost versus something I have already for free - like Netflix)
 

Column_sl

shitlord
9,833
7
Was going to buy it but meh.

Really doesn't do anything that your phone isn't already doing imho.

I just want a robot at this point lol
 

Crone

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Signed up for an invite. I've been looking at bluetooth speakers for a while, and this thing looks to be a really good speaker plus all the other fun stuff.
 

Lenas

Trump's Staff
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It's a $200 bluetooth speaker with questionable voice control utility. Hope it flops as hard as the Fire Phone did.
 

Khane

Got something right about marriage
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Why buy a Ferrari? My '98 Honda Accord gets me to and from work ....
So you think this thing is a Ferrari and our smartphones are '98 Accords? You are definitely the demographic for this device.
 
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Pharazon

Silver Knight of the Realm
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My friend that works for Amazon showed it to us (has it in his kitchen) about a month ago. I had about forgotten it existed until I saw this thread. I had zero interest in getting one from the demonstration I saw (friend still doesn't use a Fire phone btw...). Although I do use Amazon for music still, so it might not be a bad idea for that.
 

a_skeleton_03

<Banned>
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So you think this thing is a Ferrari and our smartphones are '98 Accords? You are definitely the demographic for this device.
Nope. He is talking about something built to be out of pocket and in a room to be used by anyone there and then comparing it to something in his pocket with a tinny speaker.

It's a stupid comparison. I passed on this device because it has very little purpose but I wouldn't pass on it because I have a phone in my pocket.
 

Vaclav

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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It's a $200 bluetooth speaker with questionable voice control utility. Hope it flops as hard as the Fire Phone did.
At $200 I don't think it makes sense at all - at $100 it's solid for we Prime folks though. The VC is very nice though, was impressed with the range and how responsive it was to the things it understood - but it definitely doesn't understand some things.

And I agree with that review - I'll be keeping it in the kitchen or very close to it within VC range of the kitchen.
 

Obtenor_sl

shitlord
483
0
I'm getting one in a week, I got the invite like a month and a half ago and it said it would ship first week february. I don't have a sound dock/station and I want one for the kitchen, where I can just operate it without having to use my hands (like while cooking). I got Prime so for 99$ is like an amazing device.