21–30 of 410 posts
There is something delightfully ballsy about making this only available to users of Alexa Voice shopping: "Echo Dot is available in limited quantities and exclusively for Prime members through Alexa Voice Shopping. To order your Echo Dot, use your Amazon Echo or Amazon Fire TV and just ask: "Alexa, order an Echo dot" Also, this makes me sad. I'd kind of like to try this out, but I have no Alexa voice service currentl…
Just ordered a Dot -- what is the Tap? They added that to the page, too, but no info. Is it just the next gen Echo? http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/3/11148776/amazon-echo-tap-sp... Ahh -- the Tap is a portable device with wifi speaker. (Probably wouldn't call an audio monitoring box the "tap"
How much was it? I can't find pricing info anywhere.
Why don't Amazon have an Alexa iOS/Android app?
I'm not entirely clear on the difference between the regular Echo and the Echo Dot. It appears you have to have an original Echo in order to purchase a Dot. Is this simply an extension that proxies all of the requests back to the original Echo?
It's the Echo using your own speaker (it has a tiny one still). The "ordering through your existing FireTV/Echo" is just a stupid marketing ploy. As far as we know right not it does not talk to other Echo's on your network (no proxying/grid/mesh/etc).
disclaimer: work at Amazon, nowhere near echo
Classic hub/spoke model Echo = hub, too expensive and large to buy 10 for every room in the house, used for receiving, processing, routing info from spokes and cloud Echo dot = spoke, microphone and AI functionality at a lower price point, distributes connectivity network throughout the entire house so that you don't have to walk from your kitchen to your living room to order new paper towels from Amazon
My problem with Alexa is, I don't want to invest in a new ecosystem. I'm fine with Amazon being the hub that connects all of my services, but I don't want to use Amazon To-Do List, Amazon Prime Radio, Amazon Traffic, Amazon Sports, Amazon Calendar, Amazon Weather. That being said, they announce partnerships with more and more services every month. Things are looking up.
More importantly, they have done a good job (leagues better than the competing voice services) of opening their service to developers thru Alexa Skills, which has enabled hundreds of added features including things like ordering an Uber.
"To order your Echo Dot, use your Amazon Echo or Amazon Fire TV and just ask..." An Expensive marketing campaign to sell Echo and Fire TV?
Only for US customers... "Requirements * A U.S. Amazon account * A U.S. shipping address (50 United States and the District of Columbia only) * An annual Amazon Prime membership or 30-day Amazon Prime free trial * A payment method issued by a U.S. bank with a U.S. billing address in your 1-Click settings * A device with access to the Alexa Voice Service (such as Amazon Echo)"
I'm American. This makes sense, if anyone was going to order awhat seems like a range extender, for a device that just brings you stuff you were too lazy to type, it would be Americans. Googleglass problem. The interface is me yelling publicly. So not super sure that is going to be adopted well.
Echo is one of those things where it became magically awesome by being somewhat more accurate than I'd expect. Also, Amazon is updating the service back ends, and it is now extensible.
The transition from primarily visual UX towards an auditorial UX is really powerful. Looking at screens to get key information distracts me from my surroundings and seems archaic. My wife is a sound designer who has opened my eyes to the importance of sounds both in film and in the world. It's not that I was unaware of sounds, but I didn't realize how important they are to centering me in this world and the made up w…
I'm not entirely clear on the difference between the regular Echo and the Echo Dot. It appears you have to have an original Echo in order to purchase a Dot. Is this simply an extension that proxies all of the requests back to the original Echo?
>It appears you have to have an original Echo in order to purchase a Dot. Where do you get that? As far as I can tell, this looks like an Echo with minimal speakers. [Edit: Ah. It's only available through voice shopping on either an Echo or Fire TV--though that would seem to be a marketing gimmick as opposed to a technical restriction]
I guess technically you don't have to already have an Echo, but it is only available through voice shopping.