Live data from Hacker News

Amazon Echo Spot

amazon.com

41–50 of 58 posts

Re: Amazon Echo Spot

#41

I snagged a free Echo Dot when Amazon accidentally had a 100% discount a few weeks ago (Which they honored!).Its an interesting piece of hardware (I wish I could say the same of the required setup app). Ultimately, I'm not too interested in using voice interfaces as they currently are. I'm not trying to knock the product, I feel the same about Siri and Google's assistant. Lots of improvements have been made, but its…

100% discount they honored????! wutttttt

Re: Amazon Echo Spot

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an Echo and I feel like the voice features are not as a good as Google's offerings. You can do a few things really well with the Echo but once you go outside of what it can do, it's dumb as rocks. You can't ask it basic questions that Google assistant has no problem with.

The Google Assistant is spotty at best. It does do some things Alexa can't do but the opposite is true as well. I can ask the Google Assistant to call anyone in my contacts and it happens, if I ask for a map to their house it fails horribly.

You can ask Alexa for a map to their house (as a follow up question after calling them)?

Re: Amazon Echo Spot

#43

Ah, this reminds me of the Chumby ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chumby ) from 2008, I'm sure with voice recognition and video call capabilities, the Echo is hopefully a bit more useful.

Does it have a camera? I didn't see it mentioned in the specs or anything about video calling.

The Technical Details (https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-MW46WB-Introducing-Echo-Spot/d...) indicates a "Front Facing Camera".

Re: Amazon Echo Spot

#44
post #3

The speed of iteration on the Alexa product line is really impressive. Nine months ago, Alexa and Google Home seemed like two sides of the same coin. But now it feels like there's almost no comparison, Alexa is gonna do more and get the skills and features that fit my needs faster. I'm a Google Home owner, so perhaps it's a case where the grass is always greener :-)

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Echo Spot

#45
post #3

The speed of iteration on the Alexa product line is really impressive. Nine months ago, Alexa and Google Home seemed like two sides of the same coin. But now it feels like there's almost no comparison, Alexa is gonna do more and get the skills and features that fit my needs faster. I'm a Google Home owner, so perhaps it's a case where the grass is always greener :-)

I'm an Alexa owner, and wish to god the two companies could get along at all. It feels like I'm punished regardless of the ecosystem I choose - if I use the Google Home, I miss out on the Alexa product line upgrades and there's no option comparable to the Dot for sprinkling around my home. On the other hand, on Alexa I can't say "play fleetwood mac in the living room" (via chromecast). That single feature is nearly e…

I own both a GH and an a 1st Gen Echo and I find Google Home's language processing much better than Alexa's. I can give the GH a complex command and most of the time it will understand and execute the request. So even in a somewhat noisy room if the TV is on or people are taking, I can usually get it to understand on the first attempt. Therefore its great for home automation. However, with Alexa, I have to be quite a bit more precise with my verbal commands or I have to rephrase and repeat the command. So not the best for home automation at this point.

But Alexa does seems to have a head-start with third-party integration and services. So for now I own one of each. I'm hoping that maybe both of them will reach parity at some point and I can finally settle on one of them.

Re: Amazon Echo Spot

#46
post #40
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if I want to play a show on my Fire TV Stick, do I still need to use the Alexa microphone in the remote, or can I talk to my Echo?

I believe you can now use your echo to control the fire tv

That is correct. FireTVs ship with an echo dot bundle now for that reason.

Re: Amazon Echo Spot

#47
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it have a camera? I didn't see it mentioned in the specs or anything about video calling.

The Technical Details ( https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-MW46WB-Introducing-Echo-Spot/d... ) indicates a "Front Facing Camera".

In a bedroom situation, physically disabling might be a good idea, unless your into those things.

Re: Amazon Echo Spot

#48
post #3

The speed of iteration on the Alexa product line is really impressive. Nine months ago, Alexa and Google Home seemed like two sides of the same coin. But now it feels like there's almost no comparison, Alexa is gonna do more and get the skills and features that fit my needs faster. I'm a Google Home owner, so perhaps it's a case where the grass is always greener :-)

I'd think about switching to Cortana, since it can run on iOS and has Alexa integration.

Re: Amazon Echo Spot

#49
post #3

The speed of iteration on the Alexa product line is really impressive. Nine months ago, Alexa and Google Home seemed like two sides of the same coin. But now it feels like there's almost no comparison, Alexa is gonna do more and get the skills and features that fit my needs faster. I'm a Google Home owner, so perhaps it's a case where the grass is always greener :-)

I'm an Alexa owner, and wish to god the two companies could get along at all. It feels like I'm punished regardless of the ecosystem I choose - if I use the Google Home, I miss out on the Alexa product line upgrades and there's no option comparable to the Dot for sprinkling around my home. On the other hand, on Alexa I can't say "play fleetwood mac in the living room" (via chromecast). That single feature is nearly e…

I've always wished the "voice web" would have taken off -- maybe it is about time for it again.

Alexa, Siri, Google Home, Cortana.. they could all use the same standards to become interoperable.

Re: Amazon Echo Spot

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just see it as adding vanity features to a mediocre product. People are espousing real fear of artificial intelligence, but since I can't get my echo to play the right radio station more than half the time, quitting after 5 failed tries ("The Current" sounds nothing like "Berlin", I'm fairly sure you could train a dog to recognize the difference) I'm not too worried about robot overlords any time soon. Get me voice…

Serious suggestion, try putting on an accent.

This is not a bad suggestion. My usual route is to over-enunciate which is often effective when a conversational tone fails, but you were right, putting on the stupidest accent I could muster got me the result I wanted. I'm still not afraid of our robot overlords.
Post reply on HN