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Amazon Echo Dot

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Re: Amazon Echo Dot

#141

Post by Nullabillity »

kayoone wrote: post #127
runholm wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While voice assistants are likely to become a big industry, I don't see such a limited solution as Alexa stealing any large spotlight. They are too heavily locked down to be able to gain any traction in the big picture.

They are connecting more and more services, you can train your own "skills" and i am pretty sure they will open the platform up at some point. Could be huge. Remember, the first iPhone was totally locked down as well.

The iPhone is still locked down, and it still sucks.

Re: Amazon Echo Dot

#142

Post by radnor »

ghaff wrote: post #112
PKop wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The single greatest feature of Echo that I use, (and too few others use) is turning on my Phillips Hue lights. You can give each individual light a name, as well as groups of lights their own name. Very convenient to turn on / off lights from anywhere in range of the mic. I use it everyday multiple times a day. If anyone finds network connected lights useful, then they'll find controlling them through Echo doubly use…

Not to pick on you :-), but I have these things called light switches in my house that work pretty well for turning on and off lights. I confess to not seeing much attraction to smart lightbulbs with names. (To be fair, if I had a lot of lights not connected to switches as was the case when I moved into my current house, I'd probably have put in smart lightbulbs rather than doing as much rewiring as I did.)

Alexa has come in handy when I forget to turn my computer desk's light off -- it's connected to a power strip -- so I can just yell downstairs and have her switch it off for me.

I can also set individual lights or groups of lights to turn on during certain events, like returning home and it's after sunset and the lights aren't already on, but that's more of a whole-home-automation thing rather than Alexa. :)

Re: Amazon Echo Dot

#143

Post by fluxquanta »

pc86 wrote: post #135
fluxquanta wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While indeed creepy, I ordered the original Echo as soon as it was made available, but I'm probably a special case. I live by myself and barely even speak out loud at home. If Amazon can somehow monetize my primary use of Echo as a glorified kitchen timer I will be impressed.

$180 for a kitchen timer seems a bit steep.

It was $99 (there was a special offer when it was first announced at the end of 2014).

Re: Amazon Echo Dot

#144

Post by thecodemonkey »

Wow, what a coincidence. I just did a setup like this with Amazon Echo and Sonos, by "hacking" the Amazon Echo to do audio-out.

I wrote up a little post on it here: https://medium.com/@MathiasHansen/hacking-an-amazon-echo-and...

Obviously, actually having bluetooth speakers with the Echo Dot is a much better solution, but after using the Sonos setup for 3-4 weeks I must say that it works surprisingly well, and despite the audio hack the sound quality is excellent on my Play 1's.

Re: Amazon Echo Dot

#145

Post by knodi123 »

roymurdock wrote: post #11

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

not hub/spoke at all. the dot and the echo are separate standalone products. The only reason you're required to own an Echo to get a Dot is because it's a "limited supply" product, and they want to make sure that only loyal customers get to review the new thing in order to seed some positive reviews.

Re: Amazon Echo Dot

#147

Post by xuhu »

danesparza wrote: post #6

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…

I guess it's time to order an Echo.

Re: Amazon Echo Dot

#148

Post by zeveb »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #90
jallmann wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The transition from primarily visual UX towards an auditorial UX is really powerful. It's also less accessible. I'm sure auditory UI is useful in many cases, but it also seems to be more cumbersome in others. In any case, I hope that pervasive auditory UI doesn't become any sort of standard without an accompanying visual/physical interface. > Try watching a scary movie with the sound turned off, it turns into a com…

>It's also less accessible. For whom? To the blind this would be a godsend. From a practical medical perspective, audio is superior because we have decades of experience with effective ear implants to help the hard of hearing and the deaf, but the visual equivalent still eludes us.

> To the blind this would be a godsend.

Actually, I'd imagine that a good old-fashioned tty is pretty good for a blind person: it's TUIs and GUIs that get progressively more painful.

Source: am blind without my glasses; can imagine preferring ed to emacs, vim, Atom, SublimeText if I had to use an audio interface.

Re: Amazon Echo Dot

#150

Post by jallmann »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #122
jallmann wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the 'immersive' media in films is the audio, not the visual components That's a non-falsifiable opinion, really (even if it does apply to the majority of the population). I'm living proof you can enjoy movies without the audio. It's the sum of our experience that colors our perception -- almost irrevocably in this case, since I imagine it would be difficult for the typical person to really be able to enjoy somethin…

> I'm living proof you can enjoy movies without the audio. I am not looking to equate immersion with enjoyment, and by no means do I intend to disrespect the manner by which you enjoy a type of media. My apologies for coming off that way! When I refer to 'immersive media' I am referring to the 360-degree omnidirectional dispersion pattern of sounds and our similarly omnidirectional hearing of those sounds. This is 'i…

> 'immersive media' I am referring to the 360-degree omnidirectional dispersion pattern

Then that is splitting hairs over a definition of immersion, and quite unrelated to how the word was used in my original comment. Had I instead said "fully engrossed," my point would still hold, and you would not have one.

I understand you were being "super pedantic," but if you're going to do that, then you should be super precise in the pedantry, otherwise you're arguing a strawman.

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