If the author of this is reading, it might help to make the first reference to "Alexa" be a hyperlink to "what the heck is Alexa". (I know I can google it, but...)
The $10 Echo
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Re: The $10 Echo
#22If the author of this is reading, it might help to make the first reference to "Alexa" be a hyperlink to "what the heck is Alexa". (I know I can google it, but...)
"Alexa" is the assistant-in-the-machine that comes on the Amazon Echo (just as an iPhone 6 comes with Siri). You activate the Echo by saying "Alexa". The author is probably guessing that in context, you'll make the connection between the title "The $10 Echo" and the Echo's hotword (Alexa).
I agree it'd be useful if there was a brief explanation at the beginning of the article.
Re: The $10 Echo
#23One of the more impressive things about the Echo is its far-field mic. I've used a lot of different voice recognition technologies, but Echo blows everything else away in terms of being able to speak in a normal voice from the other side of the room and have it still understand you. The actual intelligence behind the service may be lacking (or at least behind some of the competition), but for a general-purpose home a…
> Normal voice from the other side of the room.
High end smartphones have a similar high quality mic. It's no problem at all talking or using e.g. GoogleNow.
Re: The $10 Echo
#24One of the more impressive things about the Echo is its far-field mic. I've used a lot of different voice recognition technologies, but Echo blows everything else away in terms of being able to speak in a normal voice from the other side of the room and have it still understand you. The actual intelligence behind the service may be lacking (or at least behind some of the competition), but for a general-purpose home a…
In my limited experience using Echo at my parents house over the holidays I was distinctly not impressed by the Echo's abilities to understand voice from across the room. We often had to repeat ourselves, only louder and slower to get the Echo to understand us. We do not have strong accents.
Re: The $10 Echo
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Silly. The traffic from the Echo has been studied extensively. Detection of the wake word is hardware-based. Nothing is recorded and sent until the wake word is uttered and after that only the part until you finish your question. If you are truly worried about spy devices, you should really consider dropping your cell phone in the toilet. (Yes, I love my echo)
What do you use it for? I love the idea of Echo, but I can't think of enough I'd do with it to warrant buying one.
Same here. I keep checking the price hoping it drops to a level where I'd feel comfortable buying it just to play with one, but at $180, I think it's too steep when there's no real justification. Anything you'd really want the Echo for, you could do on your phone with an "OK Google" (or a few quick taps at worst).
Re: The $10 Echo
#26I've heard that the "$10" CHIP has a $20 "shipping" charge. Is that still the case?
Re: The $10 Echo
#27I love my echo (alexa), especially the convenience of "no button but wake word" when I have my hands full in the kitchen. That said, google voice is so much better at parsing my questions that I'd pay a bunch of money for another standalone device with wake word which would integrate with with google voice. Any chance of hacking that, or linking your device with both? (Ask Amazon / Ask Google)
Buy an high end phone with a good mic and you can choose between GoogleNow and Siri (and more). Or if you have a SmartTV in your kitchen, you can use that too (Samsung, LG, etc),
Re: The $10 Echo
#28One of the more impressive things about the Echo is its far-field mic. I've used a lot of different voice recognition technologies, but Echo blows everything else away in terms of being able to speak in a normal voice from the other side of the room and have it still understand you. The actual intelligence behind the service may be lacking (or at least behind some of the competition), but for a general-purpose home a…
In my limited experience using Echo at my parents house over the holidays I was distinctly not impressed by the Echo's abilities to understand voice from across the room. We often had to repeat ourselves, only louder and slower to get the Echo to understand us. We do not have strong accents.
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Re: The $10 Echo
#29compared with ok google and siri, echo is not much better (if not worse) in terms of intelligence. What made echo was the physical form factor.
Intelligence is hard to mimic, but physical form factor is not. All google or apple needs to do is come out with with a similar speaker/mic combo and it will totally blow echo out of the water.
Re: The $10 Echo
#30That's great from the price perspective - I still would not want another active listening device tied to a mega corp within my vicinity.
However, I would love to have an Echo like device which does the voice recognition/algo crunching/etc on premise, i.e. on a server/device I control.
Is there anything out which does this nicely?