My questions for Alexa

Alexa, why do I need to ask you the time, when I have a watch, clocks, phone, tablet and TV and Radio?

Alexa, why do I need to ask you for a weather report, when I can easily look it up on my phone or tablet?

Alexa, why do I need to ask you for the details of the next train to London, when I can get comprehensive information from the trainline website?

Alexa, why do I need to ask you to turn down the central heating or dim the lights, when I can do this myself at the flick of a switch?

Alexa, why do I need to ask you to play some music, when I have several alternative music sources at my disposal?

Alexa, why do I need you to tell me a joke, when there are many websites available on line which include all kinds of jokes?

Alexa, why should I pay £150 for your echo speakers, when there are better speakers available for roughly the same price?

Have you actually asked Alexa, or just SF?

If so, what did Alexa say?

Not everybody has perfect vision you know....

Alexa, why do I need to ask you the time, when I have a watch, clocks, phone, tablet and TV and Radio?

Because it's not always convenient to pick up your phone/tablet, or turn on the TV/radio just to look at the time.. (and not everyone has a watch, or a clock in every room)

Alexa, why do I need to ask you for a weather report, when I can easily look it up on my phone or tablet?

see above (and not everyone can see well enough)

Alexa, why do I need to ask you for the details of the next train to London, when I can get comprehensive information from the trainline website?

see above (and not everyone can see well enough)

Alexa, why do I need to ask you to turn down the central heating or dim the lights, when I can do this myself at the flick of a switch?

Maybe it's in a different room? or maybe you're not home yet, and on your way back and don't want it to be a sauna (yes, you can do that)

Alexa, why do I need to ask you to play some music, when I have several alternative music sources at my disposal?

You could put all your 'sources' together as one collection, and let Alexa control / organize it, then get your entire collection from all sources in any location.

Alexa, why do I need you to tell me a joke, when there are many websites available on line which include all kinds of jokes?

see first few above (and not everyone can see well enough)

Alexa, why should I pay £150 for your echo speakers, when there are better speakers available for roughly the same price?

Because standard "better" speakers don't have Alexa AI or capability...

Because it's not always convenient to pick up your phone/tablet, or turn on the TV/radio just to look at the time.. (and not everyone has a watch, or a clock in every room)

 

 

 

see above (and not everyone can see well enough)

 

 

 

see above (and not everyone can see well enough)

 

 

 

Maybe it's in a different room? or maybe you're not home yet, and on your way back and don't want it to be a sauna (yes, you can do that)

 

 

 

You could put all your 'sources' together as one collection, and let Alexa control / organize it, then get your entire collection from all sources in any location.

 

 

 

see first few above (and not everyone can see well enough)

 

 

 

Because standard "better" speakers don't have Alexa AI or capability...

Some good points here.

I may get a dot (which are not all that expensive, so it would not be a major disaster if my hunches about its usefulness turned out to be unfounded).

Alternatively, I may get a well organised and well informed wife instead, who could answer all of my questions and who could perform other duties, as and when required (although this option would no doubt prove to be a lot more expensive than Alexa).

I bought a dot just out of curiosity .

Quite good fun at first but it has spent most if its time in the last few months turned off.

Hopefully , the mooted link up with Sonos will appear soon and it might actually become useful again as I can use it to drive my Sonos 5.

I bought a dot just out of curiosity .

 

Quite good fun at first but it has spent most if its time in the last few months turned off.

 

Hopefully , the mooted link up with Sonos will appear soon and it might actually become useful again as I can use it to drive my Sonos 5.

this is what I suspect would happen if I bought one.

The 'wow' factor will soon wane, as I tend to have a low boredom threshold.

It's probably good to amaze your friends for a while (I have a gadget which talks back to me - wow!) but that's probably about it.

HI

I have the echo and 2 dots

its brill I can ask her and tell her what to do

you try that with HER IN DOORS LOL

I had no intentions of buying an Echo or Dot and new very little about them. I have LightwaveRF lighting and received an email saying LightwaveRF light switches and sockets can now be controlled by Alexa. So being intrigued I bought one.

Now 2 months later I own 4 Dots, can control all my lighting, various sockets (LightwaveRF), heating (Tado), TV, projector, Amplifiers and various other AV stuff (Harmony hub/Yonomi) by voice. At first it was just a bit of a gimmick to show off to people and I thought I wouldn't really use it much, but now I find myself using voice control quite a bit as it's sometimes just quicker and easier.

The wife loves using them for setting timers/alarms (you can even get it to ring your phone when the timer goes off via IFTTT).

They make a great cheap internet radio. I have one connected to my amplifier solely for music (Spotify, Amazon Prime Music, TuneIn radio).

The shopping list feature is also well used. You can ask Alexa to add items to shopping list and then using IFTTT you can get the items forwarded on to a shopping list in your phone's reminder app (which can be shared and synchronised to multiple phone users).

I had no intentions of buying an Echo or Dot and new very little about them. I have LightwaveRF lighting and receive an email saying LightwaveRF light switches and sockets can now be controlled by Alexa. So being intrigued I bought one.

Now 2 months later I own 4 Dots, can control all my lighting, various sockets, heating, TV, projector, Amplifiers and various other bits by voice. At first it was just a bit of a gimmick to show off to people and I thought I wouldn't really use it much, but now I find myself using voice control quite a bit as it's sometimes just quicker and easier.

The wife loves using them for setting timers/alarms (you can even get it to ring your phone when the timer goes off via IFTTT).

They make a great cheap internet radio. I have one connected to my amplifier solely for music (Spotify, Amazon Prime Music, TuneIn radio).

The shopping list feature is also well used. You can ask Alexa to add items to shopping list and then using IFTTT you can get the items forwarded on to a shopping list in your phone's reminder app (which can be shared and synchronised to multiple phone users).

Thanks for the info, very useful

Hi

I also have all lights and heating aswell

http://www.inquisitr.com/1593742/amazon-echo-interests-many-raises-privacy-concerns-for-many-more/

http://mashable.com/2014/11/06/amazon-echo-commoditizing/#LfqD4g_4GsqA

This cracked me up :

http://www.inquisitr.com/videos/3871867/amazons-alexa-orders-dollhouses-after-listening-to-the-news/

"First they chipped our dogs - it seemed like a good idea - then they started to inject us with an RFD chip - still looking a good idea for a New World Order?" otherwise known as:

"The Science of Compliance" or "Loss of Freedom never looked so good!"

There's no denying Amazon are using this to increase sales, hence the voice purchasing, and it being on being on by default. Amazon are after all a selling site, so I feel confident they are not going to sell any info on to advertisers (if they're always listening which I don't believe they are) as that would be giving away their share of the market. Google on the other hand make a lot of money from selling info to advertisers and have launched something similar in the US, that'd be the one to worry about in my eyes if you have concerns.

I'm more worried about my neighbour across the road than Amazon, she doesn't miss a thing. I was in bed ill for just under a week and she told the whole street she thinks I've left my wife and moved out because she hasn't seen me going in or out of the house.

Just asked Alexa to order me a tin foil hat and she wouldn't, maybe your right.