Well I’m using That Beaster, ‘Alexa’.
And I’m saying its name like a Clown…
I have charted 401ks through a decade…
But tonight I am off, YouTube Bound…
We took out Weasels back in Farmville yesterday…
Then tracked down rumors George Michael was never gay…!
Like all the Locals here, I never leave my home,
Why get up off my ass? Got Alexa and a Phone…!
I’ve got My Own Little Beaster, right Alexa?
And I delve where the questions are deep…
Are there Giants? Who still owns homes in ‘The Canyons’?
And is that muppet Beeker still saying “Meep!”…?
As for what sound it makes…it’s the Alexa alarm/timer ringing sound. I’m not sure how to describe it. You can set different sounds and volumes if you don’t like the default. To let it note you’re awake, you can just say “Alexa, stop.” At least that’s what I did. There’s probably other phrases you can use.
Rather like any alarm
It makes a warbling noise (it’s like a cellphone alarm)
I yell “Alexa - off”
Yes. I yell “Alexa - snooze” (I yell because the Echo is in a different room than I sleep in. I’m thinking of getting a Dot so that I can just say “Alexa - snooze,” but the yelling does help move me from asleep to awake).
No, you can set it on a schedule (mine’s on a weekday schedule and I’ll set an extra alarm if I need to wake up early or it’s the weekend).
Yes, you can set an alarm for the future.
It isn’t a necessary item, but it’s nice. It’s easy to use for timers and alarms. I do have mine set up to work with lights (but that isn’t necessary). It’s convenient for asking quick useful questions. I play a few games on it. And I’m easily amused by asking Alexa silly questions.
As you are probably aware, some people (seems like BFF is one of these) want to be able to show their appreciation within their means with a *thoughtful *gift (and probably feeling nervous that it’s too “cheap”. Just sayin’ the obvious here in case it’s missed.
It’s pretty much what you would expect. The user simply says something like “Alexa, set an alarm for 9:15 a.m.,” and the unit sets the alarm and repeats back to you what you said to verify. There are about 20 or so different alarm sounds you can choose from. From what I’ve been able to gather, it will not set an alarm for more than 24 hours in the future. I just tried it right now to see if what I’m saying is true. I attempted to set an alarm for midnight on December 31. The unit responded “I can only set a one-time alarm within the next 24 hours.” For some reason I don’t understand, interacting with your alarm clock in natural-language speech completely ameliorates forgetting to set your alarm. It hasn’t happened even once since I set up the unit, whereas before, it was a fairly common occurrence. After the alarm goes off, it keeps going until you tell it to stop or snooze. To stop the alarm, all you have to say is “Alexa, stop.” To snooze, you say “Alexa, snooze,” and the unit defaults to (I think) a nine-minute snooze interval. I forgot to mention that the bedroom unit also controls a single lamp on the nightstand, which enables me to obtain just enough light to navigate about the room without waking anybody else up. It can also control the thermostat, but those run about $250, so I haven’t gotten one yet. Ideally, I’d like to eventually have it set up so that it turns on thermostat and the coffee maker 10 minutes before the alarm goes off, and then turn on the bedside lamp perhaps 30 seconds after the alarm goes off.
I set mine to go off every weekday at 7 a.m., which it can handle just fine. The only annoying part is if I happen to wake up earlier and tell Alexa to cancel the alarm, she cancels the whole thing. But that’s not a huge deal, since it’s easy to just set a new one.
Huh. That’s true. I tried it here to set one for Saturday, and got the same result. Apparently, the Echo can’t do this. That’s kind of an odd omission. One would think this is easy to do, no?
I have both (I’m an early adopter type). Google Home is much better for asking questions. It will actually look it up as opposed to the Echo which looks on wikipedia and if it can’t find it just gives up. For example, asking both devices how to get grease out of clothes will have Google Home give you an answer from a lifehacker type site (I don’t remember exactly what it was) while Echo can’t answer it.
I also like that the Home can turn on the Chromecast (though that functionality is slow). It can do that for videos on Youtube or Netflix and can also do it for Spotify (my speakers attached to my AV receiver are far better than either Google Home’s or Amazon Echo). And with my TV and Receiver, when the Chromecast is activated, it’ll actually turn on the Receiver and TV.
Both are good for telling you the time or temperature. Both are good for setting a timer in the kitchen (which is an incredibly useful feature that you’ll wonder how you existed without - I’m not kidding). Both are good for turning on Philips Hue lights.
I like that with the Google Home you can give it a ‘default’ music player (like Spotify or Google Music All Access), while on the Echo, it defaults to Amazon’s Music offerings (you can say “Play X on Spotify” though).
Google Home looks a bit better, IMO, but that’s an individual preference. I think that the Echo has more home integration right now, but Google Home is more useful due to its better algorithm for answering questions and integration with Chromecast.
There are a few add-on skills that work for this. Tide and Good Housekeeping come to mind. You enable the skill, either by telling Alexa or going to Amazon, and then you can say, “Alexa, ask Tide how to clean a grease stain.”
Maybe this is a relatively new feature, but you can set Spotify as your default music app with the Echo, as well. I will say that Alexa has some difficulties distinguishing between versions of songs on Spotify at times, which can lead to most interesting results (I can never unhear the version of “Ziggy Stardust” we were treated to the other day).
I’m curious about all of the folks who have mentioned using Echo and its ilk to control lights. There seem to be a lot of choices out there for smart lighting/plugs/etc. Is the Hue the go-to, or are people using other products?
THanks to this thread I have started using our Echo to do the grocery list. Everyone was right- it’s great to be in the middle of cooking and say “Alexa, put eggs on the shopping list”
streaming music (my preference is Pandora Sunday Fun Day Brunch Radio)
timers
weather reports
traffic reports (“Alexa: how’s my commute today?”)
Here are a list of improvements I’d like to make:
For God’s sake, update the app so that I can easily sort a shopping list!
Allow traffic reports for different destinations. My wife works in downtown Atlanta, I work in Alpharetta.
Allow more range when setting a reminder. (read: more than 24 hours in advance)
I know you want people to develop skills for the echo, but for God’s sake put in some quality control. Some of the skill are downright shitty and shouldn’t be allowed
Allow sorting of skills by subject, or other key words (this may have changed I haven’t looked at skills in a while).
