I know what they can be used for, I’m just wondering how people really use them in the wild. I’m thinking about maybe picking one up, but I can’t really find a good use. Here’s how I’ve seen them used: play music through a pretty mediocre speaker, check the weather, demonstrate how you can use them to play music or check the weather. To be fair, a friend of mine who has set up a pretty “smart” home uses his to adjust the thermostat, turn on and off lights, play music through Sonos, turn on the TV, and other good stuff.
So, if you have one, what do you personally use it for?
[ul]
[li]Listening to music in the kitchen[/li][li]Controlling the thermostat (if not near it)[/li][li]Getting news/weather updates[/li][li]Adding items to the shopping list as we think of them[/li][li]Listening to music in the bedroom (Bluetooth-connected to a better speaker)[/li][li]Controlling smart lights around the house[/li][li]As a timer when playing Boggle[/li][/ul]
I have two cheap echo dots. I use them to listen to the radio or ask for specific so gs, set timers and alarms, add stuff to the shopping list, and check the weather. Oh, and I guess it’s linked with the thermostat, but I haven’t used that skill yet.
Listening to music everywhere (my house is small enough) - I have about 15k songs in my library from Amazon
Listening to my MLB Radio subscription
Listening to podcasts
Listening to NPR
Weather
A timer for when I do stuff like put on a face mask
My nieces and friends’ kids love to talk to it
Shopping list
I don’t use it for too much of a variety but I use it almost every day. I wouldn’t have bought it originally when it came out but I got a $99 beta test price so it has been worth it.
Thanks for these. My wife was looking for something to play music and tell her the time when she’s getting ready to go to work, so we’re thinking about getting a Google Home Mini for the bathroom. She would have to ask it the time, instead of just glancing over, but it could also tell her the traffic situation, the weather, on top of playing music. She often has to drive to the airport, so traffic would be pretty key.
Apparently, the Google Home can be used for making phone calls. Anyone do that? Does it only work with Android phones, or are they VOIP calls, or something else?
Anyway, I’m interested in hearing more if others want to comment.
I have two Echo Dots. I find their capabilities very limited. About half of the questions I ask get “I’m sorry, I don’t know that.”
[ul]
[li]Control lights (Philips Hue bulbs with a control hub). This is gee-whiz-cool but the novelty wears off because it takes longer to do this than just hit the switch. Not bad for turning lights off once you’re in bed.[/li][li]Control ceiling fan (I can’t remember the brand of that, wall switch connects directly to WiFi)[/li][li]Add items to my shopping list and to-do list (but amazingly, to remove them you have to go to the My Alexa app)[/li][li]Get weather updates[/li][li]Get traffic conditions for my commute to work (but you can only set up a single route for traffic updates)[/li][li]Listen to songs in my Amazon Music library[/li][li]Listen to my Pandora stations[/li][li]Get customized news updates[/li][li]Listen to podcasts on NPRONE[/li][li]Listen to radio stations[/li][li]Ask random trivia questions[/li][/ul]
The sound quality isn’t too good but I connect it by BlueTooth to a portable speaker that sounds great.
Playing music (usually through Google Play Music)
Setting timers and alarms
Asking it factual questions
Getting the weather forecast
Turning on the TV (unfortunately it won’t turn the TV off, only on!)
Setting reminders
Playing YouTube videos on the TV (we also have a Chromecast)
I am planning on buying some smart light switches soon so I can control the lights with it.
I’ve never tried making a phone call with it.
The speaker is not that great. I’m thinking of getting a better speaker to connect to it. All in all though, I really like it. Earlier this year we relocated for 4 months and packed away the Home and we all missed it.
Listening to music.
Shopping lists.
Reminders for things like take my pills.
Timer for mouth wash, or cooking.
When I’m watching TV, I’ll often ask it how old a certain actor is.
I have the original Echo and an Echo dot. The most common things I do with them are listen to music (much better on the tall version), ask it the weather every morning, play Jeopardy every day and ask it whatever random thing pops into my head (it will read Wikipedia summaries for you). I think they are great and Echo dots are a steal if you just want to try it out. They don’t sound as good for music but they can do the same things the full version does because the computing capability in in the Amazon cloud and constantly updated.
I got a Dot when they were on sale last year just to play with.
I’ve used it to get weather reports, as a timer, and to play ‘Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me’. But that’s it.
Most of the time we forget it’s there except when it reacts to something on the TV. Usually to say “I didn’t get that.” or somesuch.
Forgot to mention that I have a playlist of music for dogs (there are several such CDs of this type of music) and my dogs listen to it when I’m not home
You can also use Echos as an intercom system. It’s pretty weird to do when one of your Echos is at your house and the other is at your parents’ house!
I have an Amazon Dash Wand (not to be confused with the simpler Dash Button). Got it for basically free during a promo.
You press a button, a light comes on, you say something, Alexa responds. Note as a button initiated device with a limited battery deal it can’t do scheduling, alarms, etc.
It works okay for weather, sports scores and similar factoids.
I asked it “Who wrote Hamlet” and it said “Shakespeare”. “Who wrote Huckleberry Finn?” She didn’t know. The ratio of know to don’t know for basic questions is quite low.
I haven’t tried using it to control anything else. My FireTV remote has voice control and that works okay within the context. E.g., “Find some Tom Hanks movies.”
Asking for a dirty joke gets things like. “What has four wheels and flies? A garbage truck.” Sad.
I just found out that both the Echo and Google Home can make phone calls, and now you can set the number that will appear. Does anyone use it for that? I imagine it would be convenient to say, “Hey Google, call Ray’s Pizza.”
Not much. I use mine to play music and as an oven timer. I have the echo dot.
The echo isn’t good at answering questions, but Google home was $130. Plus I have OK Google on my phone if I need it.
I bought a device to let me control some of my outlets via the echo (so I could turn on and off lights, air purifiers, etc), but it never worked and the company didn’t respond to customer service emails.
We have a Dot and a full-size Echo. The Dot is plugged into one of these for better sound.
The Echo is in the kitchen, and we use it for music, as a kitchen timer, turning on and off some smart outlets, setting Nest thermostats, and the occasional odd question. My wife and mother-in-law were once watching The Voice and wondering how tall Blake Shelton was. My wife got out her phone, and I just said, “Alexa, how tall is Blake Shelton?” and got an answer right away. I’d like to use it for more little throwaway stuff like that. We also used the Tide skill recently for advice on getting dirt out of shoes.
The smart outlets is a nice thing to have around Christmas, because you can just say, “Alexa, turn on the Christmas Lights,” and the several smart outlets in that one group all come on at once. No more fumbling with a foot switch under a pile of presents or feeling for a switch behind a precariously placed garland.
The Dot is in our bedroom, and we mostly use that one as a sleep sound generator. “Alexa, ask Sleep Sounds to play Thunderstorm,” followed by, “Alexa, end in 4 hours” or whatever. I’d like to get another Echo for my oldest kiddo’s bedroom, because it would be an easy way for her to play music without her phone, plus the “drop-in” thing would be handy to talk to her when she’s hiding in her room (and to wake her up in the morning). Getting two Dots is less expensive than many home intercom systems.
May I ask which one you used (hopefully, this pertains enough to the OP’s question that it’s not a hijack)? I’ve bought a couple of the Kasa smart outlets to control lights in the house. It’s handy to be able to use either the Echo or my smart phone to turn them off and on. I’ve been using them for about six months without an issue.
The hook smarthub is supposed to control the etekcity outlets, but I could never get it to work. Requests send to their website didn’t get a response.
The outlets themselves are fine though and since they have remotes, I just use those. But it would be nice to be able to ask my alexa to turn on the lights or the stereo via voice command.
