Poll of the Day > Are Alexas/Echoes worth it?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Do you find that they actually make your life easier in any way?

I use mine as a novelty. It's hooked up to a speaker through a Bluetooth audio conduit so it's helpful that way. I can patch it over my receiver's active channels separately and not have to change the AV to hear it and it does t mess with the video signal.

My girlfriend can use hers to drop in on mine from the office to the living room, but it's been cutting out so we stopped doing it. Not sure whether they're wanting us to upgrade to the new model or not, but if you talk to her for a more than half a sentence now she often interrupts.

We also found odd voices in our history that sounded foreign. Maybe Russian?

When we went back to check it again, they were gone.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/3/5/AAfGAbAADd2_.jpg https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/3/6/AAfGAbAADd3A.jpg

Also, two of the above questions were completely wrong. I didn't say him and I or bird of prey. She might have been high that day.

In short, no. If you spent thousands of dollars connecting everything in your house, maybe, but as is they're basically amusing toys for the kids to play with. (And for corporate America to listen in on them)

No.

Alex/echo

*bob-bomb battlefield music plays*

I use mine to schedule appointments and reminders.

Set timers for cooking and other activities.

I currently use it as an alarm to wake up, the snooze "button" requires you to talk which helps with waking up.

It is useful for checking the weather too.

Answering random questions is nice.

I dont have it connected to any devices, or play music on it.

I would have never bought one for myself before using it, but it does improve my life.

DrPrimemaster posted...

I use mine to schedule appointments and reminders.

Set timers for cooking and other activities.

I currently use it as an alarm to wake up, the snooze "button" requires you to talk which helps with waking up.

It is useful for checking the weather too.

Answering random questions is nice.

I dont have it connected to any devices, or play music on it.

I would have never bought one for myself before using it, but it does improve my life.

You get to Answer random questions?

BigOlePappy posted...

You get to Answer random questions?

Yeah it has trivia.

But that reminds me you can also ask Alexa questions and receive answers too.

21 questions with Alexa is a fun game. She's pretty good.

setting timers. this is really useful as you can not just set a voice-command timer, but you can set two or three or more, and give them names. (useful when cooking more than one thing at once.) and you can say "alexa, timer status" at any time to check on them.

hands-free math. very handy, although it gets tricky to do a long series of operations at once. better to do one or two at once. "alexa, what's 3280 divided by 8?", "<answer>", "alexa, what's <answer> times 25?", "<answer>", "alexa, what's the square root of <answer>?"

music. I only rarely use it, but I can just say "alexa play carpenter brut" and get a random stream of carpenter brut songs. probably the artist has to happen to be available for free and won't always be. there's a subscription service to have access to more songs.

weather. "alexa, what's the temperature/weather", "will it rain soon", "what's the low", etc.

definitions. "alexa, what is <strange word>?". this one is nice when it gets it but only has maybe 50/50 accuracy. also "alexa, who is <strange name>?", "alexa, how old is <celebrity>?", or "alexa, is <celebrity> still alive?"

lists. mostly for shopping list, but you can just say "alexa, add <words> to <list>" to add something to a list. you can have more than one list supposedly but I just use the shopping list at the moment.

(you can actually have it look up things for sale on amazon, and buy them on your account, but that seems like a terrible idea.)

one thing is I'd rather say something else than "alexa". in my options I can change the trigger word to something else like "computer" but it doesn't work. probably you need a more expensive one or something, (mine was just $50).

something to remember when using it is that it's not magic, it is still just a computer. you have to work around its interface, it just has a voice interface instead of a screen.

there are also "apps" (can't remember the word they use) that you can download and run (and write, which I would love to try). for example, you can play Akinator if you install it and run it.

My sister got one for my mom, because she's a little hard of hearing and rarely notices when her phone goes off. It's useful to just vocally drop in when you need to talk.

If you attach them to your lights then hell yeah

Sahuagin posted...

setting timers. this is really useful as you can not just set a voice-command timer, but you can set two or three or more, and give them names. (useful when cooking more than one thing at once.) and you can say "alexa, timer status" at any time to check on them.

hands-free math. very handy, although it gets tricky to do a long series of operations at once. better to do one or two at once. "alexa, what's 3280 divided by 8?", "<answer>", "alexa, what's <answer> times 25?", "<answer>", "alexa, what's the square root of <answer>?"

music. I only rarely use it, but I can just say "alexa play carpenter brut" and get a random stream of carpenter brut songs. probably the artist has to happen to be available for free and won't always be. there's a subscription service to have access to more songs.

weather. "alexa, what's the temperature/weather", "will it rain soon", "what's the low", etc.

definitions. "alexa, what is <strange word>?". this one is nice when it gets it but only has maybe 50/50 accuracy. also "alexa, who is <strange name>?", "alexa, how old is <celebrity>?", or "alexa, is <celebrity> still alive?"

lists. mostly for shopping list, but you can just say "alexa, add <words> to <list>" to add something to a list. you can have more than one list supposedly but I just use the shopping list at the moment.

(you can actually have it look up things for sale on amazon, and buy them on your account, but that seems like a terrible idea.)

one thing is I'd rather say something else than "alexa". in my options I can change the trigger word to something else like "computer" but it doesn't work. probably you need a more expensive one or something, (mine was just $50).

something to remember when using it is that it's not magic, it is still just a computer. you have to work around its interface, it just has a voice interface instead of a screen.

there are also "apps" (can't remember the word they use) that you can download and run (and write, which I would love to try). for example, you can play Akinator if you install it and run it.

I think you can change it to "amazon"

I barely use mine. My wife got it as a present from her job years ago. I pretty much just use it to play music occasionally and set a timer when my hands are full. It does alert me when a package from Amazon has been delivered so thats kinda nice.

I made a PiCroft assistant. I don't have it set up currently, but I'd suggest that the top uses would be:

a) setting timers/reminders
b) creating lists
c) home automation

Honestly, the timers and reminders are the primary ones. While your phone can do that, it still usually requires a little bit of fiddling around. Full voice automation in this area is nice. Same goes for lists obviously.

Home automation is pretty neat when you have lights/locks/security cams set up. Once again, can be controlled pretty easily through apps, but voice automation is quicker.

I'd suggest only a few things are currently quicker via voice-command, but the ones that are so far are pretty great. Depends on a user's wants/needs.

On the other hand...

The only real assistant we ever wanted was Cortana. Original voice. Original model. I miss her. She was the real one. I keep trying it every once in a while and it's just not developed. It's very sad. Just like Samsung Sam, it would be a hit. People want animated virtual girl assistants. Guys too.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/9/2/AAfGAbAADd5c.jpg

Do you enjoy Amazon spying on you and feeding whatever you say into some ML algorithm?

Then again it really doesn't matter because Google knows (if you have an Android) everywhere you go.

No