re: Echo dot is a great product

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Yeah, seeing CADs transformation on Amazon has been entertaining. Although to be fair, I don't think he ever really hated Amazon. In one of his "anti Amazon" rants he said he was getting rid of Prime because it made him buy too much stuff

On the subject of the Echo being a great product, I'm really curious to see where things are in 5 years. I had been of the opinion that while new homes would have plenty of Smart Home tech, most people won't upgrade their older homes with Smart fixtures. That's a lot of work or expense, but Alexa controlling your media center and intercoming the kids could prove to be a gateway into wanting Alexa to do more stuff.

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to be fair my opinion evolved over time in that original thread from 'echo is useless' to 'sort of want' to 'ok it does some cool things'.

the 3 best things about echo to me are:

- ad lib voice control of home automation. this, coupled with schedules and triggers allows my home automation to be more 'gentle' rather than having to either have EVERY DOODAD perfectly tuned or i have to go hunt for my damn phone to change something. voice control softens it so if we have a late dinner one night and the dining room lights go out at 9pm (like they are scheduled to) i can turn them back on without getting up from the table.

- as my hue addiction has grown, being able to change colors, white temperature and dim them via voice is super handy. nothing like sitting at the kitchen island trying to solder something and saying out loud 'alexa set the island to concentrate' and all 4 hue bulbs turn bright blue-white

- new-found love of intercom. i was on the verge of a costly/yucky installation of wink relays in every room of the house i wanted an intercom and boom, frick that noise. alexa just ran wink the frick over with its 'drop in' feature.

my 2 year old thinks alexa is a person he tries to get up on the shelf and talk to her and wanted to share his mac & cheese with 'her' the other day

so damn cute. she's finally recognizing his voice when he says 'alexa' and that tickles him to no end. for awhile he couldn't say it good enough for the dot to respond.


ETA MY LOVE OF THE DOT DOES NOT EQUATE TO MY LOVING AMAZON IN GENERAL