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re: Echo Dot the most useless thing ever invented? ETA CAD giving it another go
Posted on 1/4/17 at 12:26 pm to LSUtigerME
Posted on 1/4/17 at 12:26 pm to LSUtigerME
quote:
You can put a passcode protection to keep the order from being processed
do i need to whisper the passcode when the kids are in the other room?
1
Posted on 1/4/17 at 12:28 pm to CAD703X
quote:
ooo, thats cool. does alexa contain a temp sensor?
That would be cool
Posted on 1/4/17 at 12:30 pm to CAD703X
Why don't you ask the Matrix if it's "useful" or not?
Posted on 1/4/17 at 12:30 pm to CAD703X
quote:
do i need to whisper the passcode when the kids are in the other room?
You could.
Or just process the order from your phone/device.
You can also turn off 1-click ordering, where the purchases cannot be processed by the Echo and need additional verification.
Posted on 1/4/17 at 12:31 pm to CAD703X
quote:
ooo, thats cool. does alexa contain a temp sensor?
No, it queries a weather service and tells me the outside temp along with a brief forecast for the rest of the day, which is what I want. I use this and the alarm/timer features daily.
Posted on 1/4/17 at 12:39 pm to CAD703X
quote:
Got this for Christmas and thought i'd plug it in and see what's up. It doesn't do shite. I ask it to bark like a dog and it won't. I ask it to play music and it says you have no music. i ask it basic search questions and it says 'i don't understand the question'. but if i ask it to order toliet paper it fricking goes on for 20 minutes about the options i have to get it to my house.
As tech savvy as you are, I'm surprised you don't like it.
I love my Echo and also have Dots all throughout the house. I have over 50 smart items in my house (z-wave switches, z-wave deadbolt, zigbee bulbs, lots of hue bulbs/strips, window shades, etc.
Being able to have everything voice controlled is awesome! I definitely use schedules as well, but to be laying in bed be able to tell alexa to turn your ceiling fan to 50% or adjust the thermostat (honeywell) is ....well lazy...but super convenient!
I have most of my stuff connected through Wink and then paired my wink to alexa. Yonomi also pairs with Alexa to expand your options. I also have a harmony hub paired to have my tv voice controlled.
If you aren't interested in home automation; however, I couldn't really justify the purchase of the Echo.
(Off-topic) My biggest issue is with wink. I recently upgraded to the hub 2 and have a huge glitch with my z-wave devices since Saturday. Still waiting on Wink to find a fix and push it through a firmware update. Other than that, the set up with Echo is great.
This post was edited on 1/4/17 at 12:47 pm
Posted on 1/4/17 at 12:41 pm to Spock's Eyebrow
quote:
No, it queries a weather service and tells me the outside temp along with a brief forecast for the rest of the day, which is what I want. I use this and the alarm/timer features daily.
probably not its 'core competency' but i was in sams yesterday and they had a $100 weather station thingie with all the bells and whistles that old people think they need including the little window-sock rotaty thingy and lots of indoor and outdoor wires.
it wouldn't hurt to add humidity & temp sensors to the echo (or google home) and use that in combination with connected 'smarts' (like spock pointed out) to provide a very accurate weather model for your area.
as a cyclist i am also interested in wind direction & speed because in a vain attempt at a strava KOM the direction and speed of the wind can dictate which segments i may want to attempt.
ok, i'm not going to ding Echo for that, but i think there's a missed opportunity when you can buy a temp & humidity sensor FROM AMAZON thats rated highly accurate for less than $10.
at the very least having this in Dots and Echos if you have them all over the house could be HUGE for a more consistent HVAC experience whether you own an ECOBEE or not.
This post was edited on 1/4/17 at 12:44 pm
Posted on 1/4/17 at 12:46 pm to CAD703X
quote:
WRONG. it creates ears for a ******TINY****** subset of smart things and creates more confusion than anything.
i already have full voice control of EVERYTHING including robots, shortcuts and direct access to devices without the crippling limitations of dot.
I still dont understand this post. These devices (google home and alexa) sync with wink and smartthings so if your smart device is compatible with wink then its compatible with alexa and google home.
And how exactly does tasker continue to work in your house if you leave the house with your phone? Or are your tasker profiles on a tablet that never leaves the house?
Posted on 1/4/17 at 12:53 pm to CAD703X
quote:
got it from my MiL and i'm trying to find out where she got it from so i can return it.
Posted on 1/4/17 at 12:55 pm to bbap
quote:
I still dont understand this post. These devices (google home and alexa) sync with wink and smartthings so if your smart device is compatible with wink then its compatible with alexa and google home.
but its not. any shortcut i built in wink that has something other than a light won't work in alexa.
zero robots work with alexa.
quote:
And how exactly does tasker continue to work in your house if you leave the house with your phone? Or are your tasker profiles on a tablet that never leaves the house?
tasker allows me to voice lock/unlock my doors and garage doors and i dont need that when i'm gone in the house. if i want to close the garage doors while i'm on the road..well my phone is still with me and along with my smart watch plus bluetooth radio, i can just talk to the 'air' while driving to activate things like telling it to open the garage door for me as i'm getting close to home because geofencing is a crapshoot.
i can also use voice control to activate any shortcut and any robot and any device directly, end of story.
i'm not missing anything when i leave home..why would i want alexa listening when i'm not there?
This post was edited on 1/4/17 at 12:59 pm
Posted on 1/4/17 at 12:58 pm to CAD703X
quote:
but its not. any shortcut i built in wink that has something other than a light won't work in alexa.
zero robots work with alexa.
All you have to do is create a virtual switch in smartthings to workaround this. Then all of your routines will work with alexa. If wink has anything similar then it would be pretty easy to add your robots to alexa.
quote:
tasker allows me to voice lock/unlock my doors and garage doors and i dont need that when i'm gone.
Dont you have a family though? Maybe your house is different but if i have the option to keep voice accessibility on when im not home and the wife is then that's a big plus.
Posted on 1/4/17 at 12:59 pm to bbap
quote:
Dont you have a family though? Maybe your house is different but if i have the option to keep voice accessibility on when im not home and the wife is then that's a big plus.
i guess you need to define a use case for me where i want my wife or kids controlling any of the smart stuff when i'm not there
the last thing i want is my wife & kids locking the doors all day long and running the batteries down.
Posted on 1/4/17 at 1:01 pm to bbap
quote:
to workaround this
thats my point. i just want everything to work without having to do crap like that.
Posted on 1/4/17 at 1:01 pm to CAD703X
Obviously i cant speak to your particular family but my wife works from home and while admittedly there was a learning curve she very much uses the voice to control lights, cooking timers, and the TV while at home.
Our google home is in our kitchen where we spend the majority of our time. And our kitchen looks right into the living room so you can see the TV from the kitchen. So voice control over the TV while in the kitchen cooking is a great feature.
Our google home is in our kitchen where we spend the majority of our time. And our kitchen looks right into the living room so you can see the TV from the kitchen. So voice control over the TV while in the kitchen cooking is a great feature.
Posted on 1/4/17 at 1:02 pm to CAD703X
quote:
thats my point. i just want everything to work without having to do crap like that.
you are using tasker now. That's a workaround. This is probably less of a workaround than that.
Again im speaking strictly from google home/smartthings experience. Experiences with alexa/wink may vary.
Posted on 1/4/17 at 1:03 pm to bbap
quote:
cooking timers
i admitted above that this is something useful
quote:
and the TV while at home.
elaborate please. can she change tv channels in comcast or launch movies in exodus via voice? if so this is a game-changer. what type of tv control is she doing?
quote:
So voice control over the TV while in the kitchen cooking is a great feature.
i'm VERY interested in this. how/what is she able to do? i have a fireTV but only use it for Kodi.
Posted on 1/4/17 at 1:06 pm to CAD703X
quote:
elaborate please. can she change tv channels in comcast or launch movies in exodus via voice? if so this is a game-changer. what type of tv control is she doing?
we have the harmony hub as well. this isnt doable without that.
she can turn the volume up and down, tv channel up and down, access the directv guide, page the guide up and down, access the menu, press select while in the guide so it changes to that show. i programmed 20 favorite channels like "watch nbc, watch abc, etc". i believe channel changing is native with harmony/alexa but not google home yet so thats why i had to program them individually.
Our tv is a roku tv so she can say watch roku and it switches to roku. She can say watch netflix and launches netflix. Same with amazon, hbo go, etc.
All of this from her voice while the tv remote is in the living room. Granted its not perfect and it can be clunky since google home and harmony are not natively supported yet. I had to write a lot of those scripts in tasker in order for it to work.
By clunky i mean there can be a lag. But as far as it performing the said command it does it 97% of the time. Very rarely does it misfire. It just may take a second.
This post was edited on 1/4/17 at 1:08 pm
Posted on 1/4/17 at 1:07 pm to bbap
quote:
Again im speaking strictly from google home/smartthings experience.
keep forgetting you don't have Echo. i'm interested in google home because wink supports thread so the integration/future potential is definitely there.
Posted on 1/4/17 at 1:09 pm to CAD703X
Zero inside knowledge but it can't be long before Wink is fully supported by Google Home. That has to be coming soon.
Posted on 1/4/17 at 1:09 pm to bbap
quote:
She can say watch netflix and launches netflix. Same with amazon, hbo go, etc
if you can say 'watch next episode of shameless on netflix' i would delete this thread immediately
voice control of netflix/kodi/comcast is sorely lacking for me at the moment.
comcast remote does have a voice button on it but it sucks because it only wants to throw you into 'ppv land' unless you're just speaking a tv channel name.
i don't think you can say 'record lsu game' on it and have it do anything useful right now.
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