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re: I just got an echo dot... What can I do with it?
Posted on 12/26/16 at 2:20 pm to LSUtigerME
Posted on 12/26/16 at 2:20 pm to LSUtigerME
A lot of this sounds like stuff that a smart phone (Siri) already does?
Posted on 12/26/16 at 7:32 pm to shutterspeed
Dots, Echos and Taps are just finely tuned microphones and varying degrees of quality speakers. The internals almost literally don't matter. They listen and then use back end, internet connected machine learning/AI to become more and more adept and giving you what you want when you ask for it.
In that sense, there isn't much of a concern to continue to refine the hardware. It listens, interprets and then hopefully responds with what you want. The secret sauce is the back end stuff that has nothing to do with the hardware per se.
I can control my video monitoring/alarm system, turn my speakers on and off, play music, set timers and soon we'll control the temps in the house and the lights using the skills they keep adding.
Plus you can voice order without pressing a button. I'm an Amazon Dash user and now I don't even have to tap the Dash button. I just say, "Alexa, order All detergent," or, "Alexa, order Charmin toilet paper," and it's just like the Dash.
In that sense, there isn't much of a concern to continue to refine the hardware. It listens, interprets and then hopefully responds with what you want. The secret sauce is the back end stuff that has nothing to do with the hardware per se.
I can control my video monitoring/alarm system, turn my speakers on and off, play music, set timers and soon we'll control the temps in the house and the lights using the skills they keep adding.
Plus you can voice order without pressing a button. I'm an Amazon Dash user and now I don't even have to tap the Dash button. I just say, "Alexa, order All detergent," or, "Alexa, order Charmin toilet paper," and it's just like the Dash.
Posted on 12/27/16 at 8:18 am to shutterspeed
quote:
A lot of this sounds like stuff that a smart phone (Siri) already does?
It's always on, for the 6s and later that is a setting for Siri, but for earlier iPhones you have to use the home button to activate Siri. Sometimes your phone is in the other room charging, Echo/Dot is meant to be relatively stationary so it should always be there when you need it in your primary use cases. It also has the option to hardwire into old school speakers, so if you want to play your music over something besides a bluetooth speaker, it can be set up for that without having to hook up your phone.
For now the use case is pretty limited outside of timers, music and the smart home. But it's a pretty open platform that people are doing a lot of homemade hacks for. There's a custom hack where you can get Alexa to control a Roku and even get it to control Plex on Roku "Alexa tell Roku to Play Star Trek Beyond on Plex" and that makes Roku launch Plex and do a search for Star Trek Beyond and it plays it once it finds it. Unfortunately it requires some home hacking to set up, but make something like that an official easy to install skill, and make a skill for the grocery list app I use, and I'd use Alexa quite a bit.
Posted on 12/27/16 at 11:25 am to TigerinATL
I'm not sure the Echo itself is worth the price tag but the Dot is for sure. So far the shopping list and to do list gets the most work.
But I work nights and my wife is a teacher. So during the week we hardly see each other but we can leave ourselves "to do lists" for each other on it quite easily.
But it depends on what kind of person you are. If you are gonna scoff at it and say "I can write my own list" then you won't enjoy. But if you enjoy the futuristic aspect of it and think possible home animation is in your future then it's awesome.
But I work nights and my wife is a teacher. So during the week we hardly see each other but we can leave ourselves "to do lists" for each other on it quite easily.
But it depends on what kind of person you are. If you are gonna scoff at it and say "I can write my own list" then you won't enjoy. But if you enjoy the futuristic aspect of it and think possible home animation is in your future then it's awesome.
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