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AudioGames.net Forum → Off-topic room → amazon echo, would you recommend it?
Hi.
Amazon recently announced the release of their amazon echo and echo dot units in the UK, Germany and Austria.
I am considering to purchase one of these units, but first, I want to ask if it's worth the purchase.
I wanted to ask those who use it on what they use the device, so for example what are some of the things you do with the device and was it worth the purchase?
Thanks in advance
Greetings Moritz
My sister bought me an Echo over a year ago and I use it all the time. You need a few things for it to work, an Amazon prime account, a wireless router, and a smart phone. If you've got all of them, then you're all set. The device has excellent voice recognition and speakers that sound every bit as good as my Bose mini. With your Amazon Prime you can stream a surprising amount of audio through the Echo, but you have to know exactly what to ask for, and there are some huge gaps in the library. It can answer all sorts of questions through Wikipedia, but once again, there are some gaps. Weather and news are just a voice command away, and with the right hardware you can control most of your home with simple commands like, "Turn on light 3." We have a thermostat from Sensi which interfaces with both a phone and with Echo, though I have yet to link it to the echo due to laziness and no need to run the heat yet. It has all kinds of skills from recipes for bar drinks to games and musical tools. The list of skills grows daily and there's even one for Swamp Trivia which I have yet to activate, also due to laziness. Finally, it makes a great Bluetooth speaker. I connect it to my iPhone with two clicks and can stream music, books, radio, or anything I wish. Not sure what it goes for in Europe, but in the States it's a steal at right around 100 dollars, but I think that is with a one time only 50 dollar discount. I'm more than satisfied with mine, and if it died I wouldn't hesitate to buy another.
Hi.
Thanks for the info about the device. Amazon didnt announce when they will release the speaker exactly, but they said that this will happen some day in the next month.
Did I get this right? You need an amazon prime account to use it or does a normal amazon account work as well?
Greetings Moritz.
You do not need an Amazon prime account to use the Echo itself. However, if you want to use Amazon Prime features like Prime Music, you will need a Prime account, but only for those features.
I considered getting an Echo until I discovered that the only way you could give it access to your music library is by uploading it to a cloud based music service, and if you have more than 250 tracks, you'll be charged a monthly or yearly fee for it.
All the other things it can do were secondary, all I was interested in was a convenient way to play music from my library.
I think it also supports bluetooth so you can connect your phone to it as well and play music that way, or plug it into speakers with a 3.5 patch cable.
The standard Amazon Echo has its own builtin speaker. Only the Echo Dot can be plugged into your existing speaker system.
To your first question, yes, I would definitely recommend it. The audio quality is surprisingly good. You don't necessarily need a prime account. I used to have one, and it was nice to listen to my library using prime music, but I stopped using that after a while and stuck to streaming services e.g. iHeart radio, pandora, and Tune-in. Its surprising how much I use it, sometimes not even noticing anymore.
One problem I've had with radio streams is that the one local radio station I want to listen to won't allow their stream to be played by anything other than a web browser if you are within their broadcast area.
All I can conclude from that is that they want the revenue generated by the ads their web site displays on top of the ads you'll hear on their stream.
So I just use a blind accessible clock radio to listen to radio, or my Victor Reader Stream when I want to listen to my music library.
The Echo is just a connection to Amazon's Alexa service, which is also available on my iPhone at no additional charge, if I really want it.
If you wanted to get an Echo dot or an Echo speaker, know the differences.
Echo: Standalone Bluetooth speaker with Alexa built in, with no other audio connectivity other than Bluetooth.
Echo Dot: Smaller version of the Echo with a smaller speaker, but with a 3.5MM out jack.
I currently have an Echo dot, connected to an old school stereo with an RCA to 3.5MM jack cable. The stereo has 5 speakers and a sub woofer. Because I now have the Dot connected to my stereo, the stereo has Bluetooth capabilities, which allows me to connect my PC or iPhone to it, and stream music with out worrying about wires.
Not only is the echo a cool streaming device but, it is also very helpful as well. Sure you can take your phone out of your pocket, and ask Siri questions but, I think it's just easier to ask Alexa. And to be completely honest, the Alexa voice sounds better than Siri's voice, and I think Alexa is way more responsive than Siri.
HTH.
The thing about Starlanes interested me in the ecco, but again I'm not really a fan of streaming services for music like amazon prime or of the hole library thing, ---- I've said before how much I dislike Itunes).
For the speaker capabilities and alexa it might be worth it if it gets other features in the future, though from the sound of it if your not using it for streaming amazon specifically essentially you have a bleutooth speaker with a siri like service, and since I have siri on my phone it's possibly a little superfluous for me at this point, though if the amount of things it does and services available with alexa increases to things without Iphone iquivolence I might consider the idea.
Then again at the moment I can do radio on my pc or my sterrio or for that matter on my victor stream when connected to the wireless, and similarly with my music library, so I'm probably okay thus far, though when I get a new pc in a few months I do intend to get another set of speakers too since these need replacing.
@Dark
I'm confused, what does not liking iTunes have to do with wanting to be able to use my library of music files on the Echo?
If I could have copied my library of music files to the Echo, and tell Alexa something like, "play Abba", and have it start playing my tracks by Abba, I would have bought one. But having to put my 2,300 tracks of music in the cloud and be charged for having more than 250 tracks, was a deal killer for me.
And for what it's worth, I agree with you concerning iTunes, after I got my Victor Reader Stream, I was ever so happy to remove that piece of garbage from my computer.
@figment, aside from the bloated nonsense and stupid interface, my dislike of Itunes is exactly as you described. I don't like the idea of either having to reformat all my own stuff so that it conforms to Apple's ordering conventions in order to play it,or of being forced to only buy and stream things from Apple and them be stuck in itunes forever more amen.
amazon's prime streaming service seems very much of the same ilk, and even iff the interface isn't as annoying as Itunes, I don't want to be tied to a silly coorporation and their restrictions, if I have music, I want to play it where and how and when I want, and on what device I want, not this captive audience business.
it's actually the media aspect of things that is my one major issue with Ios, I would much prefer if you could just copy files onto your Iphone and play them, then again I'm very happy with my Victor Stream.
As i said if the ecco does other things that are fun, which it might do in the future then that could be a really handy thing.
@Dark
I agree with you 100%. If I got an Echo, one of the things I'd want to do with it is to be able to play the music in my library on it. But no, Amazon says that if you want to play your own music on it you have to put it in the cloud so the Echo can stream it.
That is why I didn't buy one and why I don't recommend it.
Again though Figment this might change in the future depending upon software developments, since if the other things the ecco does can compensate for not using media it might still be worth it.
I had a similar debate with deciding whether to get an Iphone back in 2012. Eventually I decided that it was worth it for the aps and games and voiceover navigation even without using the media functions. I then struggled to get said media functions to do what I want, and gave up and bought a victor two years later, ---- though even without said function I still use my Iphone quite a lot and wouldn't really want to be without one, especially for games and handy stuff like Siri.
I've come to the conclusion that despite the modern tendency of the major coorporations to want to make people into pacive recipients of whatever technology and restrictions they deem best to squeeze out enough prophet, there is as little sense in saying "no no a thousand times no!" as there is in being a complete drone and swallowing everything hook line and sinker.
Better to take whatever the handy stuff is and let the rest of it take a hike and do your own thing.
True, if you are happy with streaming everything, or using it's many skills, then it might be worth it to you.
While I would probably use it's other features if I had one, as long as streaming my music library through the cloud is a requirement, I'll never buy one.
Hello,
I like my Echo. You may be better off getting the $50 Echo dot and connecting that to a superior set of speakers or a stereo. The Dot also acts as a Bluetooth receiver. This means you could connect it to a really high quality stereo system and use your computer or smart phone wirelessly by pairing to the Dot. If I listen to audio on it, it is not through the cloud. I didn't purchase the Echo for music. I purchased it because it has a lot of potential and is constantly growing with new features. I also like the voice activation.
As others have said, you do not need a prime account to use the Echo. The only things you're missing out on are the prime music and voice ordering features which I don't use. Speaking of these smart speakers, Apple and Google are going to come out with competitive products. I'm not sure if they will take off or flop since the Echo has been such a success.
Overall, I really like my Echo. I find it convenient to set quick alarms and timers by shouting at the thing from the hallway or what ever. It's better than Siri on my phone because I cannot use the Hey Siri feature on my 5S. I've also noticed that the Alexa service seems far more responsive. There are a few things I wish it could do, such as reading an entire Wikipedia article from start to finish on command. Amazon has a feedback section where you can suggest product improvements or report issues. What's amazing is that since receiving my Echo at the end of last year, I can do so much more with it now. It reads Kindle books, allows you to order pizza and an Uber, has support for controlling even more home devices, and a bunch of other things I'm forgetting about. That's excluding the rapidly growing list of third party skills that can make the unit do almost anything you want.
Since I live in Amazon's ecoverse, earlier this year I bought an Echo. I then downloaded the Alexa app to my iPhone. I couldn't believe it! I loved the Echo it was a neat device and I liked being able to ask it questions such the time, the weather, and current news stories.
What I couldn't believe was how bad the Amazon Alexa app was for iOS. I had lots of trouble with it crashing, or not responding such that unloading and restarting it was the only way to regain control, and other various problems using it with Voice Over. In the Apple app store it had a rating of only 2 out of 5 stars, with most other complaints describing the same problems I was having with it, so it wasn't just me or my iPhone. After a very frustrating week I sent it back as defective by design because the required Alexa app for iOS was essentially non functional, especially if you use Voice Over.
Four months later I heard that Amazon had done several updates to the app to improve it, so I checked. I wonder what, if anything, they improved because now the app has a 1.5 out of 5 star rating with 76% of the ratings giving it only 1 star. It appears to have gotten worse, not better.
I'm still interested in the Echo and hope Amazon pulls their heads out of their butts long enough to see the writing on the wall and fix the iOS version of their app so that it runs properly, especially with Voice Over.
Since Amazon seems to be all over Android, I would guess that the Android version of the Alexa app works a whole lot better than the iOS version does. But I don't have any Android devices to run it on and don't see why I should have to buy one just to run their app.
So I'm wondering, what others who have an Echo are using for the Alexa app?
The Android version of the App:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta … &hl=en
, currently has a rating of 3.5 stars. I can safely say, the interface is quite a fine experience with Talkback.
Well, there is the web application. If you use that, after the device is set up, you might find it a bit more usable in a modern browser.
Sebby is correct on the web application, though I confess my amazon ecco dot that I got for Christmas is still sitting on my shelf as I've not found a use for it as yet.
When I tried it out, I found the speech recognition far worse than siri on Ios, (and considering Siri can already do things like weather, time and news that is not saying much), I am not that interested in streaming music through a device I have any access to (if I buy music I want to own it and play it on whatever device I want for as long as I have digital content), hell I couldn't even get it to play classic fm which is the main radio station I listen to and am best off doing that on their website. When I looked up skills there were barely any available in the Uk (only the national lottery).
in general even with the web ap it was a major disappointment.
I do intend to pick it up again now I have my windows 10 machine sorted out, particularly because some of the games on it look interesting but I will say my first experience has not been encouraging, not the least because the Ios ap was so bad.
Then again a recent attempt to sort out my amazon account and buy a cd on amazon was a dismal failure mostly due to their site not knowing the difference between 7 and 9 with nvda and being in general a bit of a pest to do anything on, which again doesn't really encourage me with the ecco dot.
Actually I rather wish my brother had bought me an apple watch instead and I feel a little guilty that the thing has proved useless thus far.
I tried the web app and all it did was crash my browser. Maybe I have something going on with my browser, but still, something with the web site itself has to be quite off for it to do that, especially when it's the only web site I have problems with that aren't related to accessibility.
Before anyone suggests using a different browser, the same argument against buying an Android device is true for a second browser.
Besides, until the iOS app is fixed so that its actually usable by Voice Over users, I have no intention of buying another Echo. I'm just curious how other visually impaired Amazon Echo owners are getting around the Alexa app's problems with Voice Over.
"Orco which browser and screen reader are you using?
I also was disappointed by the Alexa ap's performance on Ios, but found the web application usable (even if I haven't yet found much use for the actual device itself).
I have tried it in internet explorer with nvda and supernova and it worked fine with both.
If your running into an issue like a crash it is possible that there is something in your browser settings which might be going wrong.
I use Internet Explorer 11 fully patched, but with no multimedia add ons like Silverlight, Flash, or anything else similar. And my screen reader is JAWS 18.
I have no problems at all with most, at least 80%, of The sites I frequent. If I have any problems, it's usually some kind of accessibility issue. For those sites, if I can't find a work around for the accessibility issue, I don't fuss or fight with it, I just go somewhere else.
The last time I tried, the Amazon Alexa web site caused an almost immediate crash of my browser. No error message, no nothing, I just find myself back at the desktop and the iexplorer task is gone from memory. Resetting all of Internet Explorer's settings to their defaults and disabling third party add ons still produced the immediate crash. Recalling how unstable the iOS app was I just wrote it off as more of the same crap and moved on.
The iOS app works very well. I'm not sure why you're having all these problems. The web interface works reasonably well with Safari on macOS and Chrome on Windows. I'm thinking it's a problem with your devices or internet connection. Try rebooting everything including your wireless router.
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