Author Topic: Amazon Echo  (Read 15360 times)

Offline tedmus

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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #40 on: February 12, 2017, 04:13:56 pm »

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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #41 on: February 13, 2017, 09:09:45 pm »
Love mine. I was gonna get another Sonos speaker for the upstairs bedroom but got one of these instead. Great just walking in and telling it to fire up your playlist before youve even took your coat off.

Had a go with Plex as well and it works really well with movies on your server. I havent tried it with TV or Kodi/Exodus yet but I think it can be done. Would like the ability to send it to any TV in the house for free like.

One question, can you tell it to play a specific track on an album? For example if I'm playing track one of an Album can it be told to play track 7. "Alexa, next" over and over is tedious and confusing.

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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #42 on: July 11, 2017, 09:19:38 am »
If you want one today would be a good day to buy one its Prime day and they are near enough half price at £79.99.
« Last Edit: July 11, 2017, 09:27:15 am by Trada »
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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #43 on: July 11, 2017, 09:24:24 am »
If you want one today would be a good day to buy one its Prime days and they are near enough half price at £79.99.

Ordered mine last night. Been debating getting one for a few weeks since I got my Dad the Echo Dot for Fathers Day and being impressed with it. So with it essentially dropping to half price I figured why not?

Offline tedmus

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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #44 on: July 11, 2017, 09:26:48 am »
Bought another dot to go in the kitchen (£35 on Prime day deal), Be handy to pair it with a bluetooth speaker for using outside.

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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #45 on: July 12, 2017, 06:25:33 am »
Ask her what pi is?
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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #46 on: July 12, 2017, 07:57:48 am »
Picked up one yesterday in the Prime sale as well

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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #47 on: July 12, 2017, 08:00:57 am »
What's the point of these?

Cant you just ask the voice assistant on your phone??
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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #48 on: July 12, 2017, 09:00:49 am »
What's the point of these?

Cant you just ask the voice assistant on your phone??

Pfft, there's loads of point to them.

Can I waste an afternoon getting my voice assistant to fire ya mum jokes and Rick and Morty quotes at me?

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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #49 on: July 12, 2017, 09:49:19 am »
But you'd have to get your phone out....
What's the point of these?

Cant you just ask the voice assistant on your phone??
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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #50 on: July 13, 2017, 02:52:24 pm »
Love mine.

Had it out in the garden last week when on a bit of a pre Rainbow Gig piss up (that raged out of control actually) but 4 of us all asking for favourite songs on Amazon Music unlimited was great. If you want to listen to any music I'd suggest getting the big one - I have a Dot in the bedroom and whilst its Ok for background music or sleepy stuff its not loud enough to hear in the shower.

Got the living room lights swapped to Philpis Hue and its amazing how natural it is now to just say "Alexa turn the lights off?on", "Alexa turn the Sideboard light on/off/50%/red/blue whatever)". I dont even think about using the switches anymore.

I want to get the LED strips but I'm waiting (hopefully) for a decent Xmas flashing program.

My 2 kittens go mad when I ask it to play cat/dog sounds :-)
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Offline tedmus

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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #51 on: July 13, 2017, 04:44:38 pm »
Love mine.

Had it out in the garden last week when on a bit of a pre Rainbow Gig piss up (that raged out of control actually) but 4 of us all asking for favourite songs on Amazon Music unlimited was great. If you want to listen to any music I'd suggest getting the big one - I have a Dot in the bedroom and whilst its Ok for background music or sleepy stuff its not loud enough to hear in the shower.

Got the living room lights swapped to Philpis Hue and its amazing how natural it is now to just say "Alexa turn the lights off?on", "Alexa turn the Sideboard light on/off/50%/red/blue whatever)". I dont even think about using the switches anymore.

I want to get the LED strips but I'm waiting (hopefully) for a decent Xmas flashing program.

My 2 kittens go mad when I ask it to play cat/dog sounds :-)
I have mine have connected to my Bluetooth sound base in the living room and play music through that. Recently got a small b/t speaker for using outside so will connect that to the dot in the kitchen to play music on that. Will be getting the echo voice remote for that purpose.

Had to manually switch lights on recently when the internet went down, bit of a pisser! I might try some of the Yeelights and see how they work out, Innr ones work with Hue as well.

I'm liking my personal fanfare at the moment :D

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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #53 on: February 13, 2018, 10:11:47 am »
The Dot is £10 off (£39.99) currently so I've taken the plunge. Should be here later today. I don't have any online music streaming services so I've set a Plex server up to access my MP3 library (apparently the easiest way).

I realise that it's not the direct rival (that would be the normal Echo) but Apple's Homepod is a ridiculous £320 at launch. The only Apple device I own is a 9 year old Macbook I barely touch so I'm clearly not the market, but wow.
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Offline CraigDS

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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #54 on: February 13, 2018, 10:16:52 am »
The Homepod is being pushed as a top class speaker rather than just a home assistant like the Echo is, so it's going up against the likes of your Sonos and Google Home Max.

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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #55 on: February 13, 2018, 10:23:18 am »
The Homepod is being pushed as a top class speaker rather than just a home assistant like the Echo is, so it's going up against the likes of your Sonos and Google Home Max.

Yeah, that's what the Guardian were hinting at in their review today. But I keep thinking that surely for the best sound you're better off outputting any of these devices into a proper audio setup?
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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #56 on: February 13, 2018, 10:39:30 am »
Yeah, that's what the Guardian were hinting at in their review today. But I keep thinking that surely for the best sound you're better off outputting any of these devices into a proper audio setup?

I think they (along with the likes of Sonos and Google) are going for the mid market. So not your lower range speakers like the Echo, and not your top of the range proper audio set up either.

I own a few Sonos speakers (Play 3) and personally couldn't listen to my music through anything much worse quality than those, but I'm certainly not fussed enough to spend £500+ on speakers for a single room.

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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #57 on: February 14, 2018, 06:04:16 pm »
I've been playing with mine for a day now and it's a fun little bit of kit. Getting it to retrieve content from Plex can be clunky and a bit hit and miss (It can't find 'Shadows as tall as Trees', but if I ask for 'Care' it says it's playing "Care by Shadows as Tall as Trees")  but I'll spend some time making playlists and should work better. A lot of the more common songs are available on Prime though and it's cool just saying "play me some new wave music" and getting a decent mix. I've got it in the living room plugged into my PC's mic port so I get the same quality as I would from skimming youtube etc.

I've only got a couple of Hive lights at the moment but with voice control I'm tempted to expand. Trouble is a lot of my house is GU10 spotlights which Hive don't make, so I'm now considering a switch to Hue, but it'll be expensive.

All in all I like it so much I was going to get another one straight away to replace my RasbPi/Volumio setup in the bedroom but annoyingly they're not at a reduced price anymore so I might wait.
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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #58 on: February 16, 2018, 05:42:04 pm »
I've been playing with mine for a day now and it's a fun little bit of kit. Getting it to retrieve content from Plex can be clunky and a bit hit and miss (It can't find 'Shadows as tall as Trees', but if I ask for 'Care' it says it's playing "Care by Shadows as Tall as Trees")  but I'll spend some time making playlists and should work better. A lot of the more common songs are available on Prime though and it's cool just saying "play me some new wave music" and getting a decent mix. I've got it in the living room plugged into my PC's mic port so I get the same quality as I would from skimming youtube etc.

I've only got a couple of Hive lights at the moment but with voice control I'm tempted to expand. Trouble is a lot of my house is GU10 spotlights which Hive don't make, so I'm now considering a switch to Hue, but it'll be expensive.

All in all I like it so much I was going to get another one straight away to replace my RasbPi/Volumio setup in the bedroom but annoyingly they're not at a reduced price anymore so I might wait.

We got the Hue lights starter kit (4 lamps and the bridge) last week and bought an Echo Dot to go with it. The Hue lights are great, but haven't been able to get the Dot to sync with them yet. All I get is Alexa saying "sorry, something went wrong". I've no doubts it's something I've done so need to spend more time figuring it out, but if you're considering Hue lights, they are cool. That said, we need to buy two more lamps and they run at $50 per piece which is ridiculous.

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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #59 on: February 17, 2018, 08:44:34 am »
I got a Hive kit for free when I signed up for something so it's not too bad, but I've been wary of expanding my two bulbs just in case I did want to switch to Hue or something else. The Hive stuff has just worked perfectly with Alexa, I don't even need to say "Ask Hive to...". But for some reason Hive haven't yet made bulbs other than B22 or E27 and that's really restrictive these days. Across my (small) house, if I wanted to go fully voice controlled I'd need 8 B22 bulbs and 17 GU10 so I'd need to make sure it all works before investing so heavily.

Also I now want a Spot for a bedside alarm/assistant (might just cover that camera over though...) but would need some good bluetooth speakers as well. This initial £40 expenditure is leading to some expensive plans.
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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #60 on: February 17, 2018, 09:39:54 am »
I find it annoying she can't hold a bbc radio station without frequent drop outs.
Still alexa, this is ghost rider, requesting a fly by. Always amuses my tiny mind.
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Offline Jack The Lad

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Amazon Echo question
« Reply #61 on: January 4, 2019, 06:56:09 pm »
Evening all. Got an Amazon Echo Plus for Xmas off the in laws and they also bought one of my lads an Echo Dot for his bedroom. Both are set up and working fine but I have a question.

Wife was cleaning upstairs today and had music playing on the echo dot. I asked the echo plus to play something in the living room and the echo dot upstairs went off when I started playing mine. The missus then asked the echo dot to start playing music and then the echo plus went off in the living room.

Both are linked to the same Spotify account as the default music provider. Does anyone know if they can be linked to the same account but play independently from each other so we can both listen to different music at the same time?

Nice one.

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Re: Amazon Echo question
« Reply #62 on: January 4, 2019, 07:40:57 pm »
Evening all. Got an Amazon Echo Plus for Xmas off the in laws and they also bought one of my lads an Echo Dot for his bedroom. Both are set up and working fine but I have a question.

Wife was cleaning upstairs today and had music playing on the echo dot. I asked the echo plus to play something in the living room and the echo dot upstairs went off when I started playing mine. The missus then asked the echo dot to start playing music and then the echo plus went off in the living room.

Both are linked to the same Spotify account as the default music provider. Does anyone know if they can be linked to the same account but play independently from each other so we can both listen to different music at the same time?

Nice one.

I think you would need two sources,spotify on one and Amazon or tune in on the other.

https://www.pocket-lint.com/smart-home/news/amazon/139677-how-to-use-multiple-amazon-echo-and-dots-setting-up-and-using-multiple-alexa-devices
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Re: Amazon Echo question
« Reply #63 on: January 4, 2019, 07:42:13 pm »
If you want different tunes in each room, try Sonos?
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Re: Amazon Echo question
« Reply #64 on: January 4, 2019, 07:57:45 pm »
I think you would need two sources,spotify on one and Amazon or tune in on the other.

https://www.pocket-lint.com/smart-home/news/amazon/139677-how-to-use-multiple-amazon-echo-and-dots-setting-up-and-using-multiple-alexa-devices

That’s what I was thinking. It’s not a scenario that will happen everyday, just curious as to whether it could be done. I did say to the missus that it was probably because we use the same Spotify account on both devices. 

Thanks for the answer anyway tho mate. Have a good weekend.

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Re: Amazon Echo question
« Reply #65 on: January 4, 2019, 09:33:21 pm »
That’s what I was thinking. It’s not a scenario that will happen everyday, just curious as to whether it could be done. I did say to the missus that it was probably because we use the same Spotify account on both devices. 

Thanks for the answer anyway tho mate. Have a good weekend.
if you pay spotify premium you can add her on her own account for an extra couple of quid a month I think (if not free) so she can log into her own spotify account on one of the devices?
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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #66 on: January 5, 2019, 02:39:43 pm »
Got so fed up with it playing either alternate versions of songs or sample clips until you pay even more money it's got chucked in a drawer

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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #67 on: January 5, 2019, 02:44:09 pm »
Got so fed up with it playing either alternate versions of songs or sample clips until you pay even more money it's got chucked in a drawer

Did you add a decent music source? I use Amazon Prime Music (on my Sonos) and most songs a perfect. Have my Apple Music account on there too which tends to cover everything that's missing.

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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #68 on: January 5, 2019, 04:11:27 pm »
Did you add a decent music source? I use Amazon Prime Music (on my Sonos) and most songs a perfect. Have my Apple Music account on there too which tends to cover everything that's missing.

I'm a prime member but refuse to pay more...it's just getting silly the amount you end up spending on everything :/

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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #69 on: January 5, 2019, 05:25:57 pm »
I'm a prime member but refuse to pay more...it's just getting silly the amount you end up spending on everything :/


So you can get 2 million songs ad free.
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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #70 on: January 5, 2019, 05:48:20 pm »

So you can get 2 million songs ad free.

I know but i seem to like loads that are either not on there or crappy live versions lol

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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #71 on: January 5, 2019, 05:51:00 pm »
I know but i seem to like loads that are either not on there or crappy live versions lol


You could put all of your music into Kodi and play it through a stick or just link it to your music system.
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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #72 on: January 8, 2019, 10:05:06 am »

You could put all of your music into Kodi and play it through a stick or just link it to your music system.

I've got plenty from years of ....umm, well you know ;) :D just think it's a bit rich having to pay for Prime THEN music in top

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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #73 on: March 9, 2019, 08:57:37 pm »
Run a Plex server with all your ill-gotten music, use the Echo Plex skill and tell Alexa to "Ask Plex to play..."

Works most of the time, unless Alexa can't decipher a particular band/artist's name.

A further benefit of doing this is that the songs played through Plex don't get tracked by Amazon so aren't being made part of your monetisable personal data.

I noticed the new Input was reduced today down to £20. All my existing Echo devices are plugged into decent speakers so it was a bit of a no brainer to grab one and extend my coverage into the kitchen, means I can at least set cooking alarms without having to shout loud enough for the bedroom Spot to hear.

« Last Edit: March 9, 2019, 09:04:50 pm by Riquende »
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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #74 on: July 12, 2019, 10:53:15 pm »
I noticed the new Input was reduced today down to £20. All my existing Echo devices are plugged into decent speakers so it was a bit of a no brainer to grab one and extend my coverage into the kitchen, means I can at least set cooking alarms without having to shout loud enough for the bedroom Spot to hear.

Getting addicted now... 2 further Inputs since that post (dining room & study), and a full Echo today (bathroom, where the acoustics make up for the lack of decent external speakers) means I now have a device in every room in the house. It's like having your hand held by Jeff Bezos everywhere you go.
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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #75 on: July 12, 2019, 11:03:49 pm »
Got a Google Home Hub free with my mobile but I don't reckon much to it. Can the Alexa do stuff the Google cant?

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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #76 on: July 13, 2019, 12:26:32 pm »
Got a Google Home Hub free with my mobile but I don't reckon much to it. Can the Alexa do stuff the Google cant?

95% of my usage is to just play music. I'm very impressed with Amazon's music service (I don't listen to anything popular but I struggle to flummox it on music requests) and I have every device on a multi-room speaker group so wherever I go in the house the same song is playing, perfectly in sync. Note that you have to use either the inbuilt speaker or the audio jack to do this, bluetooth speakers introduce lag so an Echo can't be in a multi-room group and have a connected bluetooth speaker at the same time (you also can't easily run it through a PC's mic/line in and then out of the speakers as the soundcard will also introduce a slight but annoyingly noticeable delay - I bought tiny USB-powered Behringer mixers to get around this in the rooms where I have HTPCs).

The other 5% is using it to turn on and off the limited number of smart bulbs/plugs I have in the house. I've been looking to expand this recently but I only have a Hive hub right now which doesn't have a lot of cool features. Really for fun with smart lighting you need Hue, but looking at what you can do the temptation would be to spend a ton of money on crazy lighting everywhere*.

A friend of mine is just starting with Google Home. She has Spotify already which is probably on par with Amazon, and most of the smart home stuff runs through seperate hubs/skills that are likely compatible with both setups.

* I'd love to do this with Hue (though I'd hide the bulbs as I think having them flashing inyour eyeline would be distracting), but my living room space isn't really ideal for it in this house. When I move though, I'm having a dedicated home cinema room:
Spoiler
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/PKnHT2ZCJdY" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/PKnHT2ZCJdY</a>
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« Last Edit: July 13, 2019, 04:23:44 pm by Riquende »
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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #77 on: August 11, 2019, 09:15:39 pm »
Does anyone know for sure if you can put a single Sonos speaker into an Alexa speaker group? I've searched but because Sonos has its own groups I'm getting irrelevant or conflicting answers.

Ikea and Sonos have just collaborated on this rather swish looking speaker/lamp combination that would look excellent on my bedside table:



It has a cheaper Sonos inside it (but not the one with Alexa built in). I'm only interested if I can hook it into multiroom setup.
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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #78 on: August 13, 2019, 03:47:57 pm »
Can you bluetooth music from youtube, like you can in the car?

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Re: Amazon Echo
« Reply #79 on: August 13, 2019, 10:52:41 pm »
Can you bluetooth music from youtube, like you can in the car?

Guides I've seen suggest that you can. Echo devices have bluetooth, but most people use it to connect them to better speakers than the internal ones.

Given that the point of the Echo is the voice control, if all you want to do is stream music from a phone then there are probably higher sound quality bluetooth speakers you could get hold of.
"The nicest thing about quotes is that they give us a nodding acquaintance with the originator which is often socially impressive."

~ Kenneth Williams, with whom I'm noddingly acquainted. Socially impressed?