The transition from primarily visual UX towards an auditorial UX is really powerful.<p>Looking at screens to get key information distracts me from my surroundings and seems archaic.<p>My wife is a sound designer who has opened my eyes to the importance of sounds both in film and in the world. It's not that I was unaware of sounds, but I didn't realize how important they are to centering me in this world and the made up worlds of films and games. Try watching a scary movie with the sound turned off, it turns into a comedy.<p>I think its unexplored territory that has huge potential to impact the way we interact with the real world, even more so then Glass or Hololens.<p>When I listen to music as I walk down the street I change, my mood, my posture and the way I look at the world. The music augments the reality around me in a way that visual UX never can because it's a lens between my eyes and the world.
"If you have more than one Echo or Echo Dot, you can set a different wake word for each".<p>This is something I've been thinking is becoming more problematic as well as an opportunity for real ubiquity. I have 3 separate devices nearby that are Google Now voice activated (the newer devices support this even if the screen is off), and they will sometimes trigger at the same time accidentally.<p>Since the processing is cloud based, and they know my identity, why don't the devices recognize this fact and cooperate. Instead of just 7 beam forming mics in the Echo, if you have two within hearing distance you could have the benefit of 14 and a unified response. Don't tie the request & response to a particular device, instead think of it as ubiquitous network that moves with you as you walk around the household, you should be able to continue your conversation from one room to the next seamlessly.
When did I turn from the enthusiastic kid who dreamed of audio-controlled personal assistants like this to a cranky old man who doesn't want anything remotely spy-possible in his house?
There is something delightfully ballsy about making this only available to users of Alexa Voice shopping:<p>"Echo Dot is available in limited quantities and exclusively for Prime members through Alexa Voice Shopping. To order your Echo Dot, use your Amazon Echo or Amazon Fire TV and just ask: "Alexa, order an Echo dot"<p>Also, this makes me sad. I'd kind of like to try this out, but I have no Alexa voice service currently (I don't think)
Somewhat related, but if I don't subscribe to any of the services listed, this is a pretty useless product for me. I don't listen to internet radio, I don't stream music, I don't order delivery, I don't use uber, there's already 10 million ways to check the weather, and my life isn't busy enough to need a voice-activated calendar.<p>Is this the future of tech? Like do I need to have some kind of urban-go-getter lifestyle to find use in any of this? When can I get something useful, rather than "thing I already do, but in a new package"?
My problem with Alexa is, I don't want to invest in a new ecosystem. I'm fine with Amazon being the hub that connects all of my services, but I don't want to use Amazon To-Do List, Amazon Prime Radio, Amazon Traffic, Amazon Sports, Amazon Calendar, Amazon Weather.<p>That being said, they announce partnerships with more and more services every month. Things are looking up.
Just ordered a Dot -- what is the Tap? They added that to the page, too, but no info. Is it just the next gen Echo?<p><a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/3/11148776/amazon-echo-tap-speaker-price-availability-photos-video" rel="nofollow">http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/3/11148776/amazon-echo-tap-sp...</a><p>Ahh -- the Tap is a portable device with wifi speaker.<p>(Probably wouldn't call an audio monitoring box the "tap"
Wow, what a coincidence. I just did a setup like this with Amazon Echo and Sonos, by "hacking" the Amazon Echo to do audio-out.<p>I wrote up a little post on it here: <a href="https://medium.com/@MathiasHansen/hacking-an-amazon-echo-and-integrating-it-with-sonos-75dbcc02f5b5#.4pu7ca7jx" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/@MathiasHansen/hacking-an-amazon-echo-and...</a><p>Obviously, actually having bluetooth speakers with the Echo Dot is a much better solution, but after using the Sonos setup for 3-4 weeks I must say that it works surprisingly well, and despite the audio hack the sound quality is excellent on my Play 1's.
Be forewarned - if I am invited into your home for any reason, and I see an Alexa device, I will vocally add a large shopping list of nonsense to your Amazon cart :)
Will this be linked together with my echo? One thing I do quite often since my echo is in my kitchen is use it to set a timer. I'd like to be able to go to my office upstairs, and ask it how much time is left. Today, i don't think that's possible even with a second echo.
Amazon was the only Big Four company silent on the data privacy lawsuit with Apple. Why would I place one of their always-listening products in my living room?
Only for US customers...<p>"Requirements<p>* A U.S. Amazon account<p>* A U.S. shipping address (50 United States and the District of Columbia only)<p>* An annual Amazon Prime membership or 30-day Amazon Prime free trial<p>* A payment method issued by a U.S. bank with a U.S. billing address in your 1-Click settings<p>* A device with access to the Alexa Voice Service (such as Amazon Echo)"
I would love to have something similar as open source software. How can I trust this device if I can't examine the code used for hotword recognition?<p>Also, it would be great to be able to put the software on different hardware - something with digital audio output for example. The concept of Alexa is amazing, but distributing it as properitary software limits its potential.
I'm not entirely clear on the difference between the regular Echo and the Echo Dot. It appears you have to have an original Echo in order to purchase a Dot. Is this simply an extension that proxies all of the requests back to the original Echo?
I love my echo! I probably use it 15-25 times a day.
1) Acts as my alarm
2) Turn on my favorite radio station while I make breakfast.
3) Timers for cooking breakfast.
4) Listen to flash news
5) Alarm again if I need a nap.
6) Timers for lunch meal
7) Add item to shopping list.
8) Add todo items.
9) Plays spotify while I work on my computer from across the room.
10) More flash news (its really quite extensive)
11) more naps
12) dinner timer
13) news
14) word definitions
15) Tell it to stop when it starts talking in the middle of a conversation (a bit annoying).
16) more todos
17) Order more dogs treats
18) Play bedtime music
Worth every penny.
Where did the strange sense of "everyone is spying on you" come from? A bloated sense of self importance?
Still too expensive, imo. I've read a lot about "Alexa" and Echo... and beside the privacy issues, in many cases the Echo quickly becomes an expensive speaker (after the kids and everyone else gets tired of asking "Alexa" questions).<p>$89 is not in my compulsion buy price range. I may be in the minority on that though...
<i>Echo Dot ($89.99) is available exclusively for Prime Members through Alexa Voice Shopping. To order your Echo Dot, use your Echo or Fire TV and just ask: “Alexa, order Echo Dot.”</i>
Man... I had my audrey doing this in the '90s. I can't believe I missed the boat and somebody else is making a bajillion dollars. It's time to search through the archives of all the cool stuff we did 20 years ago and put it in a shiny new wrapper.
Hmm. The Dot might be a good addition, but it's too expensive. I want to put several mic & speaker combos around my house, but I don't want to pay $90 per room. Something in the $25-$40 range would do much better, even if it was a simple relay to the main Echo.
My FireTV is also upgraded to Alexa silently recently and it's fun to play with.<p>Is it possible for me to upload my own content, say an audio book, some music I own etc so I can use Alexa as a voice command to fetch my own data too? be it on the cloud or my local NAS/DLNA box.
My problem with Alexa is, I don't want a far field cloud based voice recognition device within my reach.<p>I'm fine with a device doing the voice recognition on premise/on device with the same functionality.
Classic hub/spoke model<p>Echo = hub, too expensive and large to buy 10 for every room in the house, used for receiving, processing, routing info from spokes and cloud<p>Echo dot = spoke, microphone and AI functionality at a lower price point, distributes connectivity network throughout the entire house so that you don't have to walk from your kitchen to your living room to order new paper towels from Amazon
What is the difference between Echo, Tap and Dot? It is confusing me a bit.<p>Dot: has no speakers? Requires bluetooth based pairing. Requires an Echo to work?<p>Tap: has wireless speakers with a built in battery. Also seems to have a Mic. Do I need an Echo to make this work? Can the tap work with the dot?
I don't own one of these devices, yet I'm curious, can you "modify the device's name"? I mean, what if someone in the household has the name Alexa. No, not you Alexa, the other Alexa. Alexa do your homework. Alexa take out the garbage.
when I saw Amazon 'Tap' I was hoping to see a star trek communicator[0]<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communicator_(Star_Trek)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communicator_(Star_Trek)</a>
Any reason why Echoes couldn't communicate with other Echoes? My friend and I own Echoes. I could say "Alexa, call Joe" Joe and I could talk to each other through the Echoes over the internet.
What's stopping people from accidentally ordering things with this thing? Could I go into somebody's house that has one of these devices setup and say "Alexa, order some breast clamps" ?
Any reason Echoes couldn't communicate with each other? I envision my friend and I own an Echo. I could say "Alexa, call Joe". We could talk to each other through the Echo over the internet.
This is a better product than the original. They added one of the most requested features (audio out) and didn't remove anything important (unless you don't have a better plug-in speaker system).<p>The biggest oversight is now the fact that it can't work together with an existing Echo: Amazon is making us order these _using_ an Echo... but the two devices don't communicate at all and require individual wake words. I wanted this as an added mic for my existing system, not as a new independent system.<p>Big step in the right direction though.
Can anyone else order this through their Fire TV? I'm just getting "Your search did not match anything in our catalog."<p>I could also be doing this wrong as I literally unboxed my fire tv just for this. I'm using the companion iOS app to access the microphone, but selected the phrase on the Fire TV.<p>The voice rec also sucked. I had to say the damn sentence like 9 times in an unnatural way. I hope that's not indicative of this experience I'm wanting to order...
> Echo Dot ($89.99) is available exclusively for Prime Members through Alexa Voice Shopping.<p>Huh? Why would they prevent <i>new customers</i> from ordering this?
As usual, all goodies are US only :(<p>I want Alexa for my home automation, and I don't mind speaking English to her. But tough luck in Switzerland.
In one example: "Alexa, adjust my home thermostat to 74 degrees"<p>It would kill some people if used here in Europe (because we would rather adjust our thermostats in radians).<p>More seriously, is there any protections against dangerous orders? (eg Your kid ordering 42 tons of sweets on Amazon)<p>"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that"
I would buy the Tap if it was always on listening while on the cradle but then push button while portable. Doesn't look like it works that way from the description. I get that it takes too much battery to have 7 always listening microphones on, but while on the cradle, this should be a non-issue.
"If you have more than one Echo or Echo Dot, you can set a different wake word for each—you can pick "Amazon", "Alexa" or "Echo" as the wake word."<p>So they haven't solved the I have multiple Echos in my house problem yet..
The dot sounds great but I cringed when I read about the tap. Its increasingly common for people to play cell phone audio in enclosed places without consideration of others. The tap seems to be designed to make it even easier to do so.
Note: this refers to the "Alexa" voice assistant, not Alexa the domain ranking company (also owned by amazon)<p><a href="http://i.imgur.com/B6dsMNm.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/B6dsMNm.png</a>
I absolutely adore my Echo. But I live in a small apartment, so I really don't see a need to buy a Dot as a second Echo device, even if the size and price make it a more attractive option than the original Echo.
Actually, I think this is very useful for two things:
- Set timer for cooking
- Listen music<p>I’m sceptical about getting other skills. "Alexa ask MyApp to do something”… it’s very long and annoying<p>But I strongly believe they will improve that.
I'll always be a bit bitter toward the Echo project. I had a really great manager transfer to that project when I worked at Amazon. It's part of the reason I left. Glad to see them do well though.
I'm wondering why it took the product being from Amazon for geeks to finally be ok with a device that silently listens to everything you say in your home and sends that data to Amazon's servers.
I think the number 1 use for voice control is the car. The current (Apple Car/Android Auto) are good but I would be interested in a better experience. Would like for Amazon Alexa to work in auto.
If Amazon gains by providing this service to prime members then why don't they have a voice control app for iOS/Android to connect with Alexa? (not just the setup Alexa app)
This solves a huge pain point I have with my Alexa. That being said, it will still understand any man's voice in my home better than my own. Decisions decisions.
This, a sort of "extender", is what I've been wishing for since the original Echo came out. Ordering tonight (since I can't do it from work).
Are there any open source projects trying to emulate the cloud-based voice recognition that Amazon/Google/etc are doing for Alexa/OK Google?