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My mum has one. When she was looking at them I said a lot of reviews mention the sound quality but she bought it anyway and it's brilliant. No problem with it at all. She pays £3,99 a month I think for Amazon Music which is excellent. Haven't tried ordering from Just Eat or any of the apps but purely for music it's excellent. With that said, I was bought one recently and took it back because I didn't think it was worth it for me personally but if you've looked into what they do and you want one I don't think you'll be disappointed, especially at £89.99 like the new ones are.
The paid upgrade for more music is well worth it. We're going to cancel Spotify, although you can also play Spotify through Echo.
Teenage son has an echo dot in his room.
They are great pieces of kit.
The sound quality on the big Echo is remarkable for the size. Fills a room, projects out in all directions, so is a different approach to Dolby 7.1 or whatever (or even stereo) but it's plenty good enough. Particularly good when cooking- you can set multiple timers hands free, music fades down during timers, then back up. I like cooking manically to Corduroy. It just works!
I’d hold on until the end of the month. There are new versions coming out which are cheaper and an upgrade in quality.
I’ve got the Echo Dot to control heating, lights etc and use it to control my Sonos which i use for music. Also useful to ask questions, get weather etc and tell if trains are on time
Nice little novelty item for the kitchen, to use for the radio, easily streaming music etc. The speaker is okay, but not brilliant.
Also, it's clearly flawed, early technology - it misunderstands me most of the time, can't deal with specific commands (it can generally understand, "play music by Prince", but not "play Sign O' The Times by Prince") and is pretty annoying standing in the kitchen, repeating the same commands to an inanimate object.
That said, if you understand these flaws, stick to a few basic uses (playing the radio, reading audiobooks etc) with the same standard commands, it's fine. And, at the moment, as it remains fairly unfamilar technology to most people, it's a fun party trick for the kids to play with their friends.
Personally, I think the precision of typing commands into an app beats speaking to something - so I can't imagine it taking over my life. It feels to me like a technology desperately in search of an application at the moment.
Nice little novelty item for the kitchen, to use for the radio, easily streaming music etc. The speaker is okay, but not brilliant.
Also, it's clearly flawed, early technology - it misunderstands me most of the time, can't deal with specific commands (it can generally understand, "play music by Prince", but not "play Sign O' The Times by Prince") and is pretty annoying standing in the kitchen, repeating the same commands to an inanimate object.
That said, if you understand these flaws, stick to a few basic uses (playing the radio, reading audiobooks etc) with the same standard commands, it's fine. And, at the moment, as it remains fairly unfamilar technology to most people, it's a fun party trick for the kids to play with their friends.
Personally, I think the precision of typing commands into an app beats speaking to something - so I can't imagine it taking over my life. It feels to me like a technology desperately in search of an application at the moment.
I’d hold on until the end of the month. There are new versions coming out which are cheaper and an upgrade in quality.
I’ve got the Echo Dot to control heating, lights etc and use it to control my Sonos which i use for music. Also useful to ask questions, get weather etc and tell if trains are on time
I use it with Hive for lighting and heating. I'm on the Sonos Beta programme which is testing alexa without the need for a jack and it looks like a long way off before it will be ready to roll out.
I use it with Hive for lighting and heating. I'm on the Sonos Beta programme which is testing alexa without the need for a jack and it looks like a long way off before it will be ready to roll out.
I got mine controlling similar, even got it to turn the kettle on which is quite fun.
I got mine controlling similar, even got it to turn the kettle on which is quite fun.
The Google Home is much better though.
I'm too committed to Sonos which is the reason I got a couple of echo dots.
That said I have ordered my daughters the new echo for Christmas because I am fed up with them playing music on sonos and selecting the wrong room so I get Shawn Mendes in my bedroom at 2am.
How did you get the kettle going, out of interest? That's the pinnacle of home automation right there.
We’ve got a wi-fi controlled Nespresso that you can control from an app and automatically programme to make the coffee at a certain time and reorder pods.
Haven’t figured out how to get it brought to me yet though....
I got mine controlling similar, even got it to turn the kettle on which is quite fun.
The Google Home is much better though.
I think I may just be stuck in my ways. Even turning the volume up/down, I find myself changing it by hand rather than by talking to the device.
I can see the fun novelty in telling the kettle to turn on - but you have to touch it to fill it, so why not press the button? Turning on the lights and the heating up is surely more responsive and accurate than talking to something...
I think I may just be stuck in my ways. Even turning the volume up/down, I find myself changing it by hand rather than by talking to the device.
I can see the fun novelty in telling the kettle to turn on - but you have to touch it to fill it, so why not press the button? Turning on the lights and the heating up is surely more responsive and accurate than talking to something...
I can imagine ditching it in a year or two.
Well personally for me they aren't my main "driver" in automation. For things like turning the kettle on, I just got use to filling it ready so if I was busy or watching something I could get it boiled and then it'll be ready when I want to use it.
For the heating, don't use it all that often but it's there if I need it. Lights are the same, but that's especially useful if I'm in bed for example and left the lights on downstairs.
However, I've got my own automation system that then hooks into and connects a bunch of stuff like Google Home or the kettle. So for example, without saying anything, I get the kettle boiled in the morning ready for when I go downstairs for a coffee. Also use it to slow fade up the lights in the morning in sync with my alarm so that I get a more natural wake up during winter.
Although this is pretty niche stuff that I know most people don't want, but I enjoy it.
How did you get the kettle going, out of interest? That's the pinnacle of home automation right there.
Fairly simple really, just got a wifi plug (TP-Link one), named it "Kettle" and then integrated it. So what will actually happen is it will turn on the plug as opposed to the kettle.
I also had it set so that the plug would turn itself off after 5 minutes using this: https://home-assistant.io/
We’ve got a wi-fi controlled Nespresso that you can control from an app and automatically programme to make the coffee at a certain time and reorder pods.
Haven’t figured out how to get it brought to me yet though....
Use a long lead on the Nespresso, and sit it on a Roomba.