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Call Me Charlie posted:The sample thing is in there because it either has or will have the ability to buy music directly from the store. I'm not sure because I have no desire to test that out. Last thing I want is for it to spaz out and charge me for something I don't want. I haven't done it, but you can buy songs by saying "Alexa, buy this song" while it plays a sample. Then Alexa says, "This song is $1.29 from Amazon Music, would you like to proceed?". Then if you say "Yes" it buys the song. You can also set a confirmation code that you'll have to say after saying "Yes", or you can disable voice purchases entirely in the app.
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# ? Dec 31, 2014 17:28 |
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# ? May 23, 2024 15:49 |
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Just got my echo invite. Has anyone ebayed/craigslisted theirs successfully? Was it worth the trouble?
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# ? Jan 6, 2015 18:25 |
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I got an invite as well. Figured I'd toss my holiday gift cards at it and if I don't like it I'll go the ebay route for a small profit. Delivery isn't until Feb 18th though.
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# ? Jan 6, 2015 19:12 |
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Silly question: My name's Alex, any chance somebody saying my name could trigger "Alexa"? I'd assume not, but it's close enough that it would be a problem if it did.
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# ? Jan 7, 2015 05:48 |
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zandert33 posted:Silly question: Mine picked up a newscaster on TV saying Alex. But if there's no command following, it'll just ignore it. So far it has only happened twice in the 10 days or so that I've had it.
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# ? Jan 7, 2015 07:13 |
If it's anything like Siri, it will constantly pick up things that don't even sound remotely similar to "Alexa" as you saying "Alexa."
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# ? Jan 7, 2015 08:12 |
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TheJoker138 posted:If it's anything like Siri, it will constantly pick up things that don't even sound remotely similar to "Alexa" as you saying "Alexa." Siri is really, really bad at almost everything it does.
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# ? Jan 7, 2015 19:23 |
Super Dude posted:Siri is really, really bad at almost everything it does. My favorite thing is when it will recognize what I said exactly, as in telling it to play a certain song, as shown via the text it displays, and then play a different song anyway.
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# ? Jan 7, 2015 20:08 |
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Literally minutes after I set up some new bluetooth speakers, I get my invite for Echo. I'm debating whether to return the speakers and get the Echo for 2x the price. Just a heads up to everyone, the invitation email says "Due to strong customer response, new orders may take several months to ship."
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# ? Jan 9, 2015 23:27 |
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Super Dude posted:Literally minutes after I set up some new bluetooth speakers, I get my invite for Echo. I'm debating whether to return the speakers and get the Echo for 2x the price. Just a heads up to everyone, the invitation email says "Due to strong customer response, new orders may take several months to ship." Yeah, when I added to my cart a few hours ago, the ship date was "March 2015." Reading this thread, I don't even know if I'll order one; I'm not sure I'd get a lot of use out of it.
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# ? Jan 9, 2015 23:38 |
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Thanatosian posted:Yeah, when I added to my cart a few hours ago, the ship date was "March 2015." Yeah, they must be selling like crazy. I just got my invite a few minutes ago and when I placed the order, it gave me a ship date in late April.
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# ? Jan 9, 2015 23:47 |
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Kreeblah posted:Yeah, they must be selling like crazy. I just got my invite a few minutes ago and when I placed the order, it gave me a ship date in late April. I also got my invite and was going to pick one up for profit on eBay but who knows what the market will be like in April. I'll take a strong look at Echo v2.
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# ? Jan 10, 2015 00:17 |
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Finally got an invite. Late Feb ship estimate. I had some sort of zombie credit so it ended up costing $66 shipped. Nice.
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# ? Jan 10, 2015 01:18 |
I ordered one, April delivery estimate. I'm in no rush to get it, so whatever.
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# ? Jan 10, 2015 05:38 |
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Woo I finally got an invite! My ship date is in May though. #shipdatechat No idea what I am gonna use this thing for but it seems cool. Anybody done anything with some of the home automation hacks for it that are out there?
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# ? Jan 10, 2015 13:31 |
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We had a play date for my four year old and a couple of his friends. One is named, I poo poo you not, Alexa. A lot of the time we call her Lexi, but her name was said a few times and the Echo was obviously perplexed by whatever came after her name. For $100, we are enjoying it. The voice recognition is getting better and better. I'm very impressed with its ability to pick up commands over a loud TV and at significant distance. Our bedroom is on the second floor with our door facing out to a little balcony over the family room/kitchen where the Echo is located. Without getting out of bed, we can ask for the weather or a BBC news summary. I also like the shopping list feature. Is it necessary? No, but it's fun. I'm hoping that its popularity will drive Amazon to keep adding functionality. It would be great if they could integrate it with smart home products. They've got to improve the basic information gathering on it. It seems odd to me that you can ask questions that it should know and it has no idea how to get the answer. Hell, just default to Wikipedia and read that to me. Edit: Just saw this: Rubiks Pubes posted:Anybody done anything with some of the home automation hacks for it that are out there? Looks like I'll be doing some research over the weekend.
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# ? Jan 10, 2015 19:36 |
Hey do you have to use Amazon music to get it to play at all, or only for the voice control stuff? Like if it's paired to my phone can I do like a normal bluetooth speaker and play from my device to it?
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# ? Jan 11, 2015 06:00 |
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TheJoker138 posted:Like if it's paired to my phone can I do like a normal bluetooth speaker and play from my device to it? Yup.
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# ? Jan 11, 2015 06:07 |
Fantastic, no spending an extra $25 for Amazon Music on top of the $25 I already pay for iTunes match.
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# ? Jan 11, 2015 07:02 |
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TheJoker138 posted:Fantastic, no spending an extra $25 for Amazon Music on top of the $25 I already pay for iTunes match.
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# ? Jan 11, 2015 23:29 |
Arsenic Lupin posted:I tested it out with Pandora. I'm going to assume the voice stuff doesn't work with non-amazon music though, right?
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# ? Jan 12, 2015 04:06 |
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TheJoker138 posted:I'm going to assume the voice stuff doesn't work with non-amazon music though, right? Yeah. Voice commands only works for services natively supported by the Echo (Amazon Music, iheartradio, TuneIn Radio)
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# ? Jan 12, 2015 04:09 |
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Call Me Charlie posted:Yeah. Yeah, but you don't have to have prime music, you can manage your amazon music by voice without prime music.
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# ? Jan 12, 2015 04:20 |
Call Me Charlie posted:Yeah. Figured. Not a dealbreaker, but would have been cool. But seeing as I'll just be playing off an iPhone I can probably coerce Siri into actually playing what I'm saying at least half of the time, so not a huge problem. torgeaux posted:Yeah, but you don't have to have prime music, you can manage your amazon music by voice without prime music. I have way over the 250 song limit you can have uploaded to Amazon without paying for Prime Music.
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# ? Jan 12, 2015 04:20 |
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TheJoker138 posted:Figured. Not a dealbreaker, but would have been cool. But seeing as I'll just be playing off an iPhone I can probably coerce Siri into actually playing what I'm saying at least half of the time, so not a huge problem. You can get prime for cheap ($15 I think?) if you split it with people.
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# ? Jan 12, 2015 04:23 |
Super Dude posted:You can get prime for cheap ($15 I think?) if you split it with people. I could afford the $25 even doing it alone, but would rather not pay for 2 services that do the same thing, especially with how ingrained into itunes match I already am.
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# ? Jan 12, 2015 04:24 |
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TheJoker138 posted:Figured. Not a dealbreaker, but would have been cool. But seeing as I'll just be playing off an iPhone I can probably coerce Siri into actually playing what I'm saying at least half of the time, so not a huge problem. Ah. Most of my music was purchased thru amazon, so no worries about that limit.
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# ? Jan 12, 2015 04:32 |
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It's probably worth clarifying. Prime Music = free music service tied to Amazon Prime. big draw (besides the free music) is the curated playlists. Amazon Music = not only their MP3 store and purchases from there/autorip but also a $25 a year service where you can upload your own music into the cloud Saying any song, album, artist or genre and having it play is the coolest feature of the Echo IMO. It also helps when you have it on random because you can ask Alexia what's playing and she's ramble off the artist, track name and album.
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# ? Jan 12, 2015 04:40 |
Yeah, I get Prime Music already with my subscription, but I have a ton of poo poo they don't have. I'm sure I'll still use it for stuff I know they do have, but I'm not going to pay the extra $25 to get my poo poo in there too. In retrospect I kind of wish I would have bought my stuff from Amazon, but the vast, vast majority of it is either iTunes or old CD rips.
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# ? Jan 12, 2015 04:44 |
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Call Me Charlie posted:It's probably worth clarifying. Why would someone pay $25 for the Amazon Music service instead of $15 for Prime (which includes Music, Instant Video, Kindle Library, and shipping)?
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# ? Jan 12, 2015 05:19 |
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Super Dude posted:Why would someone pay $25 for the Amazon Music service instead of $15 for Prime (which includes Music, Instant Video, Kindle Library, and shipping)? ? Prime doesn't include the $25 a year subscription to upload your own music into the cloud.
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# ? Jan 12, 2015 05:24 |
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Call Me Charlie posted:? Oops, I thought the limit restriction was lifted with Prime as well. Doesn't really matter since I use Google Play Music.
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# ? Jan 12, 2015 05:32 |
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Also, unless they've changed it in the last year, the "sharees" of Prime only get the benefit of Prime Shipping. Only the person paying Amazon for it gets the video, kindle stuff, etc.
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# ? Jan 12, 2015 17:53 |
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WithoutTheFezOn posted:Also, unless they've changed it in the last year, the "sharees" of Prime only get the benefit of Prime Shipping. Only the person paying Amazon for it gets the video, kindle stuff, etc. This is correct. Only the email that is the main account get all the goodies. Just got my email. Delivery is now up to late May to early July.
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# ? Jan 13, 2015 17:11 |
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The good thing is that I have at least 4 months to figure out what to do with the Echo I ordered. If support for Google Play Music is added by then, I'll be pretty happy.
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# ? Jan 13, 2015 18:21 |
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It's not worth $100, but asking Alexa to open the pod bay doors makes me laugh.
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# ? Jan 25, 2015 22:58 |
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The hilarious thing is talking about Alexa in the room with her. Me to daughter: "Alexa is really stupid about playlists." Alexa: blinks and points an arrow toward me. Daughter: "Sorry, Alexa" Alexa: blinks and points an arrow toward my daughter. I mean, we both feel guilty about being rude to a crudely-implemented imaginary personification of speech recognition.
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# ? Jan 26, 2015 00:21 |
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My husband and I got ours in today. We're loving it so far. She does answer, "What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow" with "What do you mean, African or European?" AND You ask Alexa her favorite colors and she states "Blue....I mean yellow." I mean, those two questions are essential, right?
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# ? Jan 27, 2015 10:22 |
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zandert33 posted:Silly question: Even if it is a problem you can always change the trigger name to Amazon.
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# ? Jan 27, 2015 20:53 |
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# ? May 23, 2024 15:49 |
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Well, it looks like the echo is doing well enough to warrant a couple of updates. Echo can control bluetooth devices using voice control now, which was my biggest beef with the device. Also they improved the voice recognition too so it may recognize things that it didn't before.
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# ? Jan 31, 2015 02:03 |