ALEXA - do I want one ??

RumRat

Gillor wrote: »

“Ok Alexa,, tell me a joke”

Alexa: “Your privacy”

Mmmmm Hilarious.......If you drive a car, or own a phone, you are already screwed.........;)

dipsomaniac

justaquestion wrote: »

As Alexa is hands free on the fire tablet, I feel I am getting it for nothing, no need to waste any more money.

Agree unless you are going to be using the speaker for music I can't see the point as your phone has all the other functionality

esuhl

Some friends have a few "Alexas". One is plugged into a big hi-fi system, and it sounds pretty close to CD quality. They already had Amazon Prime, which comes with access to Amazon's music catalogue.

Alexa is particularly good at finding suitable playlists if you ask it to "play some roots reggae" or "play 1990s pop music"... or more vague requests like "play some barbecue music".

And it's great for social gatherings -- adjusting the music doesn't take you away from the conversation.

Annoyingly, Alexa doesn't seem able to play albums. You can ask for a particular track, a particular artist, or a vague genre... but not to listen to an album of tracks played in order.

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My sister received one as a gift. She doesn't have Amazon Prime and didn't really want to pay for access to the music. So it just gets used to listen to Radio 4.

Norman_Castle

Can you listen to programmes like these https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0009r1z on them?
There are good programmes on but often at the wrong times for me.

GlasweJen

We have multiple echo dots in the house, things it does are:

Turns on and off lights and a few things we've got on smart plugs (from Ikea so not £18 per bulb)
Plays the radio/Spotify/amazon music - the thing that annoys me is she defaults to amazon music and that sometimes means she plays covers rather than the version of the song I want unless I remember to specify "on Spotify"
A few custom functions related to wi-fi devices for the marine fish tank
Interacts with the ring doorbell and instructs on where parcels should go

I think it's worth having, as a disabled person buying the "disabled" gadget for some of the things I get Alexa to do would cost a lot more than buying the dots (I got all ours in sales).

GlasweJen

Norman_Castle wrote: »

Can you listen to programmes like these https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0009r1z on them?
There are good programmes on but often at the wrong times for me.

Yes, you'd ask her to open the BBC app and then the name of the programme you like. I enjoy Elaine Paiges radio 2 show but I never listen to it on a Sunday

castle96

https://www.argos.co.uk/search/alexa/?clickOrigin=searchbar:home:term:alexa

further confusion!
1. Echo show £80 (got a screen)
2. " 3rd generation £90
3. " Plus £140
4. " show £220 (got a screen)

Cant see any difference in functions between 2 and 3 !?

Money not criteria, just want to get the best/most useful. Will not be connecting an other things, eg lights etc.
Advice please before I buy

surely having a screen is better than no screen ?
assume that they all have the same functions ? (so why are some more expensive ?

onomatopoeia99

dipsomaniac wrote: »

Where do you live - Beirut? The last power cut we had was 2007

I live in south Gloucestershire and since 4th July I have had six power cuts. Two of 10 minutes and four momentary - enough that the UPS on the server detects it and beeps at me, and the monitors go off, but not more than a second or two.

It's annoying, which is why I now have a Tesla powerwall for the whole house in addition to the dedicated UPS for the server. The Tesla app records all the outages so I have a permanent record.

rdr

Phone calls seem quite important to me, both the devices will make calls to both land lines and mobiles in UK and North America, Alexa also does Alexa to Alexa calls. All at no extra cost.

Morbier

G_M wrote: »

And yes, I've taped over the camera on my laptop.What's good enough for Mark Zuckerberg is good enough for me!

Me too! And over the camera on my iPad.

Trust no-one.