Amazon Echo is here.

[wheels]

It really has the potential to be a personal assistant.

Imagine your late for work, you jump out of the shower and want to know the time without having to walk over by the clock. Ask Alexa. Since your running late, you don't have time to read the news report on your tablet. Ask Alexa for a news and weather report and listen while your getting ready.

Imagine your cooking and have several dishes going and want to set a timer for one of the dishes while draining a boiling pot of pasta. Just tell Alexa to set the timer. While your at it, tell Alexa to skip to the next song in your playlist. Oh and you just ran out of pasta sauce so tell Alexa to put that on your grocery list. Plus, your recipe is made for 5 people and your cooking for two and you want to reduce how much salt you put it. Just ask Alexa to convert for you.

It's use is limited in its beta phase. However the few things it does, it does well. Just adding a few more thing will make it a homerun.

Got the invite today, estimated ship date was March 30 - I'll update if that changes.

[gogohopper]

I WANT

[Meety Peety]

But where is the fleshlite attachment

[joefrank64k]

What the heck? I got my invite today, I've got a few hundred $$ in Amazon GC's after the holidays, so I'll give it a whirl.

They estimate April 16th delivery.

[DavidR310]

But where is the fleshlite attachment

Once the questions get too personal, she says "I'd rather not answer that" or "Let's talk about something else" and if you continue she ignores you lol.

[bongfoo]

i got the invite, kinda sketchy about ordering it though. could end up being a nice data mining item. so in essence, i'm paying someone to mine my personal habits and other things.

[sd_shooter]

Is it a subwoofer?

[DavidR310]

There is a small sub that gives it some bass when playing music. The speaker is good, however, my sister's Bose soundlink mini sounds better.

[wheels]

So my Echo showed up around April 1, I figured a month with it was probably a good time to review what I have seen so far.

The echo seems to do a good job of interpreting my voice commands. Others (kids, non tech folks) who don't understand that they are talking to a machine that is attempting to understand their speech patterns are less impressed.

A couple weeks back Amazon notified me that the Echo will communicate with WeMo products and I think Phillips was the other manufacturer. Interesting to me that Echo could provide an audio link to home automation systems.

Also Echo can now access playlists from Pandora as well as Amazon Prime music - this probably the most common use I have until I start adding a home automation system.

A couple of things that were not of utility to me were using echo as a todo list and shopping list - I use other dedicated apps for that at this time. Echo is integrating ifttt as a channel which will integrate with my current todo manager Todoist.

Anyone else finding Echo of value?

[DavidR310]

One thing it does not do is give you the score to specific games. It just gives news highlights. The weather function is great though.

She now gives games scores.

[Mute]

So my Echo showed up around April 1, I figured a month with it was probably a good time to review what I have seen so far.

The echo seems to do a good job of interpreting my voice commands. Others (kids, non tech folks) who don't understand that they are talking to a machine that is attempting to understand their speech patterns are less impressed.

A couple weeks back Amazon notified me that the Echo will communicate with WeMo products and I think Phillips was the other manufacturer. Interesting to me that Echo could provide an audio link to home automation systems.

Also Echo can now access playlists from Pandora as well as Amazon Prime music - this probably the most common use I have until I start adding a home automation system.

A couple of things that were not of utility to me were using echo as a todo list and shopping list - I use other dedicated apps for that at this time. Echo is integrating ifttt as a channel which will integrate with my current todo manager Todoist.

Anyone else finding Echo of value?

I've had mine since about April and find it fairly handy. The kids love it when doing homework and need a quick answer without having to fire up the laptop or a tablet to do an internet search or even a quick basic math calculation.

I think this thing has a great deal of potential. I hope they continue to improve and add features to it that don't compromise its functionality.

[wheels]

Yeah - I broke down and bought a WeMo switch - Alexa can now turn on & off my desk lights (the switch is behind the desk and about 12 steps from the door) so it was worth evaluating the WeMo integration. Works like a charm.

Getting weather forecasts, setting a quick voice timer/reminder and the grand-daughter likes to play a couple songs before bed. It's a winner, got to admit I'd probably pick up another - going to put one in my cart and see if it fluctuates in price - it's now $200 vice the Prime intro at $99.

[cbsdd00]

Wait till it becomes self aware.

[SkyHawk]

Ours finally came a few days ago - kid's have been loving it. For $99 I have no regrets. Can't wait to see how far they take it...

[Marauder2003]

Tin foil hat on mode.

Remember, it is listening to and digitizing everything it hears waiting for the word Alexa.

Now, Amazon probably says it does not collect anything but how do you know? This is Internet connected. It can be hacked. Hacked WiFi baby monitors are not fiction.