Echo
- Thread starter rwarshawski
- Start date
wkearney99
Senior Member
Got mine yesterday and just set it up. Seems to work pretty well. Even recognized my child's voice. Alexa correctly recognize and spelled when asked "How do you spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Heh, now get that tune outta yer head...
It also worked nicely to set an alarm to get out the door for the schoolbus!
As with most voice recog systems, it does depend on being asked in ways it expects. But it's pretty speedy at initial recognizing and handling interruptions. I don't have any automation gear it currently supports. They include a cheat-sheet with a number of interesting suggestions. Good for demos to friends, etc.
One nice feature is the ability to 'show this on my tablet' for certain results. It also supports sending to a Fire TV. The range of things that can be sent is somewhat limited, but the core functionality being present shows a lot of potential.
What I've long referred to as 'ambient computing' has tremendous potential. Now that there's a wealth of devices that can be interconnected it's likely a lot more stuff will become possible. One nice part is Amazon is supporting more than just their own range of hardware, rather then forcing use of their own proprietary solutions.
It also worked nicely to set an alarm to get out the door for the schoolbus!
As with most voice recog systems, it does depend on being asked in ways it expects. But it's pretty speedy at initial recognizing and handling interruptions. I don't have any automation gear it currently supports. They include a cheat-sheet with a number of interesting suggestions. Good for demos to friends, etc.
One nice feature is the ability to 'show this on my tablet' for certain results. It also supports sending to a Fire TV. The range of things that can be sent is somewhat limited, but the core functionality being present shows a lot of potential.
What I've long referred to as 'ambient computing' has tremendous potential. Now that there's a wealth of devices that can be interconnected it's likely a lot more stuff will become possible. One nice part is Amazon is supporting more than just their own range of hardware, rather then forcing use of their own proprietary solutions.
I think voice is a perfect HA interface. We use it for a shopping list and it works good. Imaging how it would work to control a home automation system isn't a long stretch. It very occasionally will misrecognize a word, but not often. Far distance voice recognition is quite good, and our house is all floors, which can cause problems with echos.
pete_c
Guru
Here I have self dinged (out of my control) my efforts to connect the Amazon Echo to the internet; so it remains in the box in my home office for the time being.
Intially just mesmerized by the Amazon Monolith looking box that the Amazon Echo was shipped in.
As of today and for a bit more the Amazon Echo will remain in the monolith box.
I have been testing some other automation do-whats with dedicated pipes in and out to the internet via PFSense and found that I had a bad multiple 4 port Intel NIC on my box.
I do not have a hot spare Intel 4 port NIC card; such that I have to wait now; well and maybe utilize 2-Day Amazon shipping. Heck; maybe I will just utilize a 2 port Intel NIC today. (hot spare).
Yesterday I was just going to unopen and put the Amazon Echo on my desk for the time being (not powering it up).
Intially just mesmerized by the Amazon Monolith looking box that the Amazon Echo was shipped in.
As of today and for a bit more the Amazon Echo will remain in the monolith box.
I have been testing some other automation do-whats with dedicated pipes in and out to the internet via PFSense and found that I had a bad multiple 4 port Intel NIC on my box.
I do not have a hot spare Intel 4 port NIC card; such that I have to wait now; well and maybe utilize 2-Day Amazon shipping. Heck; maybe I will just utilize a 2 port Intel NIC today. (hot spare).
Yesterday I was just going to unopen and put the Amazon Echo on my desk for the time being (not powering it up).
wkearney99
Senior Member
I think voice has it's place but I don't see it as the only viable means. There are plenty of times where I'd much rather use, say, cursor controls from a TV remote (through a TV interface) or a touchscreen. Late night being able to silently select stuff is much better than having to raise my voice and wake everyone. Or doing any kind of multi-selecting is better on a screen than negotiating back/forth via voice. There's little about automation, however, that I see needing to ever bother using a mouse when a touchscreen is integrated with a screen. But then I expect to be doing mouse-needing things on an automation interface.
Do not underestimate the annoyance factor of voice mis-recognization. I absolutely hate how my Xbox One mistakenly thinks I'm asking something of it. Enough that I disabled the functionality entirely on the one in the family room. The number of times I've had to shout "STOP LISTENING" after it misheard something that sounded like "Xbox".... ugh, if I had a nickel... The Echo uses "Alexa" as the trigger word (or "Alexo" as my child calls it). That use of three syllables seems a bit more useful than, say, two for "Xbox" or FIVE syllables for "OK, Google Now".
I bought it as a novelty and don't expect anything fantastic. But the initial impression has been good, thus far.
Do not underestimate the annoyance factor of voice mis-recognization. I absolutely hate how my Xbox One mistakenly thinks I'm asking something of it. Enough that I disabled the functionality entirely on the one in the family room. The number of times I've had to shout "STOP LISTENING" after it misheard something that sounded like "Xbox".... ugh, if I had a nickel... The Echo uses "Alexa" as the trigger word (or "Alexo" as my child calls it). That use of three syllables seems a bit more useful than, say, two for "Xbox" or FIVE syllables for "OK, Google Now".
I bought it as a novelty and don't expect anything fantastic. But the initial impression has been good, thus far.
wkearney99
Senior Member
Right now I have the Echo placed in about the middle of the 1st floor. It manages to be sensitive enough to be able to call to it from nearly the whole first floor. At about the same raised level I'd have to use to talk with a person equally distant. So from about 15' from the office or 25' from the breakfast table it still manages to hear what's asked of it.
It comes with an Amazon remote, the same as the one that works with the Fire TV. Which has a press-and-hold mic button. Trouble is it doesn't need the "Alexa" trigger word and using it with the remote seems to give it some grief. Kind of annoying to have to use it for the free-standing, but then remember to not use it (and hold) with the mic button. But that's small complaint.
What's a little annoying is the actual Fire TV itself doesn't seem to integrated with it, yet. I can say "Send this to my tablet" for some information and, supposedly can do the same with the Fire TV. But I've yet to find out how to get the Echo app loaded onto the Fire TV itself. I'm hoping that's just an early-implementation issue. I would VERY much like to be able to push results from Echo recognized commands over to the TV.
Right now the Echo specifically recognizes and tells you it does not handle recipes. As in, asking it for how to make an apple pie elicited that it doesn't have recipes. I could very much forsee using voice recog to do things like "Alexa, find me recipes for 'something'" and then push the resulting list to a screen or printer.
It comes with an Amazon remote, the same as the one that works with the Fire TV. Which has a press-and-hold mic button. Trouble is it doesn't need the "Alexa" trigger word and using it with the remote seems to give it some grief. Kind of annoying to have to use it for the free-standing, but then remember to not use it (and hold) with the mic button. But that's small complaint.
What's a little annoying is the actual Fire TV itself doesn't seem to integrated with it, yet. I can say "Send this to my tablet" for some information and, supposedly can do the same with the Fire TV. But I've yet to find out how to get the Echo app loaded onto the Fire TV itself. I'm hoping that's just an early-implementation issue. I would VERY much like to be able to push results from Echo recognized commands over to the TV.
Right now the Echo specifically recognizes and tells you it does not handle recipes. As in, asking it for how to make an apple pie elicited that it doesn't have recipes. I could very much forsee using voice recog to do things like "Alexa, find me recipes for 'something'" and then push the resulting list to a screen or printer.
Remember, the Echo is still in beta testing. Its only sold to Amazon Prime members at this point. It is a work-in-progress.
When talking about the Echo, never forget about privacy, as well. i believe the Echo "listens" for its name in hardware, then when it hears it, it sends the voice command and small bit before and after it to its service center for processing. i trust that Amazon is not going to do any evil with this information, but of course the Echo firmware can be remotely updated, so a hacker could conceivably change what the Echo does. Other products like the Wink and Start Things sends your command into "the cloud."
If you haven't seen it already, last weekend a movie called Citizen Four was released on DVD and Apple/Amazon/Google video, etc. Citizen Four was the codename that Edward Snowden first used when communicating with reporters. This movie won the Academy Award for best documentary this year in February.
The movie is chilling, and even if you think you know all the details of the story, I can tell you there were some facts released in this movie that have never been reported elsewhere. And I believe the story is still evolving.
When talking about the Echo, never forget about privacy, as well. i believe the Echo "listens" for its name in hardware, then when it hears it, it sends the voice command and small bit before and after it to its service center for processing. i trust that Amazon is not going to do any evil with this information, but of course the Echo firmware can be remotely updated, so a hacker could conceivably change what the Echo does. Other products like the Wink and Start Things sends your command into "the cloud."
If you haven't seen it already, last weekend a movie called Citizen Four was released on DVD and Apple/Amazon/Google video, etc. Citizen Four was the codename that Edward Snowden first used when communicating with reporters. This movie won the Academy Award for best documentary this year in February.
The movie is chilling, and even if you think you know all the details of the story, I can tell you there were some facts released in this movie that have never been reported elsewhere. And I believe the story is still evolving.
wkearney99
Senior Member
Um, considering what Amazon already knows about us, literally tens of thousands of dollars in purchases, the idea of trusting them is pretty well decided already. I've had enough excellent experiences with their support department (for purchases and cloud services) to likewise have faith in their intention of being forthright for the forseeable future. That and a good friend is largely in charge of their developer evangelism efforts. Whereas there's none of that good faith for google nor apple.
They do make it clear in their documentation that the device is capable of listening and sends data based on having heard the keyword. There's also a hardware mute button on the top. Yeah, there's certainly potential for abuse, but then it's just as easy to monitor a considerable number of other sources too.
As for movie Awards, they're not something that hold any respect from me. The whole Snowden thing is a mess, to be sure, but Hollywood and the wikileaks rapist are hardly sources I'd go to for accuracy.
They do make it clear in their documentation that the device is capable of listening and sends data based on having heard the keyword. There's also a hardware mute button on the top. Yeah, there's certainly potential for abuse, but then it's just as easy to monitor a considerable number of other sources too.
As for movie Awards, they're not something that hold any respect from me. The whole Snowden thing is a mess, to be sure, but Hollywood and the wikileaks rapist are hardly sources I'd go to for accuracy.
wkearney99
Senior Member
We've had great fun asking it for jokes. It even knew "why was six afraid of seven?"
