Do I need an Alexa???

[BubblesBubblesBubbles]

Really struggling to find something my DH could buy me, I’m not worried about it arriving till after Christmas 🎄

Was sat on amazon and saw the Alexa was down to £54, which got me thinking, do I want/need one??

Are they any good?? Do you need to buy ‘extra’ things to go with it??

We have the full amazon music subscription service running alongside ours which makes it so much more useful. It's one of those things that you can live without - but I do find it handy - so much so that we've got smart lighting hooked up to it, and I use the routines function as a radio alarm clock rather than forgetting to set our clock radio on a morning, and shouting at it to set timers when cooking and the like I find very very handy.

The kids however just use it to play really shite music endlessly (knocked me the fuck out of Whamageddon fairly rapidly)

We love Alexa for simplifying the morning and bedtime routines, it's all hooked up to our heating and lightning and several of the plugs.

So, currently she will turn the heating on half hour before we get up (hot) and then when we wake up she turns it down to low, turns the lights on (dim and then bright) reads the news and then plays an hour of radio one, when that finishes we know we have 10 mins to be out the door. It's saved everyone arguing and stressing and struggling out of bed in the morning.

In the afternoon I tell her "screen time" and she sets a timer for 90 mins with a reminder 10 and then 5 mins before the end and then turns the PlayStation plugs off. Again this solves the "one more game" arguments and everyone is happy.

Bedtime for the little ones is the same, lights go off (getting dimmer and dimmer) after 45 mins and our dyspraxic son who needs music to sleep has his soothing music for that time.

It's really handy when shopping to shout. "Alexa, reorder my dishwasher tablets!"

We have 2 and I'm getting 2 more for Christmas (1 echo and 3 dots) . I have 1 in the bedroom and use it for alarm, radio and turning off bedroom lights.
The echo in the kitchen mainly for radio but also for calling upstairs so I don't have to shout and also for hiit workouts and recipes.
Can't wait for the 2 new ones!

You might enjoy having one but no, you most definitely do not need one.

I have my Echo in the living room and my Echo dot in the bedroom.

I love setting the alarms for cooking, and listening to soothing music to help me sleep, as for the Amazon music subscription, well, don’t get me started on that. I love it.
Oh, and setting the heating on a certain temperature.

So the answer is yes you do need one op.

You get 14 days free music from Amazon Unlimited from your purchase.
Things like the light switches and smart bulbs you pay extra for, plus any subscription to Amazon music unlimited after the trial period, but it’s worth it.

I also like the flash briefing on the dot in the bedroom while I'm getting dressed on a morning too.

For those people saying it's god for turning the heating on etc, surely that's what you do with the timer on your boiler isn't it? Why is an Alexa better for that?

I have a couple of friends with Alexa and am still to be convinced it's any better than using Google for questions/info and Spotify for music. Happy to be convinced otherwise.

I have seen it used by an older person with limited mobility and manual dexterity and it did come into its own then.

I've bought one for DH. DS (at uni) has one which he seems to use mainly for music. The thing I thought odd was that it has to be plugged in to work so is a bit of a faff to carry round.
Do you have to have radio / podcast / music apps on your phone to feed through to it or can it get them itself IYSWIM?
So those of you who have it turning on lights and heating do you live in very high tech spec houses? Mine just has, you know, switches

so is a bit of a faff to carry round

You don't carry them around! You can get an Alexa app for your phone which will do the same thing, but you generally need one in each room that you think you will need it.

Do you have to have radio / podcast / music apps on your phone

Not sure about podcasts but if you can just ask it toplay a particular radio station and if you have a music subscription to Amazon or Spotify then you can just tell it to play anything on there. And you can make your own playlists so no need to keep asking for individual tracks.

We don't have a high spec house, you just replace light switches with smart ones and plug other stuff into smart plugs. It's really easy and they work like normal switches anyway if Alexa breaks or you fall out with her.

surely that's what you do with the timer on your boiler isn't it?

Well yes. But with Alexa you can do stuff like get the heating to turn on when your phone gets a certain distance from your house. Or boost it without having to go upstairs. I do agree that for the money it's less worthwhile than for things like light switches and plugs.

Does it clean the grate and light the fire?

I love mine. We have a couple of Alexa plugs and bulbs which are so handy to control with her. If nothing else it makes an amazing speaker for music!

I’ve got my dh to order me one should be here tomorrow!

You don't carry them around! You can get an Alexa app for your phone which will do the same thing, but you generally need one in each room that you think you will need it.
So buying one isn't really enough? If you want it to wake you up it needs to be in the bedroom, if you want it to play the news while you eat breakfast you need to take it to the kitchen, if you want music in the shower.....

We got one last Christmas. It went back in its box 2 months later, we didn't like it, didn't really use it, it was a complete waste of money.

I bought one recently and my four year old had worked out how to make it meow like a cat and play "the gummy bear song"

It depends what you will use it for. I think generally people start off with one in the room they use most, see how much they use it and then buy more if they want to. So we bought one for the kitchen first and started using it for shopping lists, timers etc. We used it loads so bought one for the sitting room. Turned out we never used it in there so we moved it upstairs to our bedroom where it gets more use for some reason. Not much point having one in the bathroom as there are no plugs!

When I set reminders they automatically come through to my phone which I always have in my pocket, so two echos seems to work for us at the moment. If I get more plugs/switches I imagine I'll get more. The dots are frequently reduced to £20/25 so not a massive outlay.

No, you don't!

Hurrah! I was about to say 'I think you probably do OP!'

No 😥 I hate ours and all the ‘Alexa, lights on’ I was perfectly happy with just turning the bloody lights on and feel stupid saying it out loud.

I love the shopping list function and the timer
I listen to so much more music as it’s no buttons to press Like on a radio etc

We have 4 in our house. It controls the lights, the TV, the heating, the xmas tree. Plays stories to the kids at bedtime. Tells you the traffic, the news, plays music and answers general questions.
If Alexa crashes we are screwed!

if the Alexa us justvtirvpkauingvnusuc and bring an alarm it's very good.

if yiur going to do what I've done which is go full
smart home it's irritating

I have the dot show (I think?) and it’s a glorified radio alarm clock. I’d like another for my kitchen and living room to use as timers - but I use my phone just now so it’s not really a priority.