Dd wants Alexa in bedroom

[gerbo]

Does anyone have experience of this? My daughter, 11, has asked for an amazon Echo Dot in her room for her 12th birthday.

We don't have one in the house, but we do have amazon music (on my phone) so I suppose she could access that on her Dot? She would like it for music mainly, I think.

Are there any safety issues to be aware of?

Any advice gratefully received.

Both my younger DDs have the bigger Echo speakers. They mainly use them for alarms, music and checking the weather. They love them.

Both mine have the echo dot. They listen to it going to sleep.

Ignorant question, but is it quite easy to set them up with Amazon Music?

DD11 got the Echo for her birthday last year. She listens to music on it, it's linked to my spotify so i can see what she's listened too (messes up my recommendations though!).

My DD loves hers. She uses it for music, reminders of what to take to school and she also persuaded me to get Audible recently and now listens to stories while she falls asleep .

DD1, 19, has an Alexa in her bedroom. I think it is an Echo Dot, it has no screen.
She has informed us that she can see a log of all interactions with it, so if we or her sister use it she can see what we asked.
I would not let a child have similar device with a screen in their bedroom.

Thanks everyone. We would choose the 'speaker' type.

Surely with a on music on my phone it should connect up?

Yes, Amazon music will work with it... you’ll set up the Alexa with your amazon account and it will be automatic.

Alexas are handy for alarms, music, reminders, information, all sorts... can’t think of any safety issues.

And as a PP said, you’ll be able to see a log of all activity with an app on your phone.

My 5 year old DS has an echo dot in his room. He likes asking her to play Greatest Showman and baby shark but also likes asking it what the time is or what the weather is going to be.

I have an echo in my room to, so I use mine to drop in to his to save him shouting up and down the stairs and waking the neighbours up!

He also has a smart plug in his room which his lava lamp on his desk is plugged into. It's an easy way to indicate bedtime (when the light comes on automatically at 7.15 or whenever I've moved it to if I want an early night and off in the morning. He used to forget to turn it off and I'd be worried it would overheat.

He also likes listening to the radio in the morning so will ask it to play the local radio station.

Brilliant things!!

My Ds 11 had one for Christmas we play amazon music through it

We do various things he livesit

We have the echo in our living room and dots in the kitchen, and bedrooms. My 4 year old loves it for music they are great and automatically connect to Amazon music if you already have it

My dd has a google mini in her room, she loves it!
Mainly listens to music on it, but loves to ask questions too.
She has a smart globe in her ceiling light which has been brilliant for her anxiety at night, she just asks google to turn it on or off, set it to 20% brightness etc.

Thanks all- so helpful. We're going to go for it!

If she just wants it for music, get a Sonos Play 1. The sound quality is so so much better. Amazon music links to it and you also have the alarms etc.

You don't have Alexa (which in my opinion is a good thing), but I believe you can buy a dot for the voice recognition to add in at a later date if you like

Both my DC have google home minis in their bedrooms. It's great for calling them down for dinner and getting DS2 out of bed (they're teens so often in their rooms)

My kids are younger but I don't intend to ever have such a device in the house never mind in the kids room.
Alarm clock & radio can do the trick right?
I don't like the ease, constant monitoring of the system etc. Bedroom should be where you chill & sleep

The problem qith a radio is you don't know what's on it. My dc used to listen to the radio in bed but sometimes the news would come on and be quite disturbing. We now all have Google home minis and they're great for playing a nice bespoke play list on Spotify. Also good for messaging between us all.

Of course you can just have an alarm clock and radio but I would sooner have one device that does much more.

One positive thing I will say is my Ds asks Alexa the meaning of words when reading . I assume he skipped them previously

DD age 9 has a dot in her room and loves it, it’s linked to my amazon and Spotify account so she can play music and ask questions, set timers etc... the skills are great and Alexa has become a new friend! you can also drop in/call from other rooms... I have a dot in my room and a full size echo downstairs. Much better than shouting......

Bedroom should be where you chill & sleep

Why do you think you can't do this with one of these things in the room?

You can set the Dot up so that explicit songs can’t be played, and you can also disable buying off amazon by voice (so that you don’t get nice surprise packages arriving which you didn’t order ;) )
You can set the Dot up with Kids Skills, too. This doesn’t restrict it in the same way that you can in the USA (the USA has a special kids dot, which comes preprogrammed with parental controls, I think), but it enables games and radio stations which are kid friendly.

The Sonos 1 comes with Alexa now. I have both that and the Echo speaker (the one that’s generally about £70) and I can’t tell the difference. The kids also use it to control their bedtime lights. I got them when they started being interested in music and we didn’t want to keep buying CDs. They both have an account on our Family Spotify where explicit content is blocked. I can’t see the harm.