AIBU to be super excited about my new Alexa Dot? And to ask what you use yours for?

[toastyarmadillo]

I finally treated myself to one after coveting them since their release! Does anyone else have one? What do you use it for?
I would love to be able to use it as a tv speaker, so it plays the audio from the tv while I'm in a different room cooking or cleaning! Not a clue how to achieve this though!

DD is poor at spelling and am looking at fun ways of improving it, that isn't as dull as looking in a dictionary. So if she asked Alexa "how do you spell dinosaur?" would she spell it out?

Heating (hive) and lights predominantly with some music in the mix (Spotify). Best £50 I spent (but I am a bit of a tech geek!)

I want one of these! Can you link it to a screen? I have visions of being able to have Alexa search for recipes and me look at them on screen whilst I'm washing up or feeding toddler etc.

Does anyone know how you can get the dot to connect to the TV, am thinking tv on in one room but audio via dot where ever you might be. I listen to most tv programmes rather than actively watch them, that way I can get other stuff done as well.

Also do they do a specific battery so it doesn't need constant mains plug in?

Bonfire, she does spell words for you there's also a 'skill' where you can get her to put a specific word in a sentence we found use full for children's spelling homework.

What's the difference between the echo and the dot apart from size? I thought you had to have an echo first and then you could use dots in other rooms but from reading this thread I can see that must be wrong.

How do you add stuff to your shopping? Do you just say "Alexa, add milk to Tesco list for Friday"?

How easy is it for kids to missuse? If my son shouts, "Alexa, Postman Pat", would it do anything?

Using Bing sounds annoying but I suppose Google is more of a rival to Amazon than Microsoft is.

Sorry for all the questions.

Watching with interest - I want one!

What's the difference between the echo and the dot apart from size?

None. The Echo has the much better speaker, the dot has a small inbuilt speaker which is Ok for listening to speech and low volume music, but won't rock the house. That said, you can still plug an external speaker into dot.

How do you add stuff to your shopping? Do you just say "Alexa, add milk to Tesco list for Friday"?

Kind of. 'Alexa, add milk to my shopping list'. If you then go into the lists section of the alexa app on your phone it's there, or you can say 'Alexa, whats on my shopping list' and she'll recite it. I found this very useful indeed. In a house with 4 adults (2 grown up kids) people rarely tell me when they need things, now they just add it to the list and when I sit down to do the online shop on a wednesday night I can see what everyone needs. (this includes idiot grown DS's who add 12" dildo's to the list for a laugh)

How easy is it for kids to missuse? If my son shouts, "Alexa, Postman Pat", would it do anything?

I've just tried that and simply, nothing happened. She just closed down. You need to make sure you have the automatic ordering turned off so they can't say 'Alexa, chocolate!' and order box loads directly from Amazon, but other than that she's quite safe.

We did try and get her to swear, she bleeps herself out 😂

Thanks Sisters, I've tempted by them. I think I'd need the automatic ordering turned off to stop myself ordering chocolate

What is it??

I used IFTTT to make the lights go blue when it rains.

Jengnr, how does IFTTT work??

You can pair bluetooth speakers in another room with the Alexa dot. I've taken out the music unlimited subscription for the dot which is £3.99 rather than the £7.99 for everything and play music from it all over the house. You can use the app to request the music.

It stands for If This Then That and it works with loads of apps.

So if the weather app says it's raining at my house then hue makes the lights go blue.

Or if I tell Alexa to 'trigger start the party' then hue will go onto a colour loop.

I'm sure it does lots more sensible things too

She's great at jokes too, just ask her to tell you a joke.

Also try Echo (or Alexa,) open the magic door. You will be given a list of choices to start a story journey, it's pretty fun

This might be worth reading, just to allow you to gen up a little on 'digital personal assistants':

nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2017/01/27/data-privacy-day-know-the-risks-of-amazon-alexa-and-google-home/

Just think the ins and outs are worth knowing about.

Not a lot I find she ignores me most of the time when I ask her something. Then she play random music or try's to add things to the to do list she has for me.

last night I sent my younger 2 children to bed and she told me she didn't agree.

I'm waiting til it works properly with Sonos (apparently it is under development) then I might take the plunge. DSis and DB have got them everywhere.

Can I ask a question about the shopping list function? Is this actually useful if you aren't able to use Amazon Fresh? I mean, say I do my online shopping with Ocado. If I run out of something I currently add it into the Ocado app as I go along. If I ask Alexa to add it it goes into some separate list, right, which I then have to transfer to Ocado?

So she emails you the shopping list. I like to add things to it while dp is out then ask her to send me the list. He gets an updated list while out like diamond rings

Does anyone know how the household profile works with the echo?