To ask you to help me persuade dh we need an Amazon echo?

[AnnMeredithPerkins]

So the echo is on sale today for £100 - so do I need one

Can't have a hive as our wiring is all wrong...(We can't have a smart meter...)

My ds bought me one for Christmas last year and we told him to send it back and save his money . Not very grateful of me , but frankly if I want to know something it takes me 30 secs max to look it up on the iPad and I hate 'clever' tech that thinks it can run my house for me . In the same way I always have very basic cars that let me decide if I want lights and wipers on , and I'm more than capable of parking without assistance.

With the dot play audible books?

It's worth buying one just to ask "what is the longest placename in the world". Yes I am childish

My coffee maker switches on when the motion detector senses that I'm out of bed, for example.

This blew my tiny mind.

I got one last week for DH's Christmas present via QVC. He loved shiny shite.

Loves*

Get a Google Home.
Amazon are a bunch of utter cunts. Google might not be angels but they aren't Amazon.

Alexa has a function where you can say 'tell me a joke'. It only has around 100 jokes stored. Then they repeat.

Fucking hate Alexa. It's been a long summer holiday.

The echo is a waste of money. Don't be an early adopter for the sake of it - wait until it actually does something useful

The Dot speakers are really good there’s no need to go for the Echo so you’ve saved money there for a start.
Since I bought mine and took out the 3 months free trial of Amazon unlimited music the house is filled with my favourite music all day long.
I’m even thinking of getting rid of the TV except I just got Amazon Fire

I go to sleep with the sound of thunderstorms/rainforest gently filling the bedroom.
And Alexa on the Dot downstairs to put on my playlist music when I wake up in the morning. I wouldn’t be without it now.

We've got one, DH loves tech and persuaded me to agree to it. I was surprised to admit I love it! DH's argument was We don't have enough music in our lives. We use it a lot, it lives in the kitchen and we have music on while we're cooking and eating now. Unfortunately DD (4) has learned how to use it so I am subjected to 'play kids music' and 'tell me a joke' an awful lot!

For fun tech, have you tried playing with NFC tags? A friend has a pack and they're great!

Not directly related, but I thought you might like them.

I'm testing a few things at work at the moment in the 'Smart' space and DH is a total g33k. Our house is totally wired for automation which I was unsure about to start with. Now, I think it's the best thing ever. Dot + Tile + Nest + telematics device + our Control 4 system - its nirvana to me. My life has got easier, I'm massively forgetful and don't lose things, don't have to think ahead about mundane crap, I get on the driveway and the house lights up and warmed itself. It wakes my son up when he ignores 97 normal alarms, I can switch the whole house off at a word, and we haven't even got to really pushing the programming. I don't worry about the listening stuff, Yes there's a risk but if BB wants to hear us chat about whether to have brown or white bread for lunch or our opinion on what to watch on tv, I'm kinda ok with it.

How do you use Alexa for shopping lists? Do you need a printer or does it send the list to your phone?

Phone

If they are on offer everywhere I guarantee there is an upgraded model about to be released.

I have the Echo and a Dot and the Echo is far superior in terms of sound quality. The Dot sounds like it's playing music through some tin cans. I'm annoyed I wasted my money on that.

Boris the list can be edited on your phone, on the Alexa app.

I didn't know the dot was a standalone gadget. I thought it was supplementary to Alexa... Ah

So from this thread I've learnt Google Home is better than Alexa.

However, as I already have a smartphone, and both these devices appear to just be computers that take voice input and have sound output, why is any hardware needed at all? Why isn't there an app that does what they do?

If I was going to listen to music I would want to do so through the much better sound systems already in the house, that already have computers attached to them that another computer could talk to. So having a better speaker than a phone isn't much of a reason. And of course, as someone said, you could just have a bluetooth speaker for your phone.

Another vote for 'Dot'. I have three: one in the kitchen, one in my study and one in my bedroom.

• Timer and alarm (but they only work on the one you set it at).
• Shopping list - invaluable. Finish something? "Alexa, add ... to my shopping list." Appears on my To Do list on my phone.
• To Do list: very useful when it understands what I say. To the extent that I wish I had one in the car.
• Simple calculations.
• Controlling lights and heating. When properly set up it's great. But you need a load of relatively expensive kit that usually requires electrical installation, and it can be a pain to set up properly.

Echo if you want good loud sound, dot for practical stuff and low level music.

We've got 5 in our house, one echo in the sound and dots around the house. The only activate with the wake word so aren't listening in, and frankly if this is a worry then you wouldn't have up to date mobiles, laptops with webcams etc.

She controls our lights, heating, sockets (alexa put the kettle on), plays all my spotify music, adds to my shopping list and is generally useful. I feel weird walking into a room and physically having to turn on a light switch these days