To ask if you use an Amazon Alexa or similar home assistance devices...

[EMacCoffee]

What do you find to be its most useful feature? What do you use it for the most?

I'm just curious really, I use mine a lot for setting timers in the kitchen and for alarms. And I also use them as a radio for music around the house as well.

I use mine for working out my takeaway price when I can't be bothered to do it myself.
Playing music.
Reminding us when DS needs to take his tablets.
Cooking timers boiled eggs

Lots of the above and Audible. I like being read to.

Thanks all, she has her favourites and knows them well so I'm trying to find away to keep them and be able to choose her favourite herself.
I'll just get a bluetooth speaker for now. As not everyone can "read books etc" it's nice to find a way to keep her stories that she loves.

Communicating within the house. I can announce dinner without bellowing through the house. Dd can contact me when I’m in my home office working.

I used mine for music. My friend caught her husband having an affair from hers 😬

Much to my husband's disgust, we have lots of Alexa/Echo things around the house.

The most heavily used one (Alexa Show)is in the kitchen. It replaced a now broken DAB radio and it either plays radio or whatever box set I am working my way through on Prime Video. I somehow managed to upload my iphoto library up to Amazon and get it to stream "on this day" photos. Some of these must be at least 15 years old, so it can be a lovely reminder of holidays past (and DD's old spelling tests - really must edit the album!). It is a nice family talking point each day.

Otherwise I mainly use it for reminders and to "drop in" on DD 2 floors up to save shouting up the stairs. Recipes OUGHT to be good, but I find it easier to grab a recipe book.

DD uses her to stream all sorts of music and I like their playlists (not massively into pop music, so I am easily pleased).

And the invariably depressing "Alexa, will it rain today?"

I ought to put a bit more effort into getting our smart lights grouped nicely through Alexa (DH called them lengthy names, so Alexa struggles to understand)

I have ours in the kitchen. It means I can listen to the radio or a podcast while cooking and ask it to set timers.

The kids like to ask it to tell jokes. That’s about all I do with it though.

Ours tells us whose turn it is to make a round of tea.

@EMacCoffee

How??!

• hands-free music and radio
• robotic vacuum cleaner is linked to it
• lights and heating are linked to it

It’s basically become the centre of our house in a way. Alexa just works beautifully. I’ve tried out most competing smart assistants, but Alexa is leagues ahead.

I think they're great for giving away all my most personal data to poorly regulated companies for vague and possibly unsavoury purposes. I particularly love that I've paid THEM for their access to my data.

@EMacCoffee We have a Google set up with the Nest Doorbell system. Pretty sure you can use it with Alexa too.

The Nest doorbell is fab - it has a camera and alerts you when it sees someone. Brilliant for speaking to the deliver drivers when you are out but expecting a parcel!

Listening to radio and spotify, alarms, broadcasting "dinners ready" messages, playing quiz games, podcasts, recipes, reminders, love it!! So useful rather than calling up the stairs!

I do think it's funny that the very simple task of writing a shopping list has now become too arduous for some human beings. Surely a small notepad and a pencil would do Alexa's miraculous job at noting down needed items just as well (and has done for centuries). If we do eventually end up with robots controlling us it will be largely down to laziness.

Radio, kitchen timer, alarm clock, random songs, ordering stuff on amazon, answering random questions, podcasts.

@codemonkey I'm with you. It's insanity.

I do think it's funny that the very simple task of writing a shopping list has now become too arduous for some human beings. Surely a small notepad and a pencil would do Alexa's miraculous job at noting down needed items just as well (and has done for centuries). If we do eventually end up with robots controlling us it will be largely down to laziness.

1. The notebook was only invented in 1888 (a fact just confirmed to me by Alexa) which I don’t think reasonably can be called ‘centuries’

1. Imagine being so lazy as to use a notebook and pencil to remind you of what to get from the supermarket when you could be growing your own veg, slaughtering your own pigs and churning your own butter. Everyone knows all modern conveniences are simply excuses for laziness on the road to total domination by our robot overlords.

Hell fucking no. I do not want companies listening into my conversations so they can turn it into data that they then sell.

None.

Both Amazon via Alexa compiles all your data, to better target advertising etc to your individual households and your data is stored offshore, there is no stetted specified time that this can be stored for. Selections of your daily home life are recorded listened to but employees of both companies.
Google is slightly better with the level of recording.

Interesting article here where employees discuss hearing conversations in homes that could be defined as domestic violence , they discuss these in break times to deal with the stress of it, but there is no avenue for reporting.

time.com/5568815/amazon-workers-listen-to-alexa/

and another
news.bloomberglaw.com/privacy-and-data-security/popular-smart-home-devices-carry-cybersecurity-risks-1

and
news.bloomberglaw.com/privacy-and-data-security/popular-smart-home-devices-carry-cybersecurity-risks-1

@VivienneHolt love it!

@RuffleCrow of course writing a shopping list is not too arduous. But I often forget to take the list with me, whereas I'll always have my phone with the app on it and therefore the list! Plus, it's very handy to just call out to Alexa to add bleach to the shopping list while I've got rubber gloves on, or to add olive oil when my hands have just been touching raw chicken etc etc whereas I'd forget to write them down by the time I'd washed my hands and so on.

@codemonkey agree with you. I won't have any of these devices in my home 😐

ack - typos sorry

I do think it's funny that the very simple task of writing a shopping list has now become too arduous for some human beings. Surely a small notepad and a pencil would do Alexa's miraculous job at noting down needed items just as well (and has done for centuries). If we do eventually end up with robots controlling us it will be largely down to laziness

Hell why stop there? Slate? Stone tablet?

No chance I will ever have one of those things in my home. And I'm not sending off my dna to any ancestry databases either.

Why are people paying for companies to harvest such personal data?

My favourite feature is when I'm not asking it anything at all and it will randomly chime up "I'm sorry, I do not understand"