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.

Boom45 there is a way to upload your cds to Alexa, if you have Apple Music connected. You upload your cd to a laptop then add it to your iTunes library. Then ask Alexa to play the cd and it will do so through Apple Music.

Quintella because they don't research or understand this stuff in the slightest. It's like ooooh shiny gizmo....must buy. Nor can they see why it's disastrous for privacy and security concerns.

There are children apps ( Tiktok) that are used by Chinese firms as vast data mining operations, who have been illegal collecting the data of kids for years with our parental permission, with advance facial recognition software included in it. All data is stored in China prior to 2019 when the FTA ( USA) booted them hard in the arse with the largest ever federal fine for privacy breaches , and in China privacy laws are a completely different animal to even the weak as piss shit we see with stuff like Alexa.

You don't need a tinfoil hat. You aren't paranoid in the slightest.

It's a shame that these threads invariably turn into half a dozen posters who have to tell us how they'd never have such a device. That's great but why don't you start your own thread and discuss that amongst yourselves leaving those of us that do want to own one to discuss it's skills etc.

Did Alexa tell you to type that?

@AdobeWanKenobi exactly

Quintella

My Google home mini is great for reminders as I have ME and a scatty foggy brain. She reminds me to take my medication every day, and I frequently set up timers or reminders when I need to do something or go somewhere.
"Mrs Google", as she's affectionately known, is also used to play music/audio books, and occasional random questions. I wish I could get her to do more, particularly some lighting, but it's expensive to do just for a bit of convenience and fun.

@awakeat3again I love when it does that. Most of the time I don't understand either so at least I know I'm not alone there haha.

@AdobeWanKenobi agree, there's always a few people like that on these types threads.

Ask alexa to do a fart 🤣 minutes of childish fun

I use Alexa for a lot of home automation. I've got a tuya hub and plugs, Phillips hue hub and lights, Alexa enabled air con. A Logitech harmony hub for ir control. If it gets too hot at home then fans and Aircon comes on so the dogs don't overheat.

Using a combination of Alexa, IFTTT and tasker, everything switches off when it detects that we all out I use an app called Alberto Sonorous to control Netflix and YouTube on the TV.

I've also written some scripts to link a Rpi to a till roll printer, so it spits out Todo lists, shopping lists, appointments and calender stuff for each of us.

I've got a few cams set up to, so if the dogs go bonkers I can see what's causing it, that's not necessarily an Alexa thing but I can go Alexa dog cams on/off , so I don't get pics when we're at home.

Some if the most useful things are timers, Alexa timer for 4 minutes, while I'm cooking. And reminders

It broadcasts to other Alexa's so I can shout at the DC's in their bedroom from the comfort of the living room without having to get up. or make a call from my phone hands free.

It's good for; Alexa whose Rosa Parks, Alexa love island update, Alexa when did Stalin die Alexa has Donald trump been arrested yet or as the DC's love to do Alexa despacito

Finally don't I play music as I let my prime music subs lapse.

What I could do with is Alexa enabled microwave, slow cooker, coffee machine, rice cooker and a properly enabled TV as I've had to cludge it all together

we have 3,living room and kids have 1 each in the bedroom

its used for education,questions instead of googling it.trivia.quizzes and hive for lights and heating

music,audio books,the kids calling the living room to ask for food or drinks

we also have it via the 4k fire stick x3.as my youngest cant read he asks her to turn on or open sonso pause, play

I'm thinking of getting a "signor."

Hell, I can't believe anyone would waste good money on these things. Unless there's a special consideration - probably useful for unsighted, and so on.

@AdobeWanKenobi

Sorry. I was that soldier. I'll leave you and your friends to drool over your alexas. I can just about manage a TV remote now.

@Vivienne. I think people have been stacking bits of paper together a lot longer than that. Alexa will be talking about the commercial variety because she takes everything exceptionally literally.

I really don't agree that talking to a data mining robot all day is any more 'convenient' than just getting on with life yourself.

If you have to ask a robot "whose Rosa Parks?" You have more issues than just laziness.

I really don't agree that talking to a data mining robot all day is any more 'convenient' than just getting on with life yourself.

You’re so naive! It’s like you think that because you don’t have an Alexa your dats isn’t being mined. But you have a mumsnet account, which means you have an email address, which means that if you have ever bought anything online, ordered through amazon, or googled anything then the companies you fear already know where you live and your shopping preferences, from which they can extrapolate your economic situation, education level, social life...

The world isn’t delineated into people who have Alexa and people who have protected themselves. If you are on the internet you are leaving a footprint that is being bought and sold without you ever being aware of it.

A friend of mine worked on a US presidential election campaign a few years ago, and the single biggest area of spend by the candidate was on data - more than tv ads / rallies / print materials / transport / staff. From that data they could target which flyers to distribute down to the very street, based on extrapolations from purchased data. And that was well before Alexa existed!

This is, simply, the world we live in, and if you think it’s Alexa that’s making the difference you don’t know enough about how the internet works.

Useful for all the reasons mentioned and to be honest if they want to datamine our banal conversations they're welcome. Might make those algorithms on social media more accurate and will get less spam emails promising to extend my penis

We have both Alexa and Google Home and GH blows Alexa out of the water IMO

Timers, music via radio, as a Bluetooth speaker (I stream YouTube via the speaker), games like musical statues, checking random facts (ask Google how many legs a horse has! Seriously, try it!), DC love asking it animal noises, weather checking, we also stream Netflix so it's connected to our T.V. and is setup to stream by voice command.

we have them in most rooms too. Use them for music mostly - radio as well. Sometimes to ask questions. I also have my shopping list on mine. And I speak to the kids through the ones in their rooms. Also as an alarm to tell ds to get off the PS4 .

We play a lot of music and it's lovely to hear the children singing away to one downstairs.

I also have an amazon firestick although I've not worked out how that connects to Alexa (which it does randomly sometimes).

Oh I forgot, shopping list, I add to my list and then use the app to check the list and add that to my actual shopping list. I have the memory of a brick so that's really helpful. And 'broadcast' because I'm sick of sounding like a fishwife, screaming the kids for dinner etc

Not naive at all Viviene, just not someone who goes "oh well some of my data is already being mined, may as well give up on privacy altogether!"

Shopping lists, music, alarms and reminders are the normal ones...

Childish uses include asking it for fart noises and broadcasting rude words to the house!

We use ours for the following:

Timers and alarms
Reminders
Listening to music (Amazon music)
Listening to radio, including catch-up
Listening to audio books
Ocean sounds/storm sounds at bedtime
Checking the time
Word of the day/question of the day/various quizzes & games
Translating random words (multilingual household!)
Asking for random information
Checking calendar
Controlling some lights and devices
Making lists
Intercom between rooms

My favourite feature is being able to listen to audible books. I can start and stop as required, and I can pick up from where I left off from anywhere in the house.

Use it to listen to radio and play music. Frankly....there were other ways we could do this!

3 story house so use it mostly for dropping into other rooms. My biggest annoyance is the kids unplugging the Alexa to use the wire to charge their phone or tablet then I can't drop into their room grr.