Alexa?

[LuckyLuckyWoman]

What is it exactly and will DH like it as it has been suggested that he will:)

What do I need to buy and where from? (I have no clue)

From amazon today if you can. It’s on sale with £15 off. Just buy the dot, you don’t need anything fancier

If DH is into tech things he will like it, I just use it as a radio it does loads more though

It's a memo board, a calendar, shopping list, radio and podcast player, will play any tracks on Amazon prime music (but you need to subscribe to Amazon music or spotify to get a full selection), it will connect to any device such as WiFi lights or Hive heating to operate via your voice command,it will tell you the weather and give you the news. Check out Alexa Skills (which are apps within alexa) on the alexa app. Oh and there are fun things to say to Alexa like 'Alexa,beam me up!'she has loads of responses. See videos online.

My children use it more than we do. Hours of entertainment with music and word games. I mainly use it for the weather, news and tuners timers.

It does listen to everything that is said. That may or may not worry you.

It listens to you 24/7 and fine tunes your ad preferences. Sometimes what it is listening to will be an instruction to play music or some other trivial chore. Until they can make one that loads the dishwasher and walks the dog, I will regard them as a little too 1984 for comfort.
Other opinions are available.

Amazon is telling me I need a plug when I put the dot in my basket. Do I need it?

If your dh likes his music and doesn’t already have a good quality Bluetooth speaker buy the echo not the dot. The speakers in the two are not comparable if you want to use it for music as well as the personal admin side. I have both

Daily The plug is if you want to control something that's plugged into it with a verbal command via the Dot or via an app (if you're away).

Gosh, you can do so much, from Alexa what’s the traffic like on a given route, to what’s the train times at a given station, or how long will it takd me to drive between x and y or what’s the cinema listings, through to play me songs from the eighties or play Phil Collins, or play my play list or play purple rain by Prince,what’s the weather going to be like tomorrow,. Or even ask her to fart or burp or play a game or quiz with you . You just have to enable the skills on the app.

I got mine today and am quite impressed with it as you can tell. 😂

I agree that if your DH will be using it for music the speaker in the echo is far superior to the dot. I also have both. There's a big difference in sound quality.

I think it depends how much you care about sound quality. We only have the dot and it’s plenty good and loud enough for us

The dot is plenty loud enough. id euqate it to listening to a small radio in terms of sound quality. we use our dot through a blue tooth speaker and you can hear the diffefence in sound quality as soon as it switches. however it is 300 odd quids worth of speaker.

i dong know what the full size echo sounds like, id guess its better than the dot, but due to its price point, i cant imagine its competing with the likes of bose or bang and olufson etc.

so i think it comes down to what he is using it for and whats important to him.

I've been debating for ages and just ordered the Dot as it's got £15 off!

Just to throw curve ball in the Google stuff seems to just pip amazon to the post. Google home is supposed to be better at picking up voices better at understanding commands, and if dh has Google email etc may be better off also it has the benefit of Google search engine. Amazon maybe better if you have extras on amazon like prime. Google home big speaker and small is also reduced and at john Lewis with two year warranty

I was going to get the small Google home, but with the current reduction I have got both, the larger Google home and the small one which is like the dot for 113 for both am thrilled. Eventually I'd like to roll them out to all the family particularly for use as intercom

We have a dot. I find it is actually quite insensitive. You have to yell at it to get it to do anything (this morning after 4 attempts I got so frustrated I actually unplugged it to get it to shut up). If you like yelling at your kids, get this and add another person to yell at. It responds best to tone of command. It frequently mishears, several times in a row. I am not worried about it listening in because it can't hear even when I am shouting at it. Be prepared to buy into the whole Amazon music system as there is a lot unavailable otherwise. I can't use the shopping list app as no reception in supermarket and can't access offline. Have you seen the Tracey Ullman sketches? They are based in reality. Overall I find it a system in need of refinement.

I like mine. I'm not expecting the world for £35 tbh so maybe that's why.

Re speaker quality. The Dot is ok if you're not bothered and just want to be able to hear it. If you are more bothered, the Echo has a better speaker. If you're really bothered, you'll connect it to a better speaker anyway. Only the Dot has the function to plug into a better speaker. But both can connect to a Bluetooth speaker of any quality, which if you were going to do that anyway, the Dot is cheaper.

Sorry to hear the Dot needs repeated commands.
I have a DH that only needs telling twice :)

I bought a google home from john lewis last week. I LOVE it.
Its in the kitchen and use it as a radio/ music player.... can add to my shopping list, set alarms, set timers and if I want to some random information when watching pointless I can ask it! In the morning it reads out what calendar items I have..... hopefully no more forgotten school dressing up days!

We went for google home rather than alexa as we dont have prime and already use spotify and google calendar.

I love it so much I sent DH out earlier to get a mini to use upstairs as an intercom/ music player/ alarm.