I'd been interested in the Amazon Echo since launch, but the standalone speaker version seemed a bit expensive for what it could do. Then Amazon released the far cheaper, and smaller Echo Dot.
I finally bought a Dot this week during Amazon Prime day with it discounted to £35. Bargain and you really can't go wrong at that price.
Was it worth it? I definitely think so.
What's the Amazon Echo? It's a standalone Internet connected speaker and audio communication device. It's tied into Amazon's services so you need a prime account to get the most from it.
You communicate with the device by asking it questions or giving it commands. Say the assigned name (Alexa as standard with 3 other names to switch to) to get the device's attention and then give it a command or ask a question.
If you ask a question it will use the Internet to find the answer and then reply in a very clear voice. Ask something like time or date, weather, temperature or any search you like and it uses Bing to find the answer (probably instead of Google due to their new directly competing and similar Google Android play device which uses their own services).
My son thought it was great and was asking Alexa things like how heavy is a house, or how big is the sun. Also useful for quick things like asking how a word is spelt or asking it to do some maths for you. Works perfectly and the answer is accurate and clear.
What else can the Echo do? The larger Echo had a very good Bluetooth speaker and is loud and good enough for most rooms. You can listen to music, radio and podcasts easily. For radio it uses Tunein and this works perfectly without needing a subscription. And for music with a Prime account you have access to a few million tracks, or you can link Spotify or your iTunes accounts.
I linked my Spotify account and made it the default music account. So now when I ask it to play music it searches Spotify and plays it. Simple! You basically just say "Alexa play "Song title" by "Artist"". Or you could just say "Play "Artist"" and it will play a random selection, or just a song title and it will search for it, but you can get some random wrong result with this, but that's to be expected. Spotify works well though. You can issue commands like pause, next, previous, stop, resume. You can also use the Spotify app on your phone to control and select the Echo as the device to play back. But can still control it from the Echo voice commands and the app at the same time which is cool.
You also have access to books. Audio books if you have an Audible account, and Kindle books from your Amazon account. For Kindle books it reads them to you. I've only tried this quickly and it reads back using Alexa. The diction is good and clear but you can hear the slight automated metallic clipping between some words, but for a computer reading text it does a very good job. If you don't like Alexa reading it you can try one of the other 3 avaliable alternative voices available in settings.
What else?
You can also add lists such as shopping and todo lists then ask Alexa to read the list for you or add new items.
Link your calendar such as Google, Microsoft or Apple and then ask Alexa to tell you if you have something scheduled or add an event. It can also give alerts.
You can set alarms and timers too.
Next are Skills. To add extra features to the Echo you install Skills from the App. Think of these like Echo apps. Things like train timetables or bus routes, Uber taxi ordering, fast food orders, news feeds. You think of it there might be something available. And tied into Amazon you can search for products just by asking and Alexa will ask if you went to buy it. You can also setup shopping and ordering and get Alexa to quickly reorder from your Amazon account.
A quick note regarding accounts. The Echo is linked to your Amazon account. So when you ask Alexa anything it does it through your account. And when you change settings or add skills it does this logged into your Amazon account through the App. If you have more then one person in your house using the Echo you might not want them accessing your account directly. That's OK because they have thought about that. You can go to household in settings and add additional user accounts. Then they log into the app from their own account. You can also add children profiles and it asks for a date of birth for what I assume is to add censorship. I've added my son but haven't looked into it in more detail yet.
Having accounts linked means you can also stop accidental ordering from your main account. There is a setting to disable ordering using your account for all users. You can also set a number pass code that needs repeating before any order is allowed so that's worth setting up. Especially if it's something like asking Alexa to read a book which needs to be purchased. I could imagine my son asking for something, Alexa asking if it should be purchased and him saying yes.
You can also setup a travel route you take regularly such as to work in settings and then when your ask for travel information it knows your standard route to check and report journey time and any delays.
And for news and weather it had a news briefing setup. The default setup has its own weather and news feed setup, but you have alternative services via skills you can add so can use a different weather service and add a list of news feeds by installing skills. Then when you ask for the news it will include news from all your added skill feeds. Mine f.ex. is set to include bbc news, sky news and F1 news. For some feeds Alaxa will read the headlines, but for things like BBC and Sky news it actually links and plays back the actual news which is nice.
Now to Smart Home. This was the reason I first became interested in the Echo as it supports most smart home devices.
We had a good deal at the end of last year from British Gas to have the Hive system installed. This replaces your central heating and hot water thermostat and timer with a smart one you can control from your phone. Set schedules, room temp, turn water and heating on or off etc. But Hive does much more as you can buy smart light bulbs, motion sensors, door and window sensors, and now a camera. All controlled from the app and you can link events so if a motion sensor is triggered you could tell it to turn a light on f.ex.
With the Echo I added the Hive skill and can now control my Hive with voice control. I can ask it to set a temperature, turn the water and central heating on or off. And with hive lighting setup correctly in zones you can just say "Alexa turn the hall light on" or "Alexa dim lounge light to 30%". And if you have the colour hue lights you could say "Alexa make the room gold" etc. Quite cool. And if you have smart plugs you can then do things like turn the kettle, fan, or desk light on. Really cool features. I really didn't see a point in smart homes until I got the Hive (only because i needed a new thermostat). And now can see is as very useful.
I think that's about it for common abilities.
What's the difference between the Echo and the Echo Dot? The Echo is a larger standalone device with a good Bluetooth speaker. It has good sound and it's great as a playback device to stream Internet music or anything from your local devices.
The Echo Dot is much smaller. It's only about 2cm tall and about the circumstance of a coffee mug, so very small. It's however a good weight so won't move too easily. It has a built in speaker and I was actually surprised how clear and loud it can go without distortion. It's never going to have the bass or volume of the larger Echo but it's more than loud enough in my living room for general music, radio or other activities. You will be surprised how good the speaker is for the size.
The big surprise with the Dot is that for the much cheaper price you have addition features. The Larger Echo can receive audio via Bluetooth from another device, as well as from wifi and the Internet, but it can't connect to anything else or output audio other then through its own speaker. The Dot by contrast can connect to and control other Bluetooth devices, so if you have a sound bar you can pair it to the Dot and then control it from the Dot and stream music to the speaker. In addition the Dot has a 3.5mm audio out socket, so you can plug it into any audio system, amplifier, receiver or hifi. This really adds something special to the Dot as it can then be used to turn any existing audio setup into a smart Internet connected, voice controlled, bluetooth and wifi enabled home music setup. Having similar features built into an AV receiver costs quite a lot for those models, but for under £50 you can just connect the dot and get these and much more. Internet radio, podcasts, music streaming, local audio streaming. Very nice and well worth it.
For this reason unless you are specifically in need of a standalone Bluetooth speaker for your kitchen, dining room,office etc then get the dot as it can do more.
Home theatre entertainment companies are also jumping on board. Sonos are adding support so you can pair and control your Sonos setup from the Dot. That's pretty nice especially if you have multiroom Sonos zones so you can tell Alaxa to play different things in different rooms and set volumes, or link them all for a party and let guests control what's playing via voice.
Harmony have also added their own skills. I've not looked into this yet but I'm assuming it adds voice home cinema control to your setup which can only be good. So with the Dot and supporting devices in a home cinema setup, using just your voice you can adjust the lighting, set the speaker volume, turn on the display via a smart plug and tell it what to play. Anyone else suddenly realising the Star Trek voice controlled computer is now here and a reality? ;-)
So in conclusion I highly recommend it. Definitely consider an Amazon prime account to get the most from it but it works fine without one. You just lose some things this Amazon Music, Kindle and the music cloud storage. But if you have a Spotify or iTunes account you won't be missing much.
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