Amazon Echo Dot - Review

[Harrison]

See I thought the same thing until we needed a new heating thermast and had an offer from British Gas to get their Hive system. That has automatic schedules and regulated temperature and you could just go to the wall unit and set it manually. But it's what triggered the start of home automation for me.

It wouldn't be as useful if we had a combination boiler, but this house has the older style gas boiler that heats water into a hot water tank so only heats water for showers etc when you tell it to. Not on demand. That's because we have solar hot water so it needs to store it. But that obviously doesn't heat in the winter. Being able to just tell the Hive system to boost it ready for a shower is useful. And being able to activate it before getting home is very useful. Especially in the day when the heating isn't on.

Lighting I thought was a gimmick until I thought about it. Having the hallway and landing lights with smart bulbs is handy as I can activate the lights before walking in the front door via a motion sensor. But also get them to a dimmed light at night.

Will also be getting some for the office and living room.

The Echo itself I only got because it was con offer and linked seemlessly into the Hive setup so I can control without needed to use the app.

For Echo alarms I find it most useful when cooking. And just generally to be able to quickly look something up.

The advantage for me regarding Echo Dot and audio is that it has both audio out and Bluetooth out. My Sony AV Amp also has built in Internet radio streaming but I tend to send audio from the Echo to it via Bluetooth these days. Same with Spotify. It's less hassle than actually going through my own music library.

Basically I only got into it because it was cheap. Smart Hive system because we needed a new heating control and the Echo because it was on offer.

With an Echo even if you only had one in the kitchen for radio and news bulletins in the morning is still useful.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk