4 ms·

What do you use it for? I love the idea of Echo, but I can't think of enough I'd do with it to warrant buying one.

Pxtl 11y ago
Ever tried to call somebody while cooking? As a dad who spends most of his home time in the kitchen cooking and cleaning and parenting, hands-free tech is glorious.
- jon-wood 11y ago
  I'd certainly have it in the kitchen, which happily is also in earshot of the living room, but despite doing a lot of cooking myself I've rarely needed to be entirely hands free. I do admittedly have a tablet screen that is absolutely filthy half the time, but its yet to come to any harm from it.
- notlisted 11y ago
  The echo doesn't allow you to place or pick up calls (yet).
cookiecaper 11y ago
Same here. I keep checking the price hoping it drops to a level where I'd feel comfortable buying it just to play with one, but at $180, I think it's too steep when there's no real justification. Anything you'd really want the Echo for, you could do on your phone with an "OK Google" (or a few quick taps at worst).
notlisted 11y ago
Delayed response - My main uses are simple things like asking about the weather (current and future), listening to the flash briefing and asking random things while watching TV, asking what's on the family calendar. Had it hooked up to a smartthings hub for a bit, which worked, but the smartthings platform has issues so I've abandoned the idea of smart home control. Will buy a Philips Hue system in the next few weeks. My wife, who hates gadgets in general, likes it in the kitchen to add stuff to her shopping list while cooking (with messy hands). In the store she opens the echo app and checks off everything on the list. It seems like a silly thing, but she thinks it's terrific and it has saved us many useless return trips to the store. She also loves the option to play music (again, for the same reason, messy hands or just busy). My 7yo uses it for music, to get the answers to trivia and interact with a few 'skills' I've enabled (guess the animal, etc). She also "plays with Alexa" when friends come over (they take turns requesting songs and dancing) The echo is not ideal, especially in terms of underlying knowledge base, integration with other Amazon devices (we have two firetv boxes, amazon owns IMDB, mysteriously neither are well-supported or integrated) and the "skills" approach is cumbersome (should have used an "intent" approach instead of "ask {skill}"), but voice recognition is better than anything I've used and it works for everyone in the family without training, as well as random guests, including kids. PS I signed up early and bought it for $99, a second one was requested, but I feel the regular price of $179 is too high with the current feature set. Note: It does NOT (yet) allow handsfree calling. I wish it did.

Pxtl 11y ago

Ever tried to call somebody while cooking? As a dad who spends most of his home time in the kitchen cooking and cleaning and parenting, hands-free tech is glorious.

jon-wood 11y ago
I'd certainly have it in the kitchen, which happily is also in earshot of the living room, but despite doing a lot of cooking myself I've rarely needed to be entirely hands free. I do admittedly have a tablet screen that is absolutely filthy half the time, but its yet to come to any harm from it.
notlisted 11y ago
The echo doesn't allow you to place or pick up calls (yet).

cookiecaper 11y ago

Same here. I keep checking the price hoping it drops to a level where I'd feel comfortable buying it just to play with one, but at $180, I think it's too steep when there's no real justification. Anything you'd really want the Echo for, you could do on your phone with an "OK Google" (or a few quick taps at worst).

notlisted 11y ago

Delayed response - My main uses are simple things like asking about the weather (current and future), listening to the flash briefing and asking random things while watching TV, asking what's on the family calendar. Had it hooked up to a smartthings hub for a bit, which worked, but the smartthings platform has issues so I've abandoned the idea of smart home control. Will buy a Philips Hue system in the next few weeks. My wife, who hates gadgets in general, likes it in the kitchen to add stuff to her shopping list while cooking (with messy hands). In the store she opens the echo app and checks off everything on the list. It seems like a silly thing, but she thinks it's terrific and it has saved us many useless return trips to the store. She also loves the option to play music (again, for the same reason, messy hands or just busy). My 7yo uses it for music, to get the answers to trivia and interact with a few 'skills' I've enabled (guess the animal, etc). She also "plays with Alexa" when friends come over (they take turns requesting songs and dancing) The echo is not ideal, especially in terms of underlying knowledge base, integration with other Amazon devices (we have two firetv boxes, amazon owns IMDB, mysteriously neither are well-supported or integrated) and the "skills" approach is cumbersome (should have used an "intent" approach instead of "ask {skill}"), but voice recognition is better than anything I've used and it works for everyone in the family without training, as well as random guests, including kids. PS I signed up early and bought it for $99, a second one was requested, but I feel the regular price of $179 is too high with the current feature set. Note: It does NOT (yet) allow handsfree calling. I wish it did.