>Ease of use and actually freaking working seems like a game changer. I was honestly surprised that Alexa could recognize my voice from across an entire room,

>Ease of use and actually freaking working seems like a game changer. I was honestly surprised that Alexa could recognize my voice from across an entire room, me standing in the hallway, over the music I had playing at full volume over the built-in speaker with me speaking at a normal level. That was impressive. I hate voice technology because it's always been unreliable and shoddy, meaning I could check things faster myself rather than trying to ask a computer to check it for me. "What time is it?" - "What is the time?" "Time now" "What is the time now?" "Give me the damn time!" Ah forget it. pulls out cellphone The only issues I've had with Alexa is trying to Wikipedia Japanese-related things. Alexa seems convinced I'm speaking Spanish - as any attempt to Wiki something in Japanese gives me a result related to Spain or Mexico. So we're in complete agreement here. "Actually working" is the game changer. Coupled with an affordable price (the Echo Dot was like $40 on sale? Back-in-the day the same device would hardly work and be worth $200~ and had an Xmas sale of maybe $160~)