I was skeptical but bought a cheap one because I thought it would be fun to hack on. Turns out it was more useful than I imagined. We listen to more music in ou

I was skeptical but bought a cheap one because I thought it would be fun to hack on. Turns out it was more useful than I imagined. We listen to more music in our living room now that it's become frictionless to play something (I'm not an audiophile but I can't listen to music on cell phone speakers). When I tell the kids it's bedtime in ten minutes and set an echo timer, they actually go upstairs when the timer goes off (probably some weird psychology going on there, but the living room telling them it's bedtime carries more authority than dads phone). The killer app for my wife and I has been OneBusAway. Being told when the next bus is coming while getting ready in the morning is awesome, much better that fumbling around with their app. Obviously your use cases may vary, but with my echo I was pleasantly surprised at how useful it was. I was given a smartwatch for free and was nevertheless disappointed at how useless it was. I can pull my phone out and do stuff with one hand, whereas on a watch you need to hold one hand in place while the other hand operates the device, meaning it's harder to use and less convenient.