Alexa advice

[jimp]

hi, going to get an alexa music thing, do i need any other alexa things for it to work, i only use a chrome book.

[Sean89]

When you say Alexa thingy... I presume you mean an echo dot smart speaker or similar.

It is autonomous. No computer required. Simply use your phone and the app to set It up, if it’s not done automatically via your Amazon account and you’re ready to go.

You can talk to it and ask to play a particular song or playlist from your favourite streaming service. Free amazon music is limited. It’s worth the couple a quid a month upgrade if you want it for music streaming.

If you buy a device with a screen such as the Echo show it can be used as a clock, news ticker and show the weather etc.

What is the primary reason you want the device?

[Halitosis]

Without wishing to state the obvious you need WiFi


Sent from my iPhone using TZ-UK mobile app

[Franky Four Fingers]

You need to enable controllable or have controllable items in your home to be able to control them through Alexa, without it it’s just a talking info centre.
Its a bit like asking your missus to make you a cheese sandwich when there’s no bread or cheese in the house.

[macdaddymac]

Personally i found it to be a better experience with a music subscription than the free accounts

[mjc1216]

Personally i found it to be a better experience with a music subscription than the free accounts

Likewise...linked mine to Spotify and does the job for me.

[Brighty]

I don't listen enough to justify £10 a month for spotify. I did have amazon music unlimited for a while on a single device which was only a few quid, but cancelled it when i got a sonos and moved all my echos about. Found i couldn't get the single device plan on the sonos so didn't bother, reverted to the free with prime standard version and haven't missed unlimited, no ads (unlike the free version of spotify).

Invested in a few cheap wifi smart bulbs at Christmas and they've been fantastic so far. Pack of 2 was £18. No hub needed like expensive hue and they just work. Got them in the kids rooms, living room, dining room and landing. Also got the kids lamps/bubble tubes working off smart plugs. Set it all up so each rooms alexa knows what lights are in that room and you just have to say 'light off' and it knows you mean the light in that room, similarly 'lamp off'. Can set timers, so kids lights automatically turn off at sleep time. Landing light automatically comes on at night at a low level and colour like a night light so kids can find the bathroom in the dark. Well impressed so far. Next job is led light strips in our bedroom so we can turn the light off from bed. Cant get smart bulbs for our weird bedroom (or kitchen) fittings

[PhilT]

The echo 4 has a built-in zigbee hub, so no need to buy a separate hub to control zigbee devices (lights etc).

Anyone with experience of this know if it’s worth the extra expense over a dot (ignoring better sound quality that the bigger speaker should give)? If cheap WiFi bulbs are available then why bother? What am I missing?

[walkerwek1958]

We have a dot for the kitchen, I like to listen whilst cooking. It’s OK, no substitute for a serious music player but at £30 I can’t grumble. When the kitchen’s refurbished I’ll put ceiling speakers in connected to proper hi- fi from the next room and do it right.

Alexa can be quite amusing, she doesn’t like being sworn at!

[jimp]

Cheers for the advice, it's sound quality I need without spending too much

[andy tims]

Cheers for the advice, it's sound quality I need without spending too much

DAB / Internet radio then?

[wileeeeeey]

Cheers for the advice, it's sound quality I need without spending too much

What music will you be playing from it? Radio? Spotify? Really depends.

[wadebridge59]

I started with an echo dot, three weeks later I had 2 echo dots and 3 echo show 5s (lot cheaper in Prime sale). Yes, I like them.

Started using them to listen to radio (Aus, UK and US), also a bit of music (Amazon Music as I'm a Primee, and wife has Spotify). Next step was to use routines to call radio stations. For example, "Alexa ask Tunein to play BBC World Service" is now "Alexa, play world service". It's particularly good for the wife who was getting confused. Then I found out you could install Google because Bing, Alexa's search, is not so good. If I ask Bing for the telephone number of Liverpool Football Club it starts talking about some local team. If I don't get the answer now I shout out "Alexa, ask Google ...?"

Then I thought would like to add some radio stations manually so installed the 5min Radio skill - it took me 20mins as I'm getting slow. Saves you finding stations on the different aggregators, and was something to do! Then I thought it would be nice to have a video version of it. I noticed a guy on an Aus tech forum was into Alexa so asked him to modify the Radio skill to do video. Now I can shout out "Alexa, ask Video to play CNN" and watch CNN on my 5" screen whilst I'm cooking or lying in bed. I think I have about 30 news stations listed. I seem to be watching a lot of US news atm, I wonder why?. The Echo 5 has built-in Netflix and Amazon apps but I need to watch those on a big tv. They play fine just screen too small.

I know you can use them for home automation but for me it's an excellent streamer with very nice sound for the size.