Amazon Echo

[Youkai]

Anyone here who has one of those ?
As far as I know they are USA only, but now they are getting released in the UK and Germany !
I was thinking of buying one especially as they offer 50€ off if you preorder making it "only" 129€ which is still much for poor people like me but I like those gadgets ^^

So anyone here from US who could tell about his/her experiences with this thing ?
Some ppl here are already complaining about the mic listening to everything you say and do all the time and whatever there is you could complain about XD
Still it does sound like a handy little "toy"

 

[CIAwesome526]

ive seen them, never owne one

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

My boss owns one, and ended up putting it in a box and tossing it in his basement.

His main complaint was the voice recognition software, it's utter ass (or was, it might have improved, he got one when it went on sale to the general public in the US). If you tend to, y'know, speak around it at all it's going to misinterpret what you say and do something you don't want it to do. My boss used it for music in his office, and he'd be on a Skype call or something and say something that starts with the letter "A" and it would activate the Echo and play a song or give him news or something. It would also occasionally activate itself when he turns it off, which I think was fixed at some point too but I dunno.

It also doesn't really do much when you put it into perspective. It'll play music, tell you the weather, set alarms, and kinda read off things from Wikipedia. That's essentially it. You'd be paying 129€ for something that you could do on a phone or PC that you already own. Hell, with Cortana/Siri/Google Now, you can do voice activation on your devices now if you really wanted voice activation too.

 

[CIAwesome526]

My boss owns one, and ended up putting it in a box and tossing it in his basement.

His main complaint was the voice recognition software, it's utter ass (or was, it might have improved, he got one when it went on sale to the general public in the US). If you tend to, y'know, speak around it at all it's going to misinterpret what you say and do something you don't want it to do. My boss used it for music in his office, and he'd be on a Skype call or something and say something that starts with the letter "A" and it would activate the Echo and play a song or give him news or something. It would also occasionally activate itself when he turns it off, which I think was fixed at some point too but I dunno.

It also doesn't really do much when you put it into perspective. It'll play music, tell you the weather, set alarms, and kinda read off things from Wikipedia. That's essentially it. You'd be paying 129€ for something that you could do on a phone or PC that you already own. Hell, with Cortana/Siri/Google Now, you can do voice activation on your devices now if you really wanted voice activation too.

yeah, i have it set so i can say "hey, Google" at any point, even with the screen off and voice activation will start, itll even chsange settings and stuff normal people would need to nlock the phone to do, if it hears my voice. its actually pretty acurate. It doesnt ever accidentally turn on, it usuaully know when i say ok google, and it usually unlocks for me, ive never had anyone else able to unlocck m hpine by voice

 

[Deleted User]

The commercials look to good to be true, and by the above posts looks like I was right.