Amazon Echo and Dot review: Everything I've Learned in 18 months of real life use
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- Опубліковано 22 лют 2017
- Some helpful alexa tips and tricks: • A few Little Known ALE...
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After my hugely successful amazon echo review, (who some have called the best) 😛, i thought i'd follow it up with an update. In this video, I cover all the practical uses I've come to rely on over that past 2 years with my Amazon Echo and Amazon Dot, and talk about what its like using it on a day to day basis and using multiple devices throughout the house.
Please leave a comment if you have any questions!
Link to Echo: geni.us/amznecho
Link to Dot: geni.us/amznechodot
Link to Wemo switch: geni.us/wemo
Link to Insteon starter kit: geni.us/insteonkit
Link to Nest thermostat: geni.us/nesttherm
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holla on twitta yo-
Twitter ► / techfreshness - Наука та технологія
*I like the old style Echo Dot because it's small also **Newest.Technology**, gives out decent sound and doesn't take up a lot of shelf space if you want to put it on beam in the workshop or shed.*
like the features, setup was difficult for some of my devices (August Door lock, ua-cam.com/users/postUgkxhB5YOMNj04GuoAosExygP4cH-dKeb4aB Bose speaker)... but all switches and outlets (5), thermostat, tankless water heater. Unfortunately all I can do is turn on/off Bose. It doesn't support volume or changing channels, but I believe that is due to the particular speaker I have.... Worth getting if you already have other devices to use it with... I don't sit around and ask Alexa questions much so that doesn't really matter to me....
"If you don't know you have 12 appointments the following morning, you're already F**ked" ... Hands down, top ten quotes ever ... I am even putting this against great movies Like SuperBad and Step Brothers. Subscribed and Notified bro. Keep it up man.
ha you made me smile very bigly! thanks a lot man
😄😂🤣😆😛
Hands down the best and most useful review of the Echo out there. Thank you sir.
nice, thanks for the comment. glad to be of use!
One of the best reviews I have run across. Thanks.
I believe that once you've ordered something with Amazon Prime, that's what Alexa will default to when you voice order. I order dog food that way every month. You seem to be demonstrating ordering generic items without giving Alexa any specifics.
Thank you so much. You pretty much hit every inquiry I had, and even adjusted my expectations when you did the dream scenario versus reality. Thank you for being so thorough, hitting the sweet spot of being concise and detailed without rambling or going on long tangents
awesome, glad it helped you out! let me know if you have any other questions, the only thing i forgot was to show the snooze feature on my morning alarms. alexa snooze! its glorious ha
"If you go to bed without already knowing you have 12 appointments in the morning, you're already f***ed" -- LOL
This is the only good and honest review that I trust
my man, i approve this comment ha!
excellent video, have watched it three times now. My echo arrived today and I have been setting it up to do the useful things you point out. thanks for sharing
awesome, hope you enjoy it! let me knwo if you have any questions.
I think the clapper should make a comeback. Seriously, this review helped me decide to get this.
Down to earth, brutally honest, yet positive and helpful review. Thank you so much. Feeling confident about purchasing some Echos now.
So far this has been the most useful video related to this technology. Thanks for sharing your experiences with echo.
A thorough, practical and very useful review. Essential viewing for anyone considering buying an Echo, and that includes myself! :-)
ha nice! glad it helped neccessseeeefesirum
Outstanding review. Nice quality and great information. You keep this up and you're gonna be big on UA-cam! Thanks for the video...
thanks a lot for the kind words jim, lets hope so!
Great video, thx man! I just picked up an Echo on prime day, so I'm still learning about it's capabilities and features. Your video was super helpful!
Great in depth review! The best out on UA-cam about Echo.
Still can't find the "wow" factor about this toy that would push me to buy one. Very nice and professional review by the way, and I love the style of your house too :-)
yeh, i woudl just say try one, i think you'll find you get pretty reliant on it ha
We're thinking about getting 2 or 3 of these and watching your review, I think, sealed the deal. Thanks for this :)
thats great! you're welcome, hope you are enjoying them
UGB
Really helpful video... thank you for highlighting what works well and what doesn't. Also helpful to know of command use versus practicality.
Thanks for this review. In my experiences watching reviews here, this is the one that I can say is really good. Honest and practical. I know I am more than a year late since this review, but this is the time I can buy an Echo. Keep the good work.
I watched your video with interest as I bought into home automation earlier this year. I have expanded my system quite quickly. I think most will agree these are exciting times and this is one of those interests which can quickly prove to be very infectious. Anyway, almost 12 months later and I completely agree with your thoughts. I think it's still 'early days' and can't wait to see how things develop over time. Thanks for sharing your experience and, oh, love your choice of home decor - very stylish!
Subscribed. Saw your video on streaming, and just happened to bump into this video. Solid reviews on both...keep up the good work.
Welcome back! Great video
Thanks for very useful review. I recently ordered an Echo Dot and looking forward to connecting smart home devices.
Awesome review! We just got our first Echo today. I enjoyed the in-depth review of how to use smart-lights in larger rooms.
thanks for the demonstration on the practicality of the echo. it has definitely influenced my purchase.
What a great review! Definitely the best review out there for the Echo!
great review. I've been wondering about the echo so you've answered most of my questions about real world use so thank you. 😎
Thanks for listing out the practical uses!
This is the BEST review I've seen on the Dot thanks!
This was very helpful! I just ordered the Echo Spot and Dot and a Nest.
Super informative thank you I just got mine echo really loving it
Awesome video! I found this to be very useful, especially regarding the features that can be used in daily life. Thank you.
Good video. You're spot on IMHO. Use it for the things that make life easier. Don't make life more complicated by trying to get it to do everything.
High quality video. Much appreciated.
Great review with a lot of practicality. Thanks. Great speaking voice as well!
I like the practical review approach.
Thanks very much for this - really useful - just ordered mine, so we'll see how I get on!
You kept this review as experienced and fact-based as possible, and I loved it! I'm not interested in this Echo fad due to the fact that it's too damn redundant for my uses. Everything you've competently demonstrated can be done with my one simplistic and intuitive iPhone 6s+, especially the Pizza ordering. Thank You for staying professional!
tis true, i just have bad experiences with siri that its too frustrating, plus my phone isn't always within voice reach. but i totally get what you are saying. do you really order pizza with your voice regularly, cuz if you do thats awesome
Easily the best Echo review on UA-cam, i grabbed one plus a Dot! Thanks. I listen to a lot of digital radio and genre based playlists and what surprised me was the ability to call on Neil Young's new album then some garage psych & shoegaze!! with the integration of amazon music it just feels seamless! The free trail is well worth a look :D amaz.to/amazon-music-unlimited
Great video man. Moving to a new apt and trying to figure out how to set up a multi room system for my music. Sonos is a bit pricey for me right now, but I did like the chrome cast audio workaround. Does it work with Alexa or would I need to get a google home mini?
I can do it with my android phone too :p
Siri can’t do multiple timers. Nor can she announce to the rest of the house that dinner’s ready or we are getting ready to leave for grandma’s.... The echo can.
just bought one on a black friday deal. Great review. looking forward to slowly automating my house
sweet, its good fun
A nice and honest review, thanks a lot. As I live in Mexico, Alexa just arrived past november 2018, we dont have so many skills available, hope developers get the job done.
Thank you for the video! Very informative. My wife and I are looking at several Alexa devices for our home (for Christmas), and this was very helpful.
excellent, hope you got it all sorted
Love the real world use cases here. Thanks and great video!
awesome, glad you appreciated it!
Best review and tips ever! Subscribed.
Best review out there. Practical one !! Thanks for the time.
Thank you , very helpful and well presented!
Thanks for the review! Glad I did wait a bit over a year to get mine - your review convinced me that I wasn't just throwing $50 out the window!
Hey man, love your content. And thanks for using Session Buddy!
One of the best Reviews on UA-cam for these products.
*high five, ty
Thanks. Very informative and useful. An honest review of what's kinda useless hype and what's realistic is just what I needed.
great, exaclty what i was shooting for! glad it helped
This was really, really helpful and informative. Thank you! Subscribed!
*high five
This was very helpful ! Thank you :)
Well, Alexa just added soy sauce to my shopping list while listening to this. Too funny.
ha lol
Same here!! Lol
I use most of your ideas plus.. I use it to open and close my blinds (somfy skill). Love it.
oh thats awesome. i actually JUST added some remote blinds to my basement now too, such a convenient luxury ha.
Just to repeat what everyone else has already said - very nice refreshingly honest tech review. Thank you.
thanks a lot for the nice words
Awesome review, thanks!
OMG my husband and I use the Wonderlist app is definitely the best shopping list app and I'm so excited to try it with Alexa!! thank you!!
ha, thats great! yeh its killer feature, hopefully you got it setup ok?
Best review I've seen so far. It's not officially available in Australia yet but I'm thinking of trying it out anyway with the rest of my smart home.
Super helpful. Thanks very much!
Best review I've seen - keep up the good work. Thx
aw shucks, ha thanks man
My Aunt is 93 and still going strong. She's been having problems holding the phone past 3 or 4 minutes. So we hooked her up with the Echo Dot, she loves it and can talk much longer now to her many loved ones.
oh thats really great to hear
I've gotten so used to my Alexa. I love her. I use her for mainly lights, time/date reminders, alarms/timers, and sometimes I'll ask her to wish me good luck as I walk out the door and goodnight as I doze off into slumber. She's my favorite!
Kinda scary
Excellent presentation....
Nice review here. I like how you called out the hype. I mostly use mine for the rain sleep sounds.
excellent! interesting primary use case ha
Very helpful - thanks much.
The best echo review out there - hands down. No marketing BS. Real life scenario - with objective and well explained pros and cons. And although the Echo is a technology wonder - I am failing to see currently any real life application for it. Paying $300, maintaining, configuring, updating - just to turn the lights on and off and ask for the weather, looks like a no go for me. Comparing to a $300 phone that does tons of things for me.
thanks raphael. yeah it def depends on your use, but i find it pretty indispensible now, of course its all a matter of what you get used to, the phone is definitely way more powerful and if its working for you then your right, whats really the point of adding another thing?
Very honest and up front! Great video
Very helpful video...what may have been an impulse buy, has now been thwarted. I don't need one. Thanks for saving me some bucks!
Nice informative review and tips. Just got my first echo (dot) 3rd generation. Have you an updated review on this model ?
I really enjoyed your review. TFS
awesome, thank you
I love your house BTW...
hey thanks a lot dan, so do we!
Thanks for a practical guide. My husband has a spinal cord injury and I hope to give him some functionality most of us take for granted (and let Alexa wake up with him at all hours if he just needs something simple). A bit of freedom for him and more sleep for me win win. I have been watching a LOT of these videos hoping to learn something before our order of the echo dots arrives and this is one of the most helpful so far. So, thanks again!
great barb, i hope this helps your hubs a lot. how is it working out for you so far
So far so good. He loves working lights independently and asking her questions. He actually trained her to respond to "Lexa" which fascinated me! He wants more which is what I hoped for but of course budgets demand we add things a little at a time like most folks. I am looking at the Harmony remote system which would be awesome if it worked but reviews are so mixed. I still have to delve into IFTTT to add functions and I have to learn how to incorporate my hands free Alexa tablet. She constantly interrupts even though I have the ESP setting on. But she functions a bit like a portable Show so I love her anyway. Happy New Year! Would love practical video guide on IFTTT and on hands free Alexa who is in the same household but not registered to same account as the echo devices if you get the chance. Also on the Harmony system if you have used it. Thanks again!
hey barb, you seem pretty technically able, nice. i started using lexa now from this comment! drops a whole syllable, and still works great, tell your hubs thanks! once i setup my basement i'm gonna try out the harmony system, and will def do a review! glad you all are enjoying
Great advice, thanks.
I had a friend recommend it to me, and I have been researching the hell out of it. I love my record player, and otherwise don't find myself using my Apple Music outside of working out. I live in an apartment that does not have smart thermostats or lighting installed. I also have a predictable enough schedule that I don't have insane amounts of appointments or meeting every day that I need to be reminded of.
I just don't know if it is any more convenient that using Prime Now and other apps. I love my Eat 24 and never use dominos or pizza hut. haha. Its just slowly making itself less useful for me.
Pressed "like" button after the first joke about the calendar in a minute. Subscribed.
haha thanks a lot man. i don't have a lot of jokes, but that was a rare gem for me
Great video! I subscribed because you seem smart and down-to-earth. Thanks for the great video. I love my Amazon Echo.
awesome man thank you.
I've also been using Echo for over two years, however, my experience is somewhat different only because my habits are different to begin with or in some cases I'm willing to meet Alexa half-way to accomplish what I want to do. First, Echo was only touted as a tool for re-ordering something you've ordered before from Amazon. In that scenario it works perfectly and I have used it frequently for that class of product. The same goes for Dominos. I live alone (widower) so I do order the same order over again and I find it very handy to be able to do this. I order it on Echo then 5 or 7 minutes later bring up my Dominos app on my iPhone to watch it's progress (as I usually elect to pick it up and the app tells me exactly when to do it). I use my Echo's (6 of them) for playing music all the time...and sometimes everywhere at once. I also have Apple Airplay in most of those rooms but, surprisingly, I have found Echo to be more dependable at playing the music in perfect sync (no latency) and with no dropouts than my various Airplay nodes. I have no problem with AppleTV (3 of them)...but simply broadcasting music to a stereo system in the living room or bedroom is fraught with frequent dropouts (and since the same thing does not happen with AppleTV, it's hard to figure out the root cause). The easiest way to call music is by album name or playlist name...but I have 2,500 albums on My Music, so obviously I can't remember all those names. In some cases I've retooled the album name to make it easier to remember and easier for Alexa to recognize. So, for me, reordering (either Amazon or Dominos) has been 100% successful and music retrieval by voice command...perhaps only 85% successful. But sometimes I'll just lie in the dark and give Alexa song commands and do a list of 20 0r 30 songs on the fly...which is amusing at times. Like "techfreshness" (our reviewer) I find home automation to be VERY useful. I have 9 WeMo switches which were 100% dependable for months, then I changed WiFi routers and have had problems ever since. I have a Nest thermostat...very cool. I also have a NEXX garage door accessory which makes almost any opener into an Internet responsive opener. So Echo has been the main impetus to moving into home automation. The new ability to talk to it with serial commands without using the wake word many times in succession is very cool, indeed. I get all the relevant lights turned on before leaving my media room at night. I use "Thank you", "Good Morning", and "Good Night" and it gives the very brief illusion of having someone else in the house. Echo is embedded in my life and daily behavior.
hey james, thanks for the comment. i like how you are using yours so heavily. i'm wondering with the release of airplay 2 if you got any improvement on the broadcasting music side. you are right about the ordering, i guess the key is really the reorders, because i've started using that more often myself. and definitely home automation can be very finnicky for sure, its not for easily frustrated at times. i may have to go ahead and take the time to setup dominos haha. but what i dont' like are things where you have to tell alexa to 'tell X' do to something for you, but if you are willing to meet it halfway like you say, you empower it a whole lot more. take care man!
Airplay 2 (which is mostly to help Homepod do it's thing) has not improved the reliability or latency issues of my setup. Of course, there are many benefits to Airplay that work fine and all of my AppleTV's perform pretty much flawlessly (I've had ATV since version 1.0 in 2007...when Steve called it a "hobby.") My problem is distributing music directly from iTunes to my living room and bedroom from my Den where the MacMini resides. One problem is that Apple does not offer an audio interface (like ATV for audio only); the problems I never have on ATV happen 60 or 70% of the time when going directly from iTunes to outlying speakers. So I used an Audiocast "node" for the living room and the bedroom speaker receives Airplay directly. The problems are two-fold. Either the music quits on one of them for seconds at a time (swiss cheese music) or the three aren't in sync. The Audiocast is not as "robust" as an Apple solution would be (on evidence of my success with ATV). Another "node" I have is a Yamaha receiver in the basement for my home theater...when I broadcast to that device (which receives Airplay directly) it is as robust as ATV. So the real problem, I think, is that Apple does not provide an audio solution for existing audio...thus forcing you to invest in Homepod...they think!! But they are too late to that game. I have six Echo units and have been running Airplay as long as it has existed. Oh, and it's not my router. I have a new MESH system that covers the house very well. Previously, a combination of Airport (base station) and Airport Express (with audio jack) worked pretty well...but Apple is getting out of the router business and my Airport base station recently croaked. So, again, Apple is not offering an audio interface for existing systems. That's the problem. Period!!
we'll put you down as undecided haha
Thanks... Being a beginner, learned a lot about this remote things !!!
awesome, always glad to help
Great video. Thank you for making it :)
thanks for sharing .. im just abt to buy one today ..
great review - cheers
Thank you, Best review I have seen for echo. You have saved me money. The technology has not been attained if I can get the same results by simply reaching over and switching on a light ( 1 sec later) or asking my phone what the weather is today (5 seconds later).
true that, there is delay to consider. overall net though i think its beneficial, especially for when phone not around and sometimes, 'reaching over' means getting up off the couch! ha
Nicely done!
Thanks for the review, reminded me to look into ITTT; seems like it might be useful.
Just to stress, it does more than just tell you “how many appointments” but also what they are as stated in the subject line. It’s part of my morning routine; along with weather, news brief, and keeping track of time while getting ready for work.
However, what I actually bought it for was to run my Sirius XM account without needing an antenna based receiver (or purchasing another since it works off the internet linked to the radio’s subscription) or stringing speakers into interior rooms.
The voice command home automation is invaluable for the disabled; I have a friend that this really helped. Otherwise it is somewhat questionable since setting up timed on/off commands is not directly supported. I have one hard to reach device so I did buy a connected plug for it, however I typically control it with the smartphone app and not the Echo.
great review.
Great video. That black shirt you're wearing in the studio is sooooo good btw lol
ha oh you mean the hoodie? funny you say that, others have asked where i got it...target!
This is a great video. Very nice.
Thank you for a great video!
Great review
just ordered 5 of them (dots) and I do have already entire house on zwave controller, thank you for explaining all that in normal human language :-)
I lost it when you made that joke about the commercial LOL
haha! that commercial is so annoying to me, girl so clueless about her day
This video triggered my first purchase of an echo... thanks!
Regarding your being very concerned about disturbing someone you were “sleeping with”, I use my 3rd generation dot in “whisper” mode. It is really neat, really useful for parents who put one in a child’s bedroom. Love your home, the bed looked really inviting! Thanks for a gr8 video. Bye from the U.K.. 🌈😊
oooh very nice, i did not know about that whisper mode, thanks for the comment on it! thanks for watching from across le pond!
Great review!!!!!!
Nice practical review. Even Though i didn't learn anything new, I appreciate the clarity of what is practical or not. However, I dont think you give enough credit to the music capabilities. Maybe because i have Prime, it works better than some. The ability to say "Alexa play genre/song/etc" is super simple. And the ability to to say "play everywhere" and change volume multiple ways ( "set volume to 5", or "louder", or "volume up" ), and to say "next", "fast forward", "rewind," etc. could arguably be as useful as turning the lights on and off.
yeah man i don't disagree at all. i guess i didnt' talk about it much only because i don't use it personally for music (because I don't usually listen to music in just one room or on little speakers, although i do know you can hook it up to them, but it brings up other issues) but yeah the accessibility is awesome and simple
i feel like im just gonna use that for music player, lights switch and alarm clock lol
I'm new to this. How do you set it up for alarm, messages, and lights etc.
Excellent, realistic review. Most others play like ads. Thanks for this.
awesome, you are very welcome
Thanks for the informative video.i just want to play commercial free music in house,shops. I'm glad I watched this video. Very professional, informative and logical,good job
great great, ahnks!
Why do people even bother disliking a video like this? Like seriously? Thanks for the video. I wish I had enough money to have several of these in my house