Amazon Echo Club

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by booklover6

A friend of mine bought 2 to give to her grown sons for Christmas. She'd like one for herself. The Echo is apparently one of the hottest things right now. Unavailable til January 18.

And isn't it curious that they aren't selling the Echo remote at all right now? I wonder why that is. We love the remote. They really should still be selling it.

I took advantage of that $75 offer and gave one to my youngest son for an early Christmas present and he's loving it; without the remote too. I use the remote more than I thought I would.

[tubemonkey]

*** New Feature ***

Listen to The Beatles in Prime Music

The Beatles! That's right: The Fab Four are now in Prime Music. Stream select tracks from the Liverpool, England quartet's unrivaled, solid-gold catalog, from "Yesterday" to "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," "A Hard Day's Night" to "Let It Be" and beyond. To hear songs and albums by The Beatles, just ask:

• "Alexa, play The Beatles."
• "Alexa, play 'Yesterday' by The Beatles."
• "Alexa, play 'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds' by The Beatles."
• "Alexa, play the '50 Great Beatles Songs' playlist in Prime Music."

The Beatles on Prime

Of the 12 official studio albums (British versions), Prime has 9 of them plus 1 US release (Magical Mystery Tour). Missing are With the Beatles, Beatles for Sale, and Yellow Submarine. Missing is not good. Hope they get them soon.

[bshar489]

My wonderful hubby got it for me I am overwhelmed and hardly know where to begin. I will be going back through this thread and trying to pick up tips and advice, I know there have been upgrades since the beginning though. A breeze to hook up. This is my fantasy gift and in case nobody can tell, I'm super excited So if anybody has any advice, tips, tricks, best place to start learning about it, etc. it will be much appreciated.

Bergette

[DreamWriter]

Welcome to the Echo Club, Bergette! I've been using mine every day for about a year now, and I'm still very impressed.

Here's a good place to start learning about the device's many capabilities: Support for Amazon Echo. Enjoy!

[bshar489]

Originally Posted by DreamWriter

Welcome to the Echo Club, Bergette! I've been using mine every day for about a year now, and I'm still very impressed.

Here's a good place to start learning about the device's many capabilities: Support for Amazon Echo. Enjoy!

Thank you I've been playing with it most of the afternoon. Starting with the basics like my music [it has a great sound imo] weather forecasts, that sort of thing. I tried asking Alexa for a recipe, didn't get anywhere so that's either something she's [I find myself saying "she" rather than "it"] not familiar with or I'm not asking it right

Thanks for the link, looks like it has a lot of information.

Bergette

[Blossom]

She doesn't do recipes. She is a mainly is a music player, alarm/timer and fact finder. She does a few other things like tell the weather, news briefs, plays Audible books. The skills are so buggy. I've yet to get one to work right. She does do math and spelling. She also does limited Sport scores.

She also has a shopping list feature that is nice.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by bshar489

My wonderful hubby got it for me I am overwhelmed and hardly know where to begin. I will be going back through this thread and trying to pick up tips and advice, I know there have been upgrades since the beginning though. A breeze to hook up. This is my fantasy gift and in case nobody can tell, I'm super excited So if anybody has any advice, tips, tricks, best place to start learning about it, etc. it will be much appreciated.

Bergette

Big congrats!

• Amazon Alexa --> home page
• What's New? --> new features; scroll down to see what's been added since the beginning

If you're a Prime member, you have a ton of music available for no additional charge.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by bshar489

...[I find myself saying "she" rather than "it"]

Same here. That way if something goes wrong, I know why

[bshar489]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Big congrats!

• Amazon Alexa --> home page
• What's New? --> new features; scroll down to see what's been added since the beginning

If you're a Prime member, you have a ton of music available for no additional charge.

Thanks for the links My Prime membership is due to expire in a week and I had been on the fence about renewing. I've jumped off the fence and set it up to renew because I'll be listening to more music now, I think.

Bergette

[copyrite]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Big congrats!

What's New? --> new features; scroll down to see what's been added since the beginning

Beatles' playlists!

[bshar489]

Originally Posted by copyrite

Beatles' playlists!

Already discovered them Hubby is beginning to regret his choice of gift after a Beatles marathon

[wodin]

Usually when I ply Susie with tech toys she just says "meh, I'd rather have ...", so I was expecting the same reaction about Alexa. How wrong I was! Being wheelchair bound she LOVES it when she can just tell Alexa to turn off the light instead of having to wheel herself over to the switch. And it's been growing from there, now she uses the alarms, shopping list, music, fact finder, etc. etc.

And Alexa likes her much better than me, where I have to yell at her, turn down the TV and yell again just to get her to listen Susie often turns on the blue light just from normal conversation. I tried voice training both Echos, and still no joy. I've found that pitching my voice slightly higher than I normally speak helps a little, but I still have to yell.

[DreamWriter]

Originally Posted by wodin

Usually when I ply Susie with tech toys she just says "meh, I'd rather have ...", so I was expecting the same reaction about Alexa. How wrong I was! Being wheelchair bound she LOVES it when she can just tell Alexa to turn off the light instead of having to wheel herself over to the switch. And it's been growing from there, now she uses the alarms, shopping list, music, fact finder, etc. etc.

So happy that Echo's worked out so well for you and Susie!

I still use mine every day, most often for music listening and as an alarm/timer, but also for weather info, currency/measurement conversion, and answers to trivia questions.

[bshar489]

I got an email telling about some new features for Echo. The best one for me is the ability to skip forward or back by chapters. I had tried doing it and Alexa told me that it wasn't supported. It is now Also some new skills. A couple I've tried are Jeopardy and Capitols Quiz. Haven't had a chance to do much with the Quiz one, just enough to realize that I've forgotten quite a few. The Jeopardy one is fun, each day there will be 6 "answers" on different topics. Oh yeah, and political jokes. You can ask Alexa to tell you a Republican or Democratic joke. Haven't tried that one yet. There might be more new features, but those are the ones I remember.

Bergette

[tubemonkey]

Read Kindle Books with Alexa

Listening to eBooks from your Kindle library is easy, just ask:

"Alexa, read my Kindle book."
"Alexa, read [Kindle book title]."
"Alexa, skip back."
"Alexa, pause."

To learn more, go to Read Kindle Books with Alexa.

Go to different chapters in an Audiobook

Listening to Audible audiobooks on Alexa just got easier. Now you can ask Alexa to skip back and forth among chapters—perfect for when you're listening while doing other things, like cooking or chores. Don’t have any audiobooks? Get your first one free. Just ask:

"Alexa, read my audiobook."
"Alexa, next chapter."
"Alexa, previous chapter."
"Alexa, go to chapter 3."