Amazon Echo Club

[Yolina]

After much dithering (as I'm not sure whether I'm going to stay in the UK...), I pre-ordered an Echo at the £99 Prime special price a couple of days ago and also a Dot. I have Hue lights so that should play nicely together and will be quite handy.

I'll put the Echo in my bedroom which I like to keep uncluttered so the all-in-one thing is quite appealing. The Dot will go in the living room and since I have decent audio separates, I'll connect it to the amp.

Is the remote worth getting? I'm not actually sure what the point of it is, other than making you spend £20...

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by Yolina

Is the remote worth getting? I'm not actually sure what the point of it is, other than making you spend £20...

It depends on you. My husband loves the remote. Push the button and talk into it. I use the remote to change the volume, skip, or stop. I normally just use the voice for everything. I would be perfectly fine without the remote.

[Yolina]

Ok, so I think I won't bother with the remote for now then I can always get one later if I feel I really could do with it

You can also use the Alexa app on Android or iOS as a remote, and it is free. I use the Alexa app on my Fire HD 6 to display the album cover artwork and song info for whatever is currently playing. It also lets you control volume, pause playback, skip songs, etc. You might try it first to see if having a remote is worth the money.

[DreamWriter]

I ordered a black Dot, which I'll pair with my portable Creative Sound Blaster Roar speaker. I already have an Echo and a Tap, and I'm very happy with both.

I'm tempted to get a TP-LINK Smart Plug with it since the bundle is discounted right now, but I can't think of a practical use for it.

Originally Posted by Yolina

Is the remote worth getting?

I use a remote with my Echo all the time, especially when I don't want to disturb others nearby by speaking loudly. I'd love to get one for my new Dot, but $30 seems overpriced to me, so I'll use the Alexa app on Fire HD 6 for now.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Yolina

Is the remote worth getting? I'm not actually sure what the point of it is, other than making you spend £20...

It was for me. I bought two Echos on different dates (Nov 2014 & Nov 2015). The first one included the remote and the second one didn't. The second Echo was gifted to my son, along with the remote from the first Echo. After giving him the remote, I found that I really missed having it. So when it went on sale last Prime Day (Jul 2016), I bought one.

I find it quite handy for skipping songs instead of constantly yelling at Alexa to do so. Repeating the wake word over and over and over again is quite tedious. It also saves my vocal cords when I'm playing really loud music.

So it boils down to convenience and cost. $30 is too much to pay. I was lucky to get one during Prime Day for $1.20 after discounts, credits, promos, 5% cash back, and taxes.

Black Friday is just around the corner (sales will begin mid-November). So if you're in no hurry, I'd wait to see what kind of offers Amazon has in store. Since they're really pushing for people to get multiple Dots, then it stands to reason that many of those people will want multiple remotes.

[Yolina]

Originally Posted by jswinden

You can also use the Alexa app on Android or iOS as a remote

I didn't know that, thanks - so definitely no remote going in my shopping basket for the time being.

Originally Posted by DreamWriter

I use a remote with my Echo all the time, especially when I don't want to disturb others nearby by speaking loudly.

There's me and the cat, I don't think the cat cares too much but I'll see once I have the gizmos.

Maybe the remote will show up during black Friday or other Xmas deals. I doubt the Echo itself will be in it, what with it just launching in the UK at the end of the month, or if it does I can't see it being lower than the £99 Prime members deal they were doing a few days ago.

[Yolina]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

$30 is too much to pay.

There's something strange with their pricing... the Dot is £50/$50 but the remote is £20/$30

Originally Posted by Yolina

I didn't know that, thanks - so definitely no remote going in my shopping basket for the time being.



There's me and the cat, I don't think the cat cares too much but I'll see once I have the gizmos.

Maybe the remote will show up during black Friday or other Xmas deals. I doubt the Echo itself will be in it, what with it just launching in the UK at the end of the month, or if it does I can't see it being lower than the £99 Prime members deal they were doing a few days ago.

Here is a screen capture from my iPhone 6 Plus running Alexa. It looks about the same on my Fire HD 6.

[Tarana]

I have used the remote a few times. Works well in a noisy environment OR, as in the case of a family member, when you can't be understood well (he had a stroke a couple of years ago and doesn't annunciate well). If you have a relatively quiet environment, I wouldn't waste the $$ for a remote. However, if your echo is a good distance away from your seating area, then it's probably worth the money.

[Josieb1]

I've read that Alexa can read Kindke ebooks via text to speech but does anyone know if she can read personal documents (I.e non Amazon ebooks) I have about 500 in my Amazon cloud. I know the tablets can but I don't know about the Echo or Dot. I've tried hunting Google but I'm not seeing anything so I suspect it's no.

Originally Posted by Josieb1

I've read that Alexa can read Kindke ebooks via text to speech but does anyone know if she can read personal documents (I.e non Amazon ebooks) I have about 500 in my Amazon cloud. I know the tablets can but I don't know about the Echo or Dot. I've tried hunting Google but I'm not seeing anything so I suspect it's no.

Although I've never used this feature on the Echo or in the Alexa app, I went into my Alexa app on my iPhone and looked at the list of my books that are supported as well as the list that are not supported. The app can view your Kindle books lists. I see no personal documents in either the supported are not supported lists. I see only Kindle books. So my guess is that Alexa cannot read documents, which in my case equals deDRMed and modified Kindle purchased books as well as personal documents I converted to Kindle format. The Alexa app cannot see them, so it cannot read them as far as I can tell.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Although I've never used this feature on the Echo or in the Alexa app, I went into my Alexa app on my iPhone and looked at the list of my books that are supported as well as the list that are not supported. The app can view your Kindle books lists. I see no personal documents in either the supported are not supported lists. I see only Kindle books. So my guess is that Alexa cannot read documents, which in my case equals deDRMed and modified Kindle purchased books as well as personal documents I converted to Kindle format. The Alexa app cannot see them, so it cannot read them as far as I can tell.

Thanks very much I did suspect that based on a screen shot of the app earlier in the thread.

Originally Posted by Josieb1

Thanks very much I did suspect that based on a screen shot of the app earlier in the thread.

And it seems to be rather picky about which Kindle books qualify. I'm just guessing as my list of Kindle books is really long, but it looks like about 15% to 20% of them cannot be read with Alexa on Echo. I'm not sure at all what qualifies any given book or disqualifies another book.

ETA: My guess is that the book's publisher has to have the Text to Speech feature enabled for Alexa to be eligible to read it.

[wodin]

My Nucleus Video intercom two pack arrived Friday, and I (of course) set them up immediately. Setup on the first one went smoothly, but when I set up the second one it reported "Error connecting to WiFi" and hung there. Luckily I have a POE network switch that I use with my video surveillance cameras, so I plugged in to that and it connected, updated the firmware, and when I unplugged the switch, connected to WiFi OK.

I can report that it answers to the "Alexa" trigger word, but it's not as sensitive as the Echo or Dot. You have to really yell at it to get it's attention.

Audio is horrible, it's loud enough but it sounds like a 1960's transistor radio.

After 10 or 15 minutes it goes into some kind of power saving mode; the screen goes dim and when accessed from the other unit or the mobile app it reports "Off line" and it problematic if it can be wakened or not.

Bottom line, these things are not ready for prime time, in fact they're not even ready for beta, and they cost WAY too much for what you get. Hardware wise they offer nothing that an inexpensive tablet or cellphone has, and could be better implemented as an app with a service which could be monetized with a small reoccurring fee.

Unless major improvements are made, and quickly don't buy these!

UPDATE:
Within an hour of posting the above review on Amazon, I received an email from Alex Rainert, who is the VP of Product at Nucleus as follows

Originally Posted by Alex Rainert

Hi Wodin,

Alex from Nucleus here again.

This afternoon I noticed on Amazon that you've had a frustrating experience with Nucleus so first off I want to say that I'm sorry that we haven't met your expectations. Everyone on our team knows how important reliable family communication is and if we're falling short for you this badly, I'd love to get to the bottom of it.

I was hoping you'd be willing to hop on the phone to talk me through your frustrations and I can give you some insight into fixes I know are going out shortly and I can better understand whether you're having an issue support should look into.

As I mentioned in my first email, our team is feverishly working on getting this core experience stable and delightful for our core users. We've pushed out a handful of big updates since launch and there are more on the way.

So if you're up for it, let me know if you're up for it and some times that work for you and we can go from there.

Thanks so much,

alex