Amazon Echo Club

[copyrite]

There's a post here that mentions getting $5 off a reorder of an item when you use Alexa Voice Shopping. Make sure to read the fine print (gotta have Prime is one of the requirements)!

Both my Echo and Dot made the switch over to DST by 9:30am when I queried each for the time this morning. Interestingly, I asked the Echo in my study first, then walked over to my living room and asked the Dot. I had never asked both a question within a minute of each other, so I was somewhat surprised to learn that the Dot has a MUCH easier voice to hear. Both are set at about the same volume. The Echo is more muddled sounding. The Dot is crisp as far as voice sounds. I guess the Echo is designed more for music and the Dot more for asking questions and voice responses. I have noticed in the past that I often have to strain to understand Alexa on my Echo though, so perhaps something is not quite right with her speakers. My iPad Pro actually sounds better playing music at low to mid volume than my Echo, and iPads are not known for good speakers.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

My Dot's made the switch over without a hitch.

I googled and I wasn't alone. A suggested fix that worked for me was changing the time zone from America - EST to US - EST.

[bshar489]

Originally Posted by issybird

Set an alarm on my Dot so I wouldn't oversleep, but the Dot's still in standard time. The Echo, however, updated. Where's a town crier when you need one?

I had the same problem and here's how I solved it:

In the Echo and Echo Dot settings where the time settings are located I saw the location said "America". For some reason I decided to look at the rest of the list and I saw a "US" I switched the location setting from "America" to "US". The problem was immediately solved. Perhaps the "America" setting is for those locations that don't switch to Daylight Savings Time? So try checking the Dot's time setting and see if it's set to "America". If the Echo is set to US that would explain why it updated and Dot didn't

Hopefully this will work for you too

Bergette

[bshar489]

Originally Posted by issybird

I googled and I wasn't alone. A suggested fix that worked for me was changing the time zone from America - EST to US - EST.

OOps. My reply came a little too late

Bergette

[issybird]

Originally Posted by bshar489

OOps. My reply came a little too late

Bergette

Thanks, Bergette! We were typing simultaneously. Let's hope the fix works for anyone else with the problem - and that nothing vital was overslept because of the glitch.

[bshar489]

When I first noticed the problem I sent an inquiry through Alexa's feedback and just got a reply. Gave me a chuckle:

Hello,

"Greetings from Alexa customer Support!

I apologize for the difficulty you are experiencing with the time shown on your device.

Please be informed that we have already identified this issue by our technical team and they're working on taking care of it. I've also added your comments to the work log.

I request you to please wait for 1-2 business days so that our developers can fix this issue.

Till then, I request you to please extend your patience while we are working on it."


1-2 business days? I sent a reply back thanking them for letting me know it would take 1-2 business days but if they wanted to solve it in 1-2 minutes tell anybody who asks to change the location from "America" to "US" in the settings and I would be happy to consult with their developers further if they have any questions

Bergette

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by issybird

I googled and I wasn't alone. A suggested fix that worked for me was changing the time zone from America - EST to US - EST.

Interesting - I checked my settings and they were set for America. Consistency strikes again

[issybird]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Interesting - I checked my settings and they were set for America. Consistency strikes again

Yeah, any change may have jiggered the correction. But why downstairs Alexa was out of sync with upstairs Alexa is beyond me.

Originally Posted by issybird

Yeah, any change may have jiggered the correction. But why downstairs Alexa was out of sync with upstairs Alexa is beyond me.

That would be my guess--making a change caused the Dot to phone home to get the latest information off of the servers. I've noticed that when FW updates are released, my Echo usually updates days before the Dot. So maybe Dots are farther down the list of devices as far as when they get updates pushed to them. Even doing the trick where I put my Dot into update mode doesn't seem to make it download FW updates. I still have to wait until Amazon is ready to update it.

[Conan46]

Just ordered my 2nd Alexa device. I don't have Prime so I pretty much hate to order anything from Amazon anymore as free shipping takes about 10 days to get here. I wanted a Dot to go with my Tap, and Amazon is out again except for white Dots. Luckily I found that Best Buy not only has black Dots but also free 2 day shipping. Just thought I'd mention Best Buy in case someone wants a black Dot.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Conan46

Just ordered my 2nd Alexa device. I don't have Prime so I pretty much hate to order anything from Amazon anymore as free shipping takes about 10 days to get here. I wanted a Dot to go with my Tap, and Amazon is out again except for white Dots. Luckily I found that Best Buy not only has black Dots but also free 2 day shipping. Just thought I'd mention Best Buy in case someone wants a black Dot.

Dots are cool. I have 4 of them. They make fantastic clock-radios for the bedroom.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Dots are cool. I have 4 of them. They make fantastic clock-radios for the bedroom.

I'm not sure how you define clock-radio. I don't see a way to get the alarm to play music. But I did set an alarm to play Alec Baldwin, then tested it, and it's pretty amusing.

Alexa is having occasional difficulty with one of the skills I use. I have a TP-Link multi-colored LED lightbulb that is controlled by their TP-Link Kasa skill. Periodically it simply quits working through the Alexa skill, though it still works fine through their app on my iThingies. I went to turn off the light last night and Alexa said the device was not responding. It turned right off with the app though. It is strange that the skill would periodically quit working for a brief time (usually just a few hours). I think perhaps TP-Link is updating the skill or Amazon's Bezos Bozos are messing up the FW for Alexa when they push out updates. I know TP-Link has sent a few emails explaining that there was an issue and then another after it is fixed, so it is probably on their end. BTW, they never did manage to get all the functionality into the Alexa skill, so TP-Link definitely has some programming issues on their end. Frustrating.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by booklover6

I'm not sure how you define clock-radio. I don't see a way to get the alarm to play music. But I did set an alarm to play Alec Baldwin, then tested it, and it's pretty amusing.

I assumed that it did. It's a feature I'd never use because music never woke me up. I always used alarms. Anyway, wake-to-music works with a workaround if you have Spotify Premium.

Alexa tip: Wake up to any song on Spotify

Alexa makes a great alarm clock that you can snooze or silence with your voice. By default, however, you cannot play music as an alarm. Using this workaround, you can play any song from Spotify as an alarm on the Amazon Dot, Echo or Tap.