Amazon Echo Club

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Catlady

The pricing makes me glad I resisted the QVC $75 original Echo. I'm going to wait for Black Friday, however, in hopes of a sale.



Though the Spot is the one that immediately appealed to me (it's so damn cute!), if I buy one of the devices, I will probably go for the plain old Echo. The Spot screen is so tiny, I wonder if it will be of any real use.



I'm confused by the other new additions, particularly the Plus--but then I don't have any smart home stuff to make it useful.

I was intrigued by the Spot as well. I imagine it would be good for video calls and perhaps viewing remote security/safety cams, but I wonder if its round screen would make it impractical for viewing videos.

[CRussel]

I had the same thoughts for usefulness, Tom. In fact, I'd absolutely love having one here to keep focused on the web cam I use to see if my DW's car is in the driveway or not. Only way I can tell if she's home when I'm in the office which is up on the third floor of the house. And, of course, I could use it for video calls to my one contact with an Echo Show.

[tubemonkey]

Alexa can now control all Sonos speakers

You don’t have to buy the new Sonos One if you want voice control of a Sonos speaker. That’s because Sonos has announced that voice control of their speakers through an Alexa device is now available to everyone as a public beta.

Amazon and Sonos announced a partnership last year to bring Alexa to Sonos’ speakers. Sonos has been working on deep Alexa integration for some time. The capabilities have been available in a limited private beta for several months, but now they’re available to everyone.

[tubemonkey]

Sonos One is an all new smart speaker with Alexa built in

Sonos has announced the Sonos One, a new smart speaker with Amazon Alexa built in. It combines Sonos’ premium sound quality and multi-room audio capabilities with Amazon’s voice assistant.

This new Sonos speaker is essentially the successor to their Play:1. The Sonos One should sound as good, if not better, then the Play:1, which most agree sounds better than the Amazon Echo. Far-field microphones allow it to hear hands-free voice commands and a light bar on top let you know it has heard you.

[wodin]

Amazon's Alexa can recognize the voices of multiple users

To set up your own voice profile, you'll need to go through the Amazon app. You'll go to your account settings and tap Your Voice, then tap on your profile name. If you want to place calls or send messages to your contacts, you'll have to give the app permission to upload those contacts to the Amazon service, and then you'll need to say several phrases out loud. (If you're already set up voice calls and messages, you won't need to do this again.) If you want to add other people to the same device, you'll need to have them sign into their own account via their own Alexa app, or they can choose the "I'm someone else" option on your mobile Alexa app, then train their voice on the device in the same way.

[Catlady]

I want to try Alexa's smart home features. I'd like to start small, with a couple of dimmable light bulbs--I figure buying smart dimmable bulbs will be easier than having a dimmer installed.

These would be for a ceiling light, two 60w equivalent LEDs; color changing would be fun, but mostly I would simply like to be able to tell Alexa to turn the light on and off and dim it sometimes, or change to a certain color. Do two bulbs in one light fixture work independently of each other?

Any recommendations? I suppose at some point I might be looking at smart plugs, so do I need to choose a brand and pretty much stick to it for the sake of convenience? I know nothing, so advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I want to try Alexa's smart home features. I'd like to start small, with a couple of dimmable light bulbs--I figure buying smart dimmable bulbs will be easier than having a dimmer installed.

These would be for a ceiling light, two 60w equivalent LEDs; color changing would be fun, but mostly I would simply like to be able to tell Alexa to turn the light on and off and dim it sometimes, or change to a certain color. Do two bulbs in one light fixture work independently of each other?

Any recommendations? I suppose at some point I might be looking at smart plugs, so do I need to choose a brand and pretty much stick to it for the sake of convenience? I know nothing, so advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Smart bulbs will work independently but can also be grouped like any devices, so you could have "bulb 1" and "bulb 2" in a group called "ceiling light."
I'm not exactly sure how dimming works in a group because you can group any devices, not all of which might be applicable to dimming. I could try it at home later if you like.

The "official" way to dim sets of bulbs would be through shortcuts or scenes and have Alexa execute that.
So on my Wink software, IIUC, I would create a shortcut that dims each of the bulbs to a certain level and name it something like "dim ceiling." Then Alexa will discover that short cut, and I could say "Alexa, turn on dim ceiling" to dim the fixture.

I use a mix of brands...a Wink hub to control the GE smart bulbs, and TP-Link outlet that doesn't use the hub, and once everything is installed and configured, Alexa is pretty agnostic about that. Just means you need more setup apps and enabled skills.

I started with the Wink hub and GE Link for no reason other than a starter set was dirt cheap when i got it. I don't know enough about the field to recommend to others except to say my system does work and I'm happy with what I have, but several of the GE Link bulbs I tried were unreliable, and I would not recommend that brand of smart bulb.

[DiapDealer]

Yes. Each smart lightbulb would work independently, regardless of fixtures. But the Alexa app allows you to easily create groups of smart devices that you can control as one.

I don't feel that a brand commitment is strictly necessary, myself (functionally speaking). But I imagine putting all of one kind of bulb in a fixture would be wise. And depending on the devices' capabilities, voice commands could vary from brand to brand (but not very likely with typical "on/off/dim"-type devices).

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by ApK

Smart bulbs will work independently but can also be grouped like any devices, so you could have "bulb 1" and "bulb 2" in a group called "ceiling light."
I'm not exactly sure how dimming works in a group because you can group any devices, not all of which might be applicable to dimming. I could try it at home later if you like.

The "official" way to dim sets of bulbs would be through shortcuts or scenes and have Alexa execute that.
So on my Wink software, IIUC, I would create a shortcut that dims each of the bulbs to a certain level and name it something like "dim ceiling." Then Alexa will discover that short cut, and I could say "Alexa, turn on dim ceiling" to dim the fixture.

I use a mix of brands...a Wink hub to control the GE smart bulbs, and TP-Link outlet that doesn't use the hub, and once everything is installed and configured, Alexa is pretty agnostic about that. Just means you need more setup apps and enabled skills.

I started with the Wink hub and GE Link for no reason other than a starter set was dirt cheap when i got it. I don't know enough about the field to recommend to others except to say my system does work and I'm happy with what I have, but several of the GE Link bulbs I tried were unreliable, and I would not recommend that brand of smart bulb.

So ... I screw in my two bulbs, and I can potentially set them up as three items: bulb one, bulb two, and ceiling light (both bulbs). And then I instruct Alexa accordingly. Probably I would want them to function as a unit most of the time, not independently so I'm glad I can have them work that way.

I haven't investigated hubs. I keep seeing "no hub required"; I don't know the potential advantage of a hub and it seems like more of a commitment to the technology than I want to make right now.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Yes. Each smart lightbulb would work independently, regardless of fixtures. But the Alexa app allows you to easily create groups of smart devices that you can control as one.

I don't feel that a brand commitment is strictly necessary, myself (functionally speaking). But I imagine putting all of one kind of bulb in a fixture would be wise. And depending on the devices' capabilities, voice commands could vary from brand to brand (but not very likely with typical "on/off/dim"-type devices).

Since Alexa and I often have a rocky relationship, I would probably be better off making a brand commitment, I think.

Thanks!

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I haven't investigated hubs. I keep seeing "no hub required"; I don't know the potential advantage of a hub and it seems like more of a commitment to the technology than I want to make right now.

Thanks!

Here's some extemporaneous musings:

"no hub required" means that the device uses WiFi, so it can connect to your network and be directly controlled by stuff like Alexa or smart phone apps and such.

Hub-connected devices might use Z-Wave or Zigbee (very low power mesh networking systems) or LE Bluetooth and maybe others.

So in theory, having hub allows you to choose a wide variety of devices that could be cheaper/simpler/lower power/easier to distribute through the home/have less WiFi interference.

Plus you manage everything through the hub regardless of who makes the devices or what technology it uses, rather than needing a different management tool for each make of WiFi device.

In practice, however, as more and more Wifi devices become available, and as Wifi performance improves and gets cheaper and more efficient, perhaps the importance of hub system is reduced?
Add the fact that you very well may end up with most Wifi device from a single company, like TP-Link, and the management complexity will probably be not too bad.

That being said, some hubs can be had pretty cheaply and you can resell it all on eBay if you don't like it next year.

[wodin]

I started out with a Wink hub and GE Link bulbs, the Wink failed rather quickly so I dumped it and went to a Samsung SmartThings hub. Then my local Home Depot stopped carrying GE bulbs, so I bought Cree Connected ones instead. I can see very little difference in them.

As ApK said, the GE bulbs tended to be a little unreliable, but recently with firmware upgrades they have improved.

As several people have said, on those fixtures that have multiple bulbs, they are installed and configured independently then grouped under a different name, e.g. my dining room fixture has two bulbs called dine1 and dine2, and there is a group called dinning that includes both. So I can control them individually or both together. I don't use them in dimmer mode, so I don't know if I can dim them as a group or have to dim them individually.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by wodin

As ApK said, the GE bulbs tended to be a little unreliable, but recently with firmware upgrades they have improved.

Your Link bulbs got updates?! Wow. What version are yours on?

[tubemonkey]

Google Home Mini VS Amazon Echo Dot - Who gets your 50 dollars?

[wodin]

Originally Posted by ApK

Your Link bulbs got updates?! Wow. What version are yours on?

Yup, one of the SmartThings hub upgrades enabled the ability to upgrade Zigbee devices. It's transparent so you can't tell when it happens, but since then I have noticed a definite improvement in reliability.

I used to have to reconnect one or two bulbs per month, but now I haven't needed to for a quite a while.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by wodin

Yup, one of the SmartThings hub upgrades enabled the ability to upgrade Zigbee devices. It's transparent so you can't tell when it happens, but since then I have noticed a definite improvement in reliability.

I used to have to reconnect one or two bulbs per month, but now I haven't needed to for a quite a while.

Can you tell me the version of your bulbs? The wink app report all of mine as 0.1b03/0.4b00