Amazon Echo Club

[OtinG]

Here is just a quick summary of what the Cube can and cannot do via voice control. The complete document provided by Amazon is on this web page.

Fire TV Cube Voice Control Capability

	            TVs     Sound Bars     Cable/Sat Boxes     A/V Receivers
Power	            Yes     Yes            Yes                 Yes
Volume	            Yes     Yes *          No                  Yes *
Input Switching	    Yes     Yes            No                  Yes
Channel Switching   No      No             Yes                 No

* Cube can control the volume on a sound bar or an A/V receiver, but not on both.

Cube is Incompatible with these Device Types

• HDMI switches/hubs
• universal remotes like Logitech Harmony
• projectors

Some of the TV Brands Supported

• Samsung
• VIZIO
• LG
• Element
• Sony
• TCL
• Sanyo
• Hisense
• Sharp
• Toshiba
• RCA

Some of the Sound Bar Brands Supported

• VIZIO
• Samsung
• LG
• Sony
• Bose
• RCA
• Sonos
• Yamaha
• Nakamichi
• Polk
• iLive
• JBL

Some of the A/V Receiver Brands Supported

• Yamaha
• Sony
• Denon
• Onkyo
• Pioneer
• Pyle
• Marantz
• Sherwood
• Audio Source
• Harman Kardon
• Russound
• Bose

Currently Supported Cable and Satellite Boxes

• DIRECTV
• DISH
• Comcast
• Spectrum
• Verizon
• Cox
• Altice
• Frontier

ETA: BTW, I just cancelled my pre-order. There are just too many unanswered questions. I will wait until it is released and people actually get a hands on with the Cube.

[Tarana]

Free through June via Alexa - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland from Audible."
Narrated by actress Scarlett Johansson

They had this one pared with another audiobook early last year, so if you missed it, you can listen again.

[OtinG]

Amazon has the Echo Show on sale for $149. According to the price tracking site Monkey linked to a few posts back, that is the lowest price it has been offered for. Not my cup of tea, but others might be interested in it.

It seems like Amazon has been offering a lot of sales on the various Alexa devices here lately. It makes me wonder what is up, if anything. Might just be business as usual, or perhaps sales of these devices is slowing, or maybe it is a sign of updated models coming soon.

[CRussel]

Well, the Show has been a flop (can't _imagine_ why), but the rest are mostly doing quite well. I figure new models of some key ones by the fall.

[OtinG]

The Show's fixed viewing angle is often criticized, and I must admit that is a rather odd design. It reminds me of the old style of CRT TVs that had only one viewing angle due to their size and weight. Plus they were designed for the whole family to sit around them and watch TV. But in today's market which is geared toward people 30-50 years younger than old farts like me, consumers are used to being able to tilt and pan their devices. Most people probably spend more time with a smartphone or tablet than they do with TVs, video players, and even laptop/desktop computers, and they are used to holding the device in a comfortable viewing position.

Another issue is the lack of Youtube. I think Youtube still isn't available on the Show due to a dispute with Amazon, if so that is a major source of video. Youtube is probably THE major source of video on many, if not most, devices today. So no Youtube really has to hurt sales, I think. Amazon Prime Video is okay, but your family and friends are not posting videos to Amazon Video like they do with Youtube. And the Show was designed to watch shorter videos rather than entire movies, so Youtube has more of that kind of video.

I also think Amazon shanked the video calling feature by limiting it way too much. Besides, they were too late to the game as Apple has had Facetime and Android likely has had their version for years. I know that I have very few family or friends who would be able to use the video calling via Amazon, and likely none that care too. So perhaps a cool feature, but not many people to use it with.

[Tarana]

Has anybody else had problems with Audible streaming on their Echo recently? This is the third time in a week that Alexa tells me that 'something is wrong' and I can't get my current audiobook to play. Even tried switching to my brother's account - music plays fine, Audible nada. At least I could switch to my Nano and listen to the other audiobook.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by Tarana

Has anybody else had problems with Audible streaming on their Echo recently? This is the third time in a week that Alexa tells me that 'something is wrong' and I can't get my current audiobook to play. Even tried switching to my brother's account - music plays fine, Audible nada. At least I could switch to my Nano and listen to the other audiobook.

I don't use Audible, but I have had a lot of issues with smart device control in the past week or so. I get a message from Alexa saying the device is not connected. I open the app on my iPhone for the devices and they are connected and the app can control them without issue. I open the Alexa app and it shows the devices connected too. After a bit of time Alexa via my Dot/Taps is able to control the devices again. I've also had several issues with Alexa giving me the Red light when I ask her questions or give her commands then she says SHE is not connected to WiFi. But she is. These issues are occurring with all three of my Alexa devices, so I think there must be a Server issue on Amazon's end.

BTW, a whole bunch of these issues occurring over the past few days convinced me to cancel my order for the new Fire TV Cube. I was on the fence already, these issues reminded me of just how often Alexa piddles on herself and fails to complete her requests. I decided I really didn't want to argue with her about TV channels and what not.

[andyh2000]

Originally Posted by OtinG

...

BTW, a whole bunch of these issues occurring over the past few days convinced me to cancel my order for the new Fire TV Cube. I was on the fence already, these issues reminded me of just how often Alexa piddles on herself and fails to complete her requests. I decided I really didn't want to argue with her about TV channels and what not.

Yeah, that's the thing about home automation. You really need for it to just work. It's fine enjoying fiddling with technology for the fun of it but when you just want to turn on a light or change the TV channel it had better work first time every time.

Andrew

[ApK]

Originally Posted by andyh2000

Yeah, that's the thing about home automation. You really need for it to just work. It's fine enjoying fiddling with technology for the fun of it but when you just want to turn on a light or change the TV channel it had better work first time every time.

Andrew

Indeed. And with this voice controlled, cloud-based stuff, we're still in the early adopter stage. If I tell Alexa to turn on the bathroom light, and she doesn't, I'll just flip the switch and override her. If I actually depended on the light coming on every time I asked, she and I would have a real problem....

[OtinG]

Totally agree! Voice command and so-called AI can be fun and convenient to use for home automation. When it works that is. But cloud dependence is a major failing point. As they say, epic engineering failures tend to happen at the weakest point, and the cloud is definitely the weakest point. I shutter to think about surgery performed over the cloud. Yep, they do that sometimes!

I also shutter to think about all the self-crash cars on the roadways that are controlled by AI written by not-so-intelligent humans. I think people are too willing to believe the Hollywood version of AI being almost infallible, but in reality we cannot engineer something smarter than ourselves, nor can we keep our flaws out of the design. And we have all seen our fellow human beings driving--imagine a busy commute filled with cars driven by AI that is dumber than we are!

[ApK]

Originally Posted by OtinG

but in reality we cannot engineer something smarter than ourselves

We'll, that's a philosophical debates over the meaning of 'smart.'. Obviously we can engineer stuff that that does certain things way better and more reliably than ourselves--calculate, make precise movements, recall data, etc. It remains to be seen if 'driving a car safely in real world conditions' is one of those things or not.
But at this moment in time, I'd say not.

As for the kind of 'smart' you probably mean, it's nice that novelists and screenwriters and futurists are bringing up the question. It's sad so many people think that novelists and screenwriters and futurists already know the answers.

We should take a poll:. How many survivalist preppers are prepping for a zombie apocalypse, and how many are prepping for a post-singularity apocalypse.

ApK

[Conan46]

There is no redundancy built in, so any point of failure is complete failure. One exception, since I have two sources for radio: iHeart and Pandora, if iHeart is down she will play Pandora. There needs to be other redundant systems built into Alexa. I shudder to think of handicapped people depending upon her to turn on the lights or do simple but important tasks for them and her failure rate.

[Tarana]

Ok, thanks. Yes, I'm still trying to get ONE LAMP to turn on via Alexa but it never seems to see it. I put it away because I was just frustrated with it. Maybe I'll try again. I used to use the Clapper for that lamp, but it eventually wore out.

[Catlady]

I still haven't taken my recently purchased smart plug out the box. It just seems like such a hassle, and I'm not even sure what I want to connect to it. I think I'm firmly rooted in the 20th century, not the 21st.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I still haven't taken my recently purchased smart plug out the box. It just seems like such a hassle, and I'm not even sure what I want to connect to it. I think I'm firmly rooted in the 20th century, not the 21st.

I took it out of the box, configured it, updated it....and put it on a shelf cuz I don't know what I want it for either.

But, hey, $10.