Amazon Echo Club

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Sage words.

Originally Posted by CRussel

OK, guys, it's thyme to return to our topic.

Oldies, but goodies

[tubemonkey]

Is anyone using the Echo Flex? I was thinking about getting one for the master bathroom for news/weather/traffic. With a 0.6 inch speaker, music is out. What I'm wondering is how is it for voice?

Thanks

[tubemonkey]

Hey Google, repeat that

[tubemonkey]

Y'all enjoy now. Ya hear?

[mlewis78]

[John F]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Hey Google, repeat that

This was actually quite useful.

I've been wanting to open apps from routines, and with two Alexa devices, I can now do this (my son was laughing like crazy when I showed him what I needed to do to get it to work).

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Hey Google, repeat that

LOL! As the Sheldon Cooper character on The Big Bang Theory would say, "What fresh hell is this?" Our worst nightmare might be when Alexa, Google, Siri, and any other system all start talking together and plotting enough mischief to drive us nuts!

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Y'all enjoy now. Ya hear?

"Alexa, set a reminder to check the washer at 11am?"
"Okay hun, I’m a fixin' to set that reminder for ya right now."

"Alexa, what is the stock market value today?"
Oh my, it isn't worth a hill of beans today!"

"Alexa, is [famous actor] still alive?"
"Oh goodness no, he's deader than a door nail hun, he died back yonder in [year]!"

Disclaimer: Before sending any hate mail, be aware that I’m a 5th generation Texan from the Austin area. So I grew up in the 1960s with a lot of these phrases being used by my parent's generation. Think Gov. Ann Richards and the way she talked. Not exactly a southern accent, but more of a down home Texas draw. I still get a smile remembering all those phrases my Mom used to say.

[tubemonkey]

Amazon’s new Alexa partnership lets you link your AT&T number to turn your Echo into a phone

Amazon is rolling out a new partnership with AT&T today that will let customers link their phone numbers to their Alexa account, allowing them to both make and receive phone calls via their Alexa devices.

It’s an expansion of Amazon’s existing Alexa calling feature, which the company debuted in 2017, that allowed Echo devices to call mobile numbers and landlines for free. The difference here is that Amazon is working much more closely with AT&T, giving customers the opportunity to use their Echo devices in the same way they’d use their regular AT&T phones.

Amazon has previously rolled out this feature overseas: Vodafone OneNumber customers in the UK and Germany and EE customers in the UK have already been able to take advantage of linking their mobile phone accounts. But today’s announcement marks the debut of the feature in the United States.

[cc_in_oh]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Oldies, but goodies

I've been trying to think up a new vegetable pun but so far my efforts have been fruitless...

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by cc_in_oh

I've been trying to think up a new vegetable pun but so far my efforts have been fruitless...

If you guys keep doing this, I'm gonna go bananas

[mlewis78]

The new AT&T feature with Alexa is not going to get me to move my phone service to AT&T.

[tubemonkey]

Introducing: Alexa Print

Alexa just made printing a whole lot easier. Now you can print documents using only your voice and compatible Echo devices. The best part? Chances are, it works with the printer you already have. Just say, “Alexa, discover my printer” to get started.

Print your to-do-list to get the most out of your day. Grab a last-minute shopping list or recipe before you run to the store. And, keep the whole family entertained with crossword puzzles and coloring pages.

Running low on ink or toner? We’ll send you an email to let you know—or, easier yet, you can sign up for smart reorders during setup to take one more task off your plate. Plus, you’ll save 10% on all ink or toner reorders.

Once you’re all set up, here are some fun things to try:

“Alexa, print my shopping list.”
“Alexa, print a crossword.”
“Alexa, print a coloring page.”
“Alexa, print an addition worksheet.”
“Alexa, print a salmon recipe.”
“Alexa, print a Sudoku puzzle.”
“Alexa, print lined paper.”

Learn more about this feature here

[tubemonkey]

Amazon details its low-bandwidth Sidewalk neighborhood network, coming to Echo and Tile devices soon

Last year, Amazon announced its Sidewalk network, a new low-bandwidth, long-distance wireless protocol it developed to help connect smart devices inside and — maybe even more importantly — outside of your home. Sidewalk, which is somewhat akin to a mesh network that, with the right amount of access points, could easily cover a whole neighborhood, is now getting closer to launch.

As Amazon announced today, compatible Echo devices will become Bluetooth bridges for the Sidewalk network later this year, and select Ring Floodlight and Spotlight Cams will also be part of the network. Because these are low-bandwidth connections, Amazon expects that users won’t mind sharing a small fraction of their bandwidth with their neighbors.

In addition, the company also announced that Tile will be the first third-party Sidewalk device to use the network when it launches its compatible tracker in the near future.

more...

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Amazon details its low-bandwidth Sidewalk neighborhood network, coming to Echo and Tile devices soon

Growing up in the 1960s in a small, mostly rural town of about 3000 people, everyone new each other and got along pretty well. Today, not so much, at least in bigger cities. It seems like most people barely recognize their neighbors these days, rarely if ever communicate with them, and likely would not be able to coordinate a "neighborhood wide" agreement on anything. Seems to me this technology will do little more than add way more radio frequency noise to an already over-congested amount of RF noise we encounter today in populated areas. Adding more RF noise just adds more RF interference to all of our devices which use RF, and we have a ship load of devices that use RF. Crap, even the toasters can talk to us now! So this is one device from Amazon which I hope fails to sell.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Introducing: Alexa Print

The problem I encounter with printers is that I so rarely use them that the ink dries up between uses, and/or clogs up the ink ports. I got so tired of buying new ink cartridges for $45, printing three pages, then not using the darn printer for a few weeks or even months, then finally trying to print a few pages just to find that the ink cartridges have become useless. Paying $45 to print a handful of pages just isn't cost effective. So for someone like me who rarely uses a printer these days, this is a useless feature.

Five years ago when I bought my house, all the paperwork was done, and exchanged, electronically, including signatures. There was no need for a printer on my part. And as anyone who has ever bought a house knows, it requires a ton of paperwork. The title company of course had to have one so they could print out the gillion and one pages I had to sign at the closing, but I never printed a thing.

I rarely find that I need to print out anything these days, hence the reason the ink dries up way before I get much use from the cartridges. For me a better feature would be to ask Alexa to have Amazon print out a document and ship it to me, preferably same or next day delivery. Currently I just find a friend with a printer and go that route, or find a Kinkos. I would rather pay a few dollars to Amazon to get a few pages printed once every few months (at most) than to pay Office Depot $45 for new printer cartridges that will get used once or twice then dry up and or plug the ink ports.