Amazon Echo Club

[mlewis78]

I have my fire tv cube paired via bluetooth with my Show5 for the sound.

My cable TV is hooked up to Polk bookshelf speakers through my stereo receiver.

[OtinG]

I asked Alexa to do something yesterday, and of course she got confused, and then she went into one of her long winded journeys into totally unrelated suggestions. I tried several times to get her to stop, but she kept running on. At some point I got so frustrated that I yelled something to the effect of, "Alexa, what the @#$% is wrong with you?" Then I learned that there is apparently a song titled "What the @#$% is wrong with you?" because she proudly stated she was now going to play it, and she did.

From now on I shall call that Alexa's song!

BTW, that was the first time I’ve ever heard Alexa use the F word.

[mlewis78]

Every night before I go to bed I want Alexa to play ocean sounds for white noise while I'm sleeping. There are different ways of getting it, but for a long time I have said "Alexa, play ambient noise." Used to just hear a chime and then "Here is ambient noise. Which sound do you want to listen to?" and I say "ocean" or "ocean waves." Now I have to say "play ocean."

But for the past month or so I have to hear Alexa say "OK, here is ambient noise." then the chime and the rest of the spiel "Here is ambient noise," etc. I don't get why she has to say "here is ambient noise" twice.

[tubemonkey]

Amazon’s Echo Show 15 goes up for preorder, shipping December 9th

Today, Amazon is opening up preorders for its largest Alexa-enabled smart display yet, the Echo Show 15. The $249.99 device has a 15.6-inch 1080p touchscreen that can be oriented in portrait or landscape, and can either be mounted on a wall or placed on a countertop.

Announced in late September, the Echo Show 15 is designed to act as a communal hub for families and show useful information like calendar appointments, reminders, and to-do lists. It shows these in permanent home screen widgets, which are displayed alongside a more typical assortment of news headlines like previous Echo Shows.

• $249.99 -- Echo Show 15 -- pre-order -- ships 09 Dec

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by mlewis78

Every night before I go to bed I want Alexa to play ocean sounds for white noise while I'm sleeping. There are different ways of getting it, but for a long time I have said "Alexa, play ambient noise." Used to just hear a chime and then "Here is ambient noise. Which sound do you want to listen to?" and I say "ocean" or "ocean waves." Now I have to say "play ocean."

But for the past month or so I have to hear Alexa say "OK, here is ambient noise." then the chime and the rest of the spiel "Here is ambient noise," etc. I don't get why she has to say "here is ambient noise" twice.

Over the past few days some of my Echos have updated their FW. They are acting up as usual. I hate it when they update the FW because they usually screw it up worse than it was before. I’ve had to restart my Fire TV Cube twice since it updated. My Echo Studio was working fine with the Cube, but now they are having a few issues sporadically. I think the updated FW on the Fire TV Cube is the problem. I did have several issues with ambient noise on my Echo Studio. It keeps cutting off a few seconds after starting. Eventually it will keep going for hours though.

[cc_in_oh]

Coincidentally (?) there has been a Sengled outage all day today so half of my smart lights don't work. Although I haven't had any problems with Smart Life bulbs so far, I think I'll stick with Amazon in the future - I don't think these "works with Alexa" linked apps are ready for prime time...

[OtinG]

After a full week of trying to use my Echo Studio connected with my Fire TV Cube, I have to say I cannot recommend doing this. The Studio is a very good Hi-Fi speaker system, and Atmos and Amazon’s UltraHD sound formats sound amazing. But when connected to the Fire TV Cube there are too many failures, skipping sound, frozen video, black screens for a second or two, and general mayhem.

I think the decision by Amazon, and Apple with their HomePods, to not include HDMI, much less HDMI-CEC connections is stupid beyond belief. The Studio has to be “paired” to the Fire TV Cube via Wi-Fi which of course is causing all sorts of issues. Take away that Wi-Fi connection and both the Fire TV Cube and Studio work fine, but paired together they are just too glitchy. Every day I have had to fiddle around with the pairing settings to keep them working.

They can also be paired via BT, but if Wi-Fi is such a failure I can only imagine the horror show with BT. Plus BT does not have the bandwidth to deliver surround sound, UltraHD, or Atmos.

The Studio can be connected directly to a TV by a 3.5mm audio cable or a mini optical cable, but again the narrow bandwidth would prevent surround sound, UltraHD, or Atmos.

I saw several reviews on the web of people pairing two Studios to a Fire TV, and seemingly being impressed. But those were influencers and sites that tend to support Amazon stuff. I get the feeling they are too reluctant to bad mouth the products since they probably get a lot of freebies from tech companies. But I have since read a lot of complaints from actual users having the same issues I’m having. If I’m having this much issue with one Studio, I would think two would be even worse. I have stable 200+ Mbps internet and tried both ethernet and 2G and 5G Wi-Fi with the Fire TV Cube as well as 2G and 5G Wi-Fi with the Studio and still had issues. Granted the system works most of the time, but it fails a lot too, especially when trying to watch Prime Video that is in 4K HDR. My guess is that the Fire TV Cube just isn’t up to the task.

I’m keeping the Studio though because it is a really great Hi-Fi speaker system and absolutely rocks with UltraHD and Atmos sound. But standalone. When it works with the Fire TV Cube it is great too, but it fails too often to be considered stable when paired to the Fire TV. I bought it for a standalone system, and that is how I will use it. Pity though, because the feature that enhances voice audio was extremely good (when it worked) while watching TV. I’ll miss that feature.

ETA 20 Nov 2021: Good grief! I’m making about as much headway with my Studio paired with my Fire TV Cube as Charlie Brown did with keeping his kites out of the tree, or convincing Lucy to let him kick the football!

I tried putting my Cube, Studio, and Recast all on the same 5G Wi-Fi network to see if they could finally communicate better. First, the really stupid part. You setup Wi-Fi on a Fire TV itself, but you need the Alexa app to setup Wi-Fi on a Studio, and you need the Fire TV app to set up Wi-Fi on a Recast. Cube and Studio are fairly easy to get setup to the 5G Wi-Fi, but the recast will not see the 5G network, ever. A gillion restarts of every device in a five mile radius later and it still cannot see the 5G, and the Recast is sitting right next to the router! Googled it and found that Recasts seem to be blind to 5G even though they are specified to have it. Gave up, put all three devices on the same 2G network. Not enough bandwidth I guess because TV became unwatchable. Then tried to put Recast back on ethernet, but that pretty much was more difficult than getting a unanimous vote on anything in Congress. Finally succeeded, but with other two devices still on 5G the Cube went bezerk, had a meltdown, made horribly loud clicking noises and was still unwatchable. Screw it, I put Cube back on ethernet, and that went well. Then I put the Studio back on 5G because there was no audio now. That was another
PITA, but finally got it done. But then the Cube wouldn’t pair to it anymore. More loud cursing and hair pulling and a long while later I finally got them to pair again. So that was two or mores hours and got right back where I was to begin with: Cube and Recast both on ethernet, Studio on 5G and paired to Cube as a Home Theater, and no progress made… @#$&!

[ApK]

Did Amazon take away the ability to request specific songs with prime music?
It had always worked, though it was of course limited to the smaller Prime music selection, but now she only says "playing specific songs is only available with Amazon music unlimited."
Did I miss a memo, or do I need to call customer service?

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by ApK

Did Amazon take away the ability to request specific songs with prime music?
It had always worked, though it was of course limited to the smaller Prime music selection, but now she only says "playing specific songs is only available with Amazon music unlimited."
Did I miss a memo, or do I need to call customer service?

I'm not real sure what you mean exactly by "specific songs", but I do remember being able to ask Alexa to "play [song title] by [specific performer]" and have her do it on the free version of Prime Music. However I also remember being frustrated that the specific cut of that combination was often a live recording and I tend to not like live recordings that much. I'm a casual listener of music, so I rarely know enough to ask her something like "play [song title] by [specific performer] recorded at [specific circumstances or location]." I'm currently on a free 3-month unlimited plan so I can’t test this out on my Echos.

BTW, this is the first time I’ve used Unlimited in quite a while, and having just used a free 3-month of Apple Music makes me hate the garbage they call Amazon Music. It is much easier to find songs and organize them with Apple. Unfortunately Apple is uber greedy and doesn't have a free service available though.

[ApK]

Yeah, i just mean "play [specific song title]". The rest of those options are gravy, and yes, it was slightly disappointing when I didn't get the rendition I was expecting. But my point is now it does not work at all. I ask for any song, and I'm told that's only possible with unlimited, and get offered a channel with 'similar' music. Guess I'd better contact Amazon.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by ApK

Yeah, i just mean "play [specific song title]". The rest of those options are gravy, and yes, it was slightly disappointing when I didn't get the rendition I was expecting. But my point is now it does not work at all. I ask for any song, and I'm told that's only possible with unlimited, and get offered a channel with 'similar' music. Guess I'd better contact Amazon.

They have updated most of my Echo and Fire TV devices in the past week or so, and there has been some issues with the updates making things worse. I wonder if they made changes to Music and Music Unlimited? Unlimited sucks big time now. I had it for a while a year or two ago and I seem to remember it being much better then. I hate the way you save lists then can't find them very easily. On the Fire TV Music app it really sucks!

[mlewis78]

It may be because of the updates that my Fire TV cube kept announcing that my Show 5 was disconnected and then I'd hear it connect again. This happened many, many times while I was not using either. I unplugged the cube and the Show 5 to reboot before I used them later and all seems to be well now.

[OtinG]

Just a follow up to the prior posts on the Echo Studio for those who are considering getting one:

Again I'll state it has amazing sound for a HiFi single unit speaker system. That was a mouthful. It actually houses 5 speakers within the case, but it is a single unit therefore it is basically a 5.1 HiFi system. If you buy another one and pair them, then they will become a 5.1 stereo system when used standalone (not connected to any other devices) or when connected via Home Theater mode to a Fire TV Cube (1st or 2nd gen.) or Fire TV 4K stick. It can produce Dolby Atmos or Amazon's UltraHD 3D surround sound, but only standalone or connected to an approved Fire TV (as I already listed).

Update:

Can listen to Dolby Atmos or Amazon's UltraHD 3D surround sound, 5.1 sound, and 2.1 sound

• Yes, as single Studio or paired with another Studio, in standalone mode . (By "standalone mode" I mean without being connected to any other device.) Left and right channels will be split to the two Studios if they are paired, thus creating true 5.1 stereo. As a single Studio it will be 5.1 HiFi.
• Yes, as single Studio or paired with another Studio, when connected via Wi-Fi using the Alexa Home Theater mode. Left and right channels will be split to the two Studios if they are paired, thus creating true 5.1 stereo. As a single Studio it will be 5.1 HiFi.

Can listen to 5.1 sound and 2.1 sound

• All the above connection types plus the following:
• Yes, if connected via a mini-toslink optical cable to a compatible device which can pass through these sounds. For example, TVs often have toslink optical out capability. No guarantee it will work with any particular TV or device though. I have a toslink to mini-toslink cable on order and will test this out with my Sony Bravia TV soon. As a single Studio it will be 5.1 HiFi. As a paired set of Studios they will not have left and right channel separation, thus you will only have two Studios with 5.1HiFi. Apparently there is no way to get true stereo separation, and to use two Studios requires a toslink splitter and another cable.

Can listen to 2.1 sound

• All the above connection types plus the following:
• Yes, if connected via BT to compatible devices. The Studio can be connected to multiple devices. (I currently have mine connected via BT to my Sony TV, My Fire TV Cube, and my Apple TV 4K, and it works well on all three.) You can pair Studios but I don't know if you will get true stereo separation or just two 2.1 HiFi units. Some have complained of lip-sync issues, but I haven't encountered any yet, however most devices can deal with that via their Settings.
• Yes, if connected via 3.5mm audio cable to compatible devices. (I haven't tested this, nor do I plan to at this time unless someone asks me to, and assuming I can find one of my 3.5mm to 3.5mm cables.)

Quick Analysis:

The saga of lousy Wi-Fi Home Theater connection continues. This seems to be a firmware issue within the Studio. There have been numerous complaints over the past two years, based on my research, and Amazon can’t seem to fix it. It works well for many, so-so for many, terribly for some. My own experience is that it is not reliable. I rarely make it through a show or movie without issues. Sound can drop in and out, and some apps can get rather glitchy with their streaming. Even the Amazon Prime Video app has a lot of stuttering and garbage. Once I disconnect the Wi-Fi Home Theater connection all the issues go away as far as the streaming goes. When it works, the sound is amazing, but it rarely works for very long, and it generally requires a huge amount of maintenance including rebooting the Studio and the Fire TV.

I haven't tested the toslink optical cable connection yet, but I will in the next few days after my cable arrives.

The BT connection is rock solid stable so far. The sound quality is not as good since it is only 2.1 HiFi (or stereo with a paired second Studio), but it is better than my Sony sound base which is 2.1 stereo. I mostly use this connection now because the majority of what I watch on my TV is not going to take advantage of 5.1 sound anyway. However, when the Studio is connected to the Fire TV Cube via Wi-Fi Home Theater mode, it sounds better even on shows with 2.1 sound. I think this is because when connected that way the Studio can emulate 3D sound and thus better use all 5 of its speakers.

To listen to music I use the Studio in standalone mode. That is I turn off the other devices and give it direct voice commands via Alexa. Using it in Wi-Fi Home Theater mode with the Music app on the Fire TV Cube is much more convenient, but as mentioned earlier it is also problematic. I have not yet tried connecting my iPad via BT to test how music will sound, but I assume it will be only 2.1 stereo if I do that.

Originally Posted by OtinG

After a full week of trying to use my Echo Studio connected with my Fire TV Cube, I have to say I cannot recommend doing this. The Studio is a very good Hi-Fi speaker system, and Atmos and Amazon’s UltraHD sound formats sound amazing. But when connected to the Fire TV Cube there are too many failures, skipping sound, frozen video, black screens for a second or two, and general mayhem.

I think the decision by Amazon, and Apple with their HomePods, to not include HDMI, much less HDMI-CEC connections is stupid beyond belief. The Studio has to be “paired” to the Fire TV Cube via Wi-Fi which of course is causing all sorts of issues. Take away that Wi-Fi connection and both the Fire TV Cube and Studio work fine, but paired together they are just too glitchy. Every day I have had to fiddle around with the pairing settings to keep them working.

They can also be paired via BT, but if Wi-Fi is such a failure I can only imagine the horror show with BT. Plus BT does not have the bandwidth to deliver surround sound, UltraHD, or Atmos.

The Studio can be connected directly to a TV by a 3.5mm audio cable or a mini optical cable, but again the narrow bandwidth would prevent surround sound, UltraHD, or Atmos.

I saw several reviews on the web of people pairing two Studios to a Fire TV, and seemingly being impressed. But those were influencers and sites that tend to support Amazon stuff. I get the feeling they are too reluctant to bad mouth the products since they probably get a lot of freebies from tech companies. But I have since read a lot of complaints from actual users having the same issues I’m having. If I’m having this much issue with one Studio, I would think two would be even worse. I have stable 200+ Mbps internet and tried both ethernet and 2G and 5G Wi-Fi with the Fire TV Cube as well as 2G and 5G Wi-Fi with the Studio and still had issues. Granted the system works most of the time, but it fails a lot too, especially when trying to watch Prime Video that is in 4K HDR. My guess is that the Fire TV Cube just isn’t up to the task.

I’m keeping the Studio though because it is a really great Hi-Fi speaker system and absolutely rocks with UltraHD and Atmos sound. But standalone. When it works with the Fire TV Cube it is great too, but it fails too often to be considered stable when paired to the Fire TV. I bought it for a standalone system, and that is how I will use it. Pity though, because the feature that enhances voice audio was extremely good (when it worked) while watching TV. I’ll miss that feature.

ETA 20 Nov 2021: Good grief! I’m making about as much headway with my Studio paired with my Fire TV Cube as Charlie Brown did with keeping his kites out of the tree, or convincing Lucy to let him kick the football!

I tried putting my Cube, Studio, and Recast all on the same 5G Wi-Fi network to see if they could finally communicate better. First, the really stupid part. You setup Wi-Fi on a Fire TV itself, but you need the Alexa app to setup Wi-Fi on a Studio, and you need the Fire TV app to set up Wi-Fi on a Recast. Cube and Studio are fairly easy to get setup to the 5G Wi-Fi, but the recast will not see the 5G network, ever. A gillion restarts of every device in a five mile radius later and it still cannot see the 5G, and the Recast is sitting right next to the router! Googled it and found that Recasts seem to be blind to 5G even though they are specified to have it. Gave up, put all three devices on the same 2G network. Not enough bandwidth I guess because TV became unwatchable. Then tried to put Recast back on ethernet, but that pretty much was more difficult than getting a unanimous vote on anything in Congress. Finally succeeded, but with other two devices still on 5G the Cube went bezerk, had a meltdown, made horribly loud clicking noises and was still unwatchable. Screw it, I put Cube back on ethernet, and that went well. Then I put the Studio back on 5G because there was no audio now. That was another
PITA, but finally got it done. But then the Cube wouldn’t pair to it anymore. More loud cursing and hair pulling and a long while later I finally got them to pair again. So that was two or mores hours and got right back where I was to begin with: Cube and Recast both on ethernet, Studio on 5G and paired to Cube as a Home Theater, and no progress made… @#$&!

[John F]

Originally Posted by OtinG

Just a follow up to the prior posts on the Echo Studio for those who are considering getting one:

Again I'll state it has amazing sound for a HiFi single unit speaker system. That was a mouthful. It actually houses 5 speakers within the case, but it is a single unit therefore it is basically a 5.1 HiFi system. ...

I wouldn't call it 5.1 in the traditional sense of home theater. It is interesting that Amazon doesn't mention "5.1" on their product page.

Does it come with a mike for calibration?

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by John F

I wouldn't call it 5.1 in the traditional sense of home theater. It is interesting that Amazon doesn't mention "5.1" on their product page.

Does it come with a mike for calibration?

I'm not an audiophile nor expert. 5.1 is the closest I can come to define it without taking a darn paragraph or two. Close enough if you ask me, especially since the reviews I’ve read and seen tend to refer to it that way. But of course you can call it whatever you like. Technically it is probably somewhere between 2.1 and 5.1. But this is not the traditional "surround sound system" with front, side, and rear speakers housed in separate cabinets. And keep in mind that even headsets and earbuds these days can often provide 3D "surround" sound, including Dolby Atmos, and they are far from the traditional design of 5 or 7 speakers in separate cabinets. I think the old school nomenclature is no longer that accurate with the newer digital systems.