Amazon Echo Club

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by jswinden

Ummmmm, I hope that doesn't mean I will have to upgrade to that at twice what I'm now paying. I don't see anything in that announcement that really differentiates my Pandora Plus account from the Premium. Well maybe the downloading for offline use, I'm not sure if the Plus account does that. I'm liking my Plus and it is only $4.99.

Not sure, but I think they will since it's a different plan. Pandora's two current plans (free and Plus) are strictly station plans. You can't play artists, songs, or albums on demand like you can with full service $10 plans; which is something I definitely need.

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Not sure, but I think they will since it's a different plan. Pandora's two current plans (free and Plus) are strictly station plans. You can't play artists, songs, or albums on demand like you can with full service $10 plans; which is something I definitely need.

Ah, I didn't realize that. No big deal for me though as I can do that on Amazon Prime Music. Probably not worth paying $9.99 for that given my way of listening to music. But I'll give it try if they offer a trial period.

It is rather interesting to me that Pandora's list of songs they play for a radio station vary per the device on which they are played. Well, the order of the songs varies at least. I've been listening to Pandora on my Echo, my iPad Pro 9.7, and on my iPhone 6+, depending on where I am at the time. The song orders are different on each device. I would have thought that you could turn off the Echo, go get in the car and turn on Pandora and continue from where you were in the order of songs on the Echo or whatever device you last used. But they all seem to generate play orders of songs independently. So I guess that means no syncing between devices of the order in which songs are being played. Rather odd I think.

[issybird]

This is what gets me:

issy: "Alexa, play the Jupiter Symphony."
Alexa: "I can't find Mozart, Symphony No. 41 in C major, Köchelverzeichnis 551, by the Berliner Philharmoniker."
issy: "Uh, I think you did."
Alexa: <crickets>

It's in my Spotify playlist and she can obviously parse "Jupiter Symphony!"

Originally Posted by issybird

This is what gets me:

issy: "Alexa, play the Jupiter Symphony."
Alexa: "I can't find Mozart, Symphony No. 41 in C major, Köchelverzeichnis 551, by the Berliner Philharmoniker."
issy: "Uh, I think you did."
Alexa: <crickets>

It's in my Spotify playlist and she can obviously parse "Jupiter Symphony!"

I'm finding more and more issues with Alexa, all of which can be fixed if Bezos Bozos (his FW developers) would learn how to program properly. The one thing that has always bothered me about my Echo is that listening to music is a crap shoot on volume. One song is too loud, the next is so low I cannot tell if Echo is still on. I totally realize that each song has its own audio level due to how it is recorded and what not, but the Echo does a terrible job of balancing that out to an enjoyable volume level. I constantly find myself having to adjust the Echo's volume. When I listen to Pandora on my Echo there is a huge amount of volume variance. When I listen to Pandora on my iPad or iPhone via car audio the volume stays fairly level and enjoyable. I find myself listening on the iPad much more than the Echo even though the Echo has much better speakers.

[Conan46]

Regarding music, been listening to iHeart stations based on artists since I got the Amazon Tap and yet to hear a commercial. I'm not on a paid plan. Don't know how long that might last, but it is awesome.
The main reason I got Alexa was to read TTS ebooks. It is doing a great job with that except for a couple of things. Last night I had Alexa read samples of about a half dozen different ebooks and her hardware must have gotten overloaded because she became unresponsive and needed a reboot to work well again. Also it is a challenge to get her to read certain ebooks. For instance, I have perhaps 4 different versions of Homer's Iliad, and I could not get her to read any of them, but then I noticed Fagle's translation has the title "The Iliad (Penguin Classics)" and when I added the words "Penguin Classics" she figured out what I wanted her to read. Same with the book "Beowulf" have several versions and she was stumped when I just asked for "Beowulf", but when I asked her using the subtitle or words included in the title such as "Beowulf: The New Translation" she got it.
Really enjoying the Tap and because of its portability this is definitely the best device for me.
Just wanted to add I had originally planned on buying 2 dots, 1 for the living room and another for the bedroom and connect to bluetooth speakers to take music with me to different rooms. The Tap eliminated the need for that. I take it to the living room during the day and top off the battery when needed with a separate cord in there, and keep the charging base in the bedroom for overnight charging and use it in the bedroom at night. Is working out well and of course can move it from room to room as needed.

[Cinisajoy]

Jack,
Is your car radio automatically set to adjust the volume for the noise level?
Oh and if you quit Pandora and go right back you get a different song.
Not positive but I think unlike AM/FM/Sirius stations which play one song at a certain time, Pandora is more a random song player. So while we might both be on Led Zeppelin radio, I might get Stairway to Heaven while you get Kashmir on Pandora. If we were on the Grateful Dead channel on Sirius, we would both get Truckin' at the same time.

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Jack,
Is your car radio automatically set to adjust the volume for the noise level?
Oh and if you quit Pandora and go right back you get a different song.
Not positive but I think unlike AM/FM/Sirius stations which play one song at a certain time, Pandora is more a random song player. So while we might both be on Led Zeppelin radio, I might get Stairway to Heaven while you get Kashmir on Pandora. If we were on the Grateful Dead channel on Sirius, we would both get Truckin' at the same time.

I think it is actually the iPhone Pandora app that controls the volume when connected to my car audio, but I can of course override/adjust via the car audio system.

I understand that your songs will vary from mine even if we listen to the same station, but I would have thought all of my devices would be synced so that if I pause my Pandora app on my iPhone during say Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" and went inside and turned on the Pandora app on my iPad or Echo that I could resume playing Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues". That is NOT what happens though. Each device has its own unique list or order of songs which are queued up to play. No big deal, but I do think it would be better to have it sync like an eBook app that stays on the same page when switching devices, but stay on the same song in the same spot. I think as you said it randomly generates the songs to queue up on each device. My thought is it should sync that randomly generated queue to all devices rather than randomly generate a unique queue for each device. Maybe their $10 plan will do that.

[Sydney's Mom]

Has anyone set up nucleus with their echo? Actually, nucleus comes with Alexa, so you don't need a stand alone. I bought 2 nucleus (nucei?) when they were an Alexa deal, and bought another one when they went on sale last week. i can never remember to bring my phone upstairs at night (it is always charging), so I figured one in the bedroom would be good. My husband was in favor, because he goes out bike riding before I get up, and he wouldn't be able to reach me. He downloaded the nucleus app, and it will show the things set up-his phone, my phone, the kitchen, the bedroom and his lair/bikeshop. I really only use it to tell him dinner is ready, but i can see more uses. We used to have an av intercom system in the house, but it quit working.

Our lights are no longer working with the security system we set up. I told the security company I really liked Alexa. He said there is something coming that will work with our security system and Alexa. I need something because we go to our vacation place for months every year. Don't need a dark house to advertise it.

[tubemonkey]

Alexa can now finally read thermostat values without needing to use a Skill

Amazon’s Alexa has been able to directly control smart thermostats for over a year now, but one glaring omission has been its inability to tell you anything about the thermostats current state. While you could always ask Alexa to set a temperature, you couldn’t request what the thermostat was set to or request to hear the actual current indoor temperature, leaving many to resort to using third-party Alexa Skills for those tasks. Amazon has now finally updated their Alexa Smart Home Skill API to support thermostat requests.

Announcing Thermostat Query for Smart Home Skills

Today we are happy to announce support for thermostat query, a new feature for Alexa skills developed using the Smart Home Skill API. The feature is now available in the US, with support for the UK and Germany coming soon. With thermostat query, customers can issue a voice command to an Alexa-enabled device, such as the Amazon Echo or Echo Dot, and hear Alexa say the response. For example, a customer with a single thermostat could say, “Alexa, what is the temperature in the house?” and Alexa would respond with the current inside temperature. This complements thermostat commands that already allow customers to set the temperature value.

I finally got my Amazon Unlimited Music Individual plan to play on my Echo, sort of. If I choose a default Radio Station then it plays. I got excited and decided to create a custom playlists. I spent a few hours replicating my Pandora custom Jack Radio station in a Amazon playlist. But it absolutely will not BLEEPING play. Arggggghhh! Bleeping Bezos Bozos BLEEPED up again. Not only was it tedious work creating the playlist, but Echo cannot find it. I see online where others have the same issue. What a total POS! And not only that but my Alexa app will no longer display anything in the Now Playing section. There seems to be no way via the Alexa app to select custom playlists and I get the message, "Error getting Amazon Music Playlists, please try again later." I cannot believe the degree of incompetence connected with Amazon Music. Total Junk....

[tubemonkey]

Alexa is coming to existing Amazon Fire TVs and Fire TV Sticks in the UK and Germany

Ever since the Amazon Echo and Echo Dot officially launched in the UK and Germany, it was expected that Fire TV owners in those countries would eventually get access to Alexa on their devices, just like Fire TV owners in the US. Now that the Fire TV Stick 2 with Alexa has been officially announced for the UK and Germany, Amazon has confirmed that Alexa will also be added to all existing Fire TV and Fire TV Stick models in those countries.

Amazon has unfortunately not said exactly when Alexa will be added to existing Fire TVs and Fire TV Sticks in the UK and Germany, but at least now we know the voice assistant is definitely on its way to older devices. Based on Amazon’s past feature releases, I would guess 2nd-gen Fire TVs overseas will receive Alexa first, followed by 1st-gen Fire TVs and Fire TV Sticks soon after. Devices without a voice remote will be able to access Alexa through the Fire TV remote app for mobile devices.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by jswinden

I finally got my Amazon Unlimited Music Individual plan to play on my Echo, sort of. If I choose a default Radio Station then it plays. I got excited and decided to create a custom playlists. I spent a few hours replicating my Pandora custom Jack Radio station in a Amazon playlist. But it absolutely will not BLEEPING play. Arggggghhh! Bleeping Bezos Bozos BLEEPED up again. Not only was it tedious work creating the playlist, but Echo cannot find it. I see online where others have the same issue. What a total POS! And not only that but my Alexa app will no longer display anything in the Now Playing section. There seems to be no way via the Alexa app to select custom playlists and I get the message, "Error getting Amazon Music Playlists, please try again later." I cannot believe the degree of incompetence connected with Amazon Music. Total Junk....

I considered Music Unlimited for my Echos but backed off when I found out that the credit card I use for payment would be made available to everyone on the Family Plan to buy anything they wanted. That's absolutely absurd!

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I considered Music Unlimited for my Echos but backed off when I found out that the credit card I use for payment would be made available to everyone on the Family Plan to buy anything they wanted. That's absolutely absurd!

Yep, Amazon clearly isn't thinking things through nor consulting customers. Glad Pandora is working well. Hopefully the $10 plan at Pandora will add several features I want. The $5 plan is good for $5 though. It is really bad though when another company's music plan plays better on Amazon's devices than their own plan!

[ApK]

Originally Posted by jswinden

It is really bad though when another company's music plan plays better on Amazon's devices than their own plan!

Microsoft used to call those kinds of abject failures in their products "partner opportunities."