Amazon Echo Club

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I didn't know that. I thought the change affected both. My Echo has now gone Star Trek. Thanks!

YW - I use "Echo" for two of my Dots and "Alexa" for the other two.

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Edit: I can change the wake word, but the change affects both devices. There's no way to change the wake word for only one device.



I didn't know that. I thought the change affected both. My Echo has now gone Star Trek. Thanks!

Yes, if the device allows the wake word to be changed, and apparently the Tap doesn't, you can set each device independently. Unfortunately, none of the wake words are very good if the device is near a TV or radio. Alexa and Amazon seem to be the worst as far as accidental awakenings, mostly due to all the commercials by Amazon, but Echo and Computer are not far behind. Echo ends in a prominent "O" sound, and every time my devices here an "O" sound they wake up if the wake word is set to Echo. Computer is a bit better, but there are still a lot of sounds that cause an awakening. Also I've noticed that many loud noises wherein no words were even uttered will awaken the devices. Amazon really needs to fix this, but alas Bezo's Bozos team of developers will likely not figure it out in my lifetime!

[WT Sharpe]

It would be nice if Amazon allowed us to assign our own wake words to each unit. "Alexa" is nice, but people are always mentioning "Computer" in one context or another. My Echo has already responded to one mention of the word on TV.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

It would be nice if Amazon allowed us to assign our own wake words to each unit. "Alexa" is nice, but people are always mentioning "Computer" in one context or another. My Echo has already responded to one mention of the word on TV.

Once Amazon implements voice recognition, the problem of Echos responding to the TV will be gone.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Once Amazon implements voice recognition, the problem of Echos responding to the TV will be gone.

[tubemonkey]

Amazon Alexa now supports Office 365 Calendar

Amazon’s connected speakers and other Alexa-powered devices now work with Office 365 calendars, Amazon announced this morning. The addition is one of several in recent weeks that sees Alexa becoming a device that can help you with work, instead of just music, entertainment and controlling your smart home.

Alexa earlier this month added support for Outlook Calendar, which also included access to Hotmail, MSN and Live email accounts. And Google Calendar had been supported since launch. However, these calendars are from consumer-facing email services, while Office 365 is designed for business use.

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Amazon Alexa now supports Office 365 Calendar

I wish they would get Alexa to work with Apple calendars. I don't care for Google and its stuff and I'm heavily invested in Apple computers and iThingies. No way in Hades will I ever use Google calendars on my Apple devices, or Windows computers either.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by jswinden

I wish they would get Alexa to work with Apple calendars. I don't care for Google and its stuff and I'm heavily invested in Apple computers and iThingies. No way in Hades will I ever use Google calendars on my Apple devices, or Windows computers either.

I think you can blame Steve Jobs for that, he's the one who initially set up Apple's walled garden.

Originally Posted by wodin

I think you can blame Steve Jobs for that, he's the one who initially set up Apple's walled garden.

I prefer the so-called "walled garden" to the lack of security with the Google suite of stuff. Much more secure on Apple devices.

[wodin]

I just set up my Office 365 Calendar on Alexa, was a snap; she even knew my email address, just had to supply my password.

Now to get home and see if she knows when it's time to take out the recycling.

Quitting time in six minutes!

A calendar is not that big of an Alexa feature to me. I get plenty of notices from my MacBook Pro, iPhone, and iPads. I'm more of a visual person than aural person anyway. And chances are my computers, phones, tablets are physically closer to me than an Alexa device, especially when away from home. It is easier for me to simply type in a calendar event into one of my devices, get it done correctly the first time without having to argue with Alexa or Siri, and have it immediately propagated to my other devices. Anything I do via voice will be subject to more errors and I might not catch those in time.

The same goes for news briefs. I prefer skimming headlines on the internet at lightning speed to listening to headlines at a snail pace.

While voice commands are cool and can be helpful in many features, most of the whiz bang stuff people ogle over with Alexa is little more than meh to me. Without the visual to help verify that Alexa gets it right, and she often does NOT get it right, it is too limiting.

[wodin]

Interesting article on the trials and tribulation of why Amazon Echo And Google Home Can’t Tell Who’s Talking–Yet

Interesting article, and it makes sense. I only breezed through it, will have to go back and reread.

One thing that would greatly help is if Alexa could simply identify common sources of audio. For example, if Alexa could identify the source of audio as being from an electronic device, then it could just ignore it. So whenever the TV or radio is playing, if Alexa hears it say a wake word or command it could quickly determine that it was not a human and ignore that audio source. Surely there are some audio signatures that if identified would point to the audio source being a TV or radio or computer or whatever. If Amazon could identify several of those electronic signatures and thus enable Alexa to ignore audio sources from same, then that alone would be a HUGE fricking leap beyond what she can do now. That would eliminate the bulk of bogus awakenings, at least in my household.

[issybird]

Set an alarm on my Dot so I wouldn't oversleep, but the Dot's still in standard time. The Echo, however, updated. Where's a town crier when you need one?

[tubemonkey]

My Dot's made the switch over without a hitch.