Amazon Echo Club

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

The Tap is the Fire Phone of Echos.

And why should that be? The portability makes it otherwise one of the most useful. So why limit its features?

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

And why should that be? The portability makes it otherwise one of the most useful. So why limit its features?

I agree. It should have all the features of the Echo plus portability. Pity they didn't go that route.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I agree. It should have all the features of the Echo plus portability. Pity they didn't go that route.

Except it was explicitly targeted at folks who didn't WANT an always listening device, hence the need to "tap."

If you want an echo with a battery, why not just add a battery to an echo?

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by ApK

Except it was explicitly targeted at folks who didn't WANT an always listening device, hence the need to "tap."

If you want an echo with a battery, why not just add a battery to an echo?

You can turn the "always on" feature of the Echo off. Now it's a Tap without portability, but with more features.

My Dot in the living room is always turned off because it sits next to my chair. It's super easy to reach over and tap it on to make a request and then tap it off again.

[cc_in_oh]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I agree. It should have all the features of the Echo plus portability. Pity they didn't go that route.

Actually there was a big price difference too - my Tap was $80 while the Echo at the time was more than twice that IIRC. And the Echo's lack of portability was a deal breaker for me at any price...

Edit> Oh, and it's not like Amazon's continued support for even their highest-priced products can be taken for granted - look at the original Fire HD and then HDX tablets, all abandoned within a year or two...

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by cc_in_oh

Edit> Oh, and it's not like Amazon's continued support for even their highest-priced products can be taken for granted - look at the original Fire HD and then HDX tablets, all abandoned within a year or two...

...and Fire Phone. I will no longer buy premium Amazon devices because of that. For me, it'll be the cheapest ereader and tablet that they sell.

[Conan46]

Am I the only one who things Drop In is a stupid feature? It seems to be every paranoid person's worst nightmare.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Conan46

Am I the only one who things Drop In is a stupid feature? It seems to be every paranoid person's worst nightmare.

You're probably not the only one. I'd imagine most paranoids agree.

Myself, I'm not paranoid, I know what drop in does and I know how to not enable it if I don't want to use it. I also don't encrypt every email, blackout my windows or wear a tinfoil hat.
As for possible surreptitious abuse of the feature, I'll take the risk, just as I have since I hooked my first microphone-equipped pc to the Internet, many years ago. I'm not even going to review the source code.

That being said, I don't enable Drop In. It's a bit creepy.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I guess for the same reason that the Tap can't be used as an intercom. It seems to have unwanted stepchild status in the Echo family. Still, the portability is useful, and they did add wake word capability with an update. We can hope for similar updates in the future for TTS and Drop In features, I suppose.

It works in the Android app. If I want Alexa to read to me on the patio, I just bring my phone/tablet.

[tubemonkey]

How to disable Alexa’s new Brief Mode in order to bring back “Okay” responses

Amazon is starting to roll out a new Brief Mode for Alexa that reduces how much the voice assistant speaks in response to requests. The new mode appeared from some customers and then disappeared shortly after, but now it seems as if it’s here for good. While many customers love the new setting because it replaces Alexa’s verbal “OK” response with a quicker non-verbal confirmation chime, Brief Mode is catching a few people off guard because Alexa is offering to turn the mode on for you, instead of it simply being an option in the Alexa app. If you accepted Alexa’s request to enable Brief Mode but want to revert back to Alexa giving more verbal responses, here’s how to turn off Brief Mode.

Disabling Brief Mode is simple, once you know where to find the setting. Unlike other recent new Alexa options, like Follow-up Mode, Brief Mode is not controlled on a per-device basis, but rather, as an account-wide setting.

[tubemonkey]

Amazon Echo now reads your first Audible book for free

New customers only.

Amazon has a new way to reel you into Audible now that smart speakers are a big deal: give you a freebie just by asking. As of this week, anyone who's new to Audible can ask an Echo speaker to read a full audiobook at no cost. You don't have to be picky about your choice of book, either, so you can ask for the hot new novel if that's your preference. Naturally, Amazon is hoping you'll be so enamored that you sign up on the spot -- if you aren't, though, you can at least say that it didn't take much effort to get that free book in the first place.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by ApK

You're probably not the only one. I'd imagine most paranoids agree.

Myself, I'm not paranoid, I know what drop in does and I know how to not enable it if I don't want to use it. I also don't encrypt every email, blackout my windows or wear a tinfoil hat.
As for possible surreptitious abuse of the feature, I'll take the risk, just as I have since I hooked my first microphone-equipped pc to the Internet, many years ago. I'm not even going to review the source code.

That being said, I don't enable Drop In. It's a bit creepy.

Am I understanding correctly that if a friend and I both enabled Drop In, I could connect to that device and eavesdrop/watch without the other person even being home to accept my invasion? That's incredibly creepy.

[Conan46]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Am I understanding correctly that if a friend and I both enabled Drop In, I could connect to that device and eavesdrop/watch without the other person even being home to accept my invasion? That's incredibly creepy.

That's my understanding of how it works.

[Conan46]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Amazon Echo now reads your first Audible book for free

New customers only.

Is this only for the Echo or will it work for Dots as well?
Edit: all I get on my Dot and Tap is that I can have a free audiobook if I sign up for a trial. This is no different than in the past as far as I can tell.

[ApK]

Or

Originally Posted by Catlady

Am I understanding correctly that if a friend and I both enabled Drop In, I could connect to that device and eavesdrop/watch without the other person even being home to accept my invasion? That's incredibly creepy.

If the friend explictly enables the feature, and explicitly grants you permission, then yes you can listen to the friends empty house.

Of course if someone WAS there, they'd hear the drop in chime and see the device is lit up while you were connected. Actually, I find the "who's available" active device part of the feature far creepier. ("I know you just got home.. where have you been...?")
Otherwise the thing is just like an intercom or baby monitor or any of various other kinds of sound monitoring devices your friend could have agreed to let you put in that house for many years. Decades ago I had an answering machine that could do that. It was billed as some sort of security feature.