Amazon Echo Club

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by ApK

Um...you watched it, remembered it, and are talking about it. I think they were right on target.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. It turned out to be a Bose commercial for noise cancelling headphones with Alexa capability rather than an Amazon Alexa commercial. I saw it twice and didn't pick up on that. If it leaves me with more questions than answers, then I call that a fail... At the very end it does briefly display the Bose and Alexa logos, but I never noticed that as I tuned it out and wasn't paying attention to it due to being bored by it. I only noticed the logos when I found the commercial online and watched it more carefully.

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

That commercial is missing a key segment of its target audience. It has bananas in it and monkey hasn't seen it yet

Here it is: Bose TV Commercial, "Alexa, don't miss a thing"

.....

[Catlady]

Alexa Guard will be a way you can use your existing Echo speakers to build a home security system. Here's how it'll work: your Echo speakers already have microphones on them to hear voice commands. If you tell your speaker you're leaving the house, the microphones will start monitoring for strange sounds.

Yeah, right, like that's gonna work in houses with pets.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by OtinG

I've tried connecting my iPhone and iPads to my Echos via BT to listen to Spotify and SiriusXM streaming services. It would work, but it would often be flaky. I wanted to use the speakers from my Echo while having a display on my iPad to see what song was playing. The BT connection was not the way to go in those cases and signals often dropped out and the screen usually froze on a song and never updated. Using Echo directly to stream Spotify or SiriusXM works pretty well except for the drop outs that occur about once an hour or so. Once the connection drops out, Alexa cannot get it back without me issuing another command to do so. I also tried streaming locally loaded songs from my iPhone to the Echo via BT and again the results were not that good. It might be a BT issue, but it is annoying. After all, BT in general on any device can be rather annoying and finicky.

I forgot that I also directly connected the dot to a mini stereo system using the 3.5 connection and it went out regularly doing that too. I don't consider a connection dropping out every hour to work well at all. When I connect a Bluetooth speaker to my old phone using TuneIn radio it works great. For me TuneIn radio works everywhere and with every type of connection except an echo device.

[tubemonkey]

Amazon Echo Dot 3 Overview — Significantly better audio and aesthetics

This explains why Amazon abandoned the USB cable for power (bolding added).

The Echo Dot now uses a power brick with a round plug, instead of using the micro USB port and USB power adapter that the previous models used. The power adapter is nearly identical in shape to the ones that come with Fire TV boxes/cubes and all other Echo models. The power adapter and cable come in white if you opt for the Sandstone color, to better match the white face, and come in black for the other two colors. The switch to a traditional power brick was necessary because the new Echo Dot now requires 15 watts of power, compared to the old model’s 9 watt power adapter.

The extra power will become immediately evident the first time you crank the new Echo Dot’s volume up. Despite being only slightly larger than the previous Echo Dot, it sounds so much better and gets so much louder. I can’t stress this point enough because it really is a shocking upgrade.

[Tarana]

Well, I don't mind the higher power requirement of the new Echo Dot. I will consider getting that and replacing one of my older echo dots because I need the volume (hard of hearing).

[OtinG]

Has Amazon discontinued the Tap? I was nosing around today and realized that I could not find a new Tap for sale on their website (USA). I can find used ones and Amazon sells refurbished Taps, but I cannot see a place to buy the new ones. I already have two and don't want another one, but I was looking to find some info on the them when I noticed that they seemed to have disappeared. The Tap was always treated like the step-child they didn't really care for. Pity, as it has better sound than most of the Alexa Echo devices. No clue what the latest gens of Echo Dot and Echo Plus sound like, but I've listened on all the other ones and the Tap had better sound, and is stereo.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Amazon Echo Dot 3 Overview — Significantly better audio and aesthetics

This explains why Amazon abandoned the USB cable for power (bolding added).

This review shows a sound comparison of the Dot 3 to Dot 2 about 1 min 50 sec in. It really does seem like a huge improvement. The Dot 3 is also compared to the Google Home Mini.

[cc_in_oh]

Originally Posted by OtinG

Has Amazon discontinued the Tap? I was nosing around today and realized that I could not find a new Tap for sale on their website (USA). I can find used ones and Amazon sells refurbished Taps, but I cannot see a place to buy the new ones. I already have two and don't want another one, but I was looking to find some info on the them when I noticed that they seemed to have disappeared. The Tap was always treated like the step-child they didn't really care for. Pity, as it has better sound than most of the Alexa Echo devices. No clue what the latest gens of Echo Dot and Echo Plus sound like, but I've listened on all the other ones and the Tap had better sound, and is stereo.

A while back I asked Jeff if he'd rather sell a family one portable device or devices for every room. I could see the wheels turning...

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by cc_in_oh

A while back I asked Jeff if he'd rather sell a family one portable device or devices for every room. I could see the wheels turning...

I think any company that has a healthy profit margin has been desirous of selling us as much of their goods and/or services as they can. And we happily buy up everything we can afford and a whole lot more, which makes the loan companies happy too! It is like we have little pesky salespeople following us around everywhere we go and even getting into our dreams whispering, "Buy, buy, buy..." Not that it has changed much in the past 100,000 years from when Ogg was peddling his nifty new invention of tools made from flint. The salespeople have always been pesky, but today they have at their disposal print, TV, and internet as well as the Ogg method of knocking on your cave door.

[tubemonkey]

Cross-posted from the Black Friday thread:


Certified Refurbished Amazon Echo (1st Generation) -- exp unknown

Normally $79.99, it's on sale for $49.99 and comes with a 1-year warranty. Available in black or white.

A Certified Refurbished Amazon Echo is refurbished, tested, and certified to look and work like new.

1-year limited warranty and service included. Use of Amazon Echo is subject to the terms found here.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by OtinG

This review shows a sound comparison of the Dot 3 to Dot 2 about 1 min 50 sec in. It really does seem like a huge improvement. The Dot 3 is also compared to the Google Home Mini.

Thanks - that's a very noticeable difference in sound. I just may change my mind about getting one.

But then, for the same price, I can get a refurb Gen 1 Echo with much better sound than the Dots.

Decisions, decisions...

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Thanks - that's a very noticeable difference in sound. I just may change my mind about getting one.

But then, for the same price, I can get a refurb Gen 1 Echo with much better sound than than either of the Dots.

Decisions, decisions...

Well I bit the bullet and got one delivered today. Holy bleep the sound is a whole magnitude better. It is still a single speaker small device and shouldn't be compared to the bigger Echo devices, but it rocks. It can fill up my study with sound. I tried listening to "Riders in the Sky" by Roy Clark (an instrumental) and "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple and both sounded great and loud with the Gen 3 set at 75% volume.

And here is the icing on the cake: After I placed the order Amazon sent me an email giving my 3 months free of Amazon Music Unlimited! That was a nice surprise. From the email:

Dear Amazon Customer,

As a thank you for purchasing a new Amazon Echo device, you are eligible for 3 months of Amazon Music Unlimited.

Start your free trial today for unlimited access to tens of millions of songs and thousands of playlists and stations by your favorite artists. With Amazon Music, you can request by lyrics, let Alexa pick the music for you, or set a music alarm to wake up to your favorite song or playlist.

To activate your Amazon Music Unlimited subscription, click the button below and select the “Individual Plan” on the signup page or just ask, "Alexa, start my free trial of Amazon Music Unlimited" on your new device.

Your credit* has already been applied to your account.

* Promotional credits will be deducted from your account after your free trial.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by OtinG

Well I bit the bullet and got one delivered today. Holy bleep the sound is a whole magnitude better. It is still a single speaker small device and shouldn't be compared to the bigger Echo devices, but it rocks. It can fill up my study with sound. I tried listening to "Riders in the Sky" by Roy Clark (an instrumental) and "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple and both sounded great and loud with the Gen 3 set at 75% volume.

That's good to know. Did you know that you can sync two 3rd Gen Dots for true stereo sound?

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

That's good to know. Did you know that you can sync two 3rd Gen Dots for true stereo sound?

Yep. You can also connect it to the new Echo Sub.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by OtinG

And here is the icing on the cake: After I placed the order Amazon sent me an email giving my 3 months free of Amazon Music Unlimited! That was a nice surprise. From the email:

FYI, Amazon is also giving three months free of Amazon Music Unlimited if you purchase a CD or vinyl record.