Amazon Echo Club

[Blossom]

You know they are discontinuing cloud music player. I have till August because I was a paid member to download all my uploaded music. Echo has become useless is music for me except for past purchased music.

Sent from my XT1528

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Blossom

You know they are discontinuing cloud music player. I have till August because I was a paid member to download all my uploaded music. Echo has become useless is music for me except for past purchased music.

Sent from my XT1528

Every now and then, Amazon shoots itself in the foot and they did so with that move.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by Blossom

You know they are discontinuing cloud music player. I have till August because I was a paid member to download all my uploaded music. Echo has become useless is music for me except for past purchased music.

Sent from my XT1528

You could try Tunein radio. I always listen to the same station so I only need to tell it "play Tunein radio". It will play the last station you listened to.

[Catlady]

I've been noticing that I occasionally get a blue light at the bottom of my Fire 8 tablet--like the blue light on the Dot when I say Alexa. I am thinking it's related to the hands-free Alexa access Amazon rolled out--though I turned that feature off. I'm finding it annoying, since it seems to cause a game or other app I'm using at the time to close down.

My Dot is unplugged when not in use; I don't want my tablet to be listening to me all the time either, if that's what it's doing.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I don't want my tablet to be listening to me all the time either, if that's what it's doing.

Open up the tablet and install a hard switch in the leads to the microphone. That's the only way to be sure.
Otherwise living in paranoid distrust of your devices can only lead to needless stress. The only other ways are to not have a connected device with a microphone in your life at all, or to conduct daily reviews of the code line by line to ensure yourself that your vendor hasn't turned evil or that some third party hasn't hacked the code.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by ApK

Open up the tablet and install a hard switch in the leads to the microphone. That's the only way to be sure.
Otherwise living in paranoid distrust of your devices can only lead to needless stress. The only other ways are to not have a connected device with a microphone in your life at all, or to conduct daily reviews of the code line by line to ensure yourself that your vendor hasn't turned evil or that some third party hasn't hacked the code.

It's not paranoia; I'm not happy to any activity on the tablet suddenly be interrupted when the blue light appears. Would you be happy to have your Internet browser repeatedly shut down for some unknown reason, on any device? Or to have to keep restarting your TV?

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Catlady

It's not paranoia; I'm not happy to any activity on the tablet suddenly be interrupted when the blue light appears. Would you be happy to have your Internet browser repeatedly shut down for some unknown reason, on any device? Or to have to keep restarting your TV?

I didn't quote the part about the problems it was causing, that's certainly something to fix.

But you've posted more than once about your devices listening to you, and of course that topic has been in the media quite a bit, and I'm firmly convinced that MOST of the ways people discuss dealing with what legitimate concerns there are, are based in FUD, misunderstanding the technology, and media-aided self-delusion about what can and should properly be done about it.

(Note, this is purely public topic discussion. I post these comments in response to your posts not to particularly accuse you of being paranoid, but because you bring up the topic, and I like participating in these threads with you.)

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by ApK

I didn't quote the part about the problems it was causing, that's certainly something to fix.

But you've posted more than once about your devices listening to you, and of course that topic has been in the media quite a bit, and I'm firmly convinced that MOST of the ways people discuss dealing with what legitimate concerns there are, are based in FUD, misunderstanding the technology, and media-aided self-delusion about what can and should properly be done about it.

(Note, this is purely public topic discussion. I post these comments in response to your posts not to particularly accuse you of being paranoid, but because you bring up the topic, and I like participating in these threads with you.)

My issue with the Dot is that for its limited usefulness to me in occasionally playing music, it's not worth it to have it suddenly spouting off a response to something out of the blue, whether it's the TV or a conversation I'm having, because it thinks it was called. If it's going to listen constantly, it ought to listen properly. I don't think that's paranoid or a misunderstanding; I think it's an annoyance that I'm not willing to put up with at my minimal usage level. So I've turned it off unless I specifically want it to play music.

The Alexa hands-free on the Fire tablet is apparently being rolled out gradually, and I got the upgrade a few weeks ago, and immediately turned it off, or thought I did. It's not a feature I want or need. I assume the blue light I see at the bottom is connected to the upgrade, and it seems to come up randomly. I use the tablet a lot to play games while listening to audiobooks (on another device), and it seems to interrupt my game just when I'm on the verge of beating a level. Not important in the grand scheme of things, of course, but annoying as hell.

Re paranoia. I do have the camera covered with tape on my tablet and on my laptop. I don't use those cameras, ever, so what can it hurt? I shred all papers with any personal information too, even though it's a lot more likely that my identity will be stolen through a computer hack at some credit card company than because someone's gone through my trash. But I do not wear a tinfoil hat.

[wodin]

I asked Alexa to read a book in my library, and as I've read the book before Kindle naturally thought it should start where I left off; in the postscript. So I had to open the Alexa app and queue her back to the beginning. All was as it should be until:

I closed the Alexa app and told my living room echo "Alexa, read Cold Days" and my phone answered "Reading Cold Days (The Dresdin Files Book 15) from Kindle."

My phone? Really? You want Paranoia, now the Jeff's listening to my phone too?

[ApK]

Originally Posted by wodin

I asked Alexa to read a book in my library, and as I've read the book before Kindle naturally thought it should start where I left off; in the postscript. So I had to open the Alexa app and queue her back to the beginning. All was as it should be until:

I closed the Alexa app and told my living room echo "Alexa, read Cold Days" and my phone answered "Reading Cold Days (The Dresdin Files Book 15) from Kindle."

My phone? Really? You want Paranoia, now the Jeff's listening to my phone too?

You're referring to Whisper-sync? The well-known and highly publicized (optional) ability of any Amazon app or device registered to your account to keep content synced for you? Or are you referring to the fact that the Alexa app on your phone is specifically designed to work with and integrate with your Echo device?
Sadly, I can't tell if you're kidding. But I suspect I'm missing out of a fortune in the custom tin-foil hat business.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by ApK

You're referring to Whisper-sync? The well-known and highly publicized (optional) ability of any Amazon app or device registered to your account to keep content synced for you? Or are you referring to the fact that the Alexa app on your phone is specifically designed to work with and integrate with your Echo device?
Sadly, I can't tell if you're kidding. But I suspect I'm missing out of a fortune in the custom tin-foil hat business.

WhisperSync works fine, if not a little confusing. What I'm referring to is that Alexa answered on my phone... To my wake word, even though I had closed the Alexa app.

Usually when I invoke her from my phone, I do it in the Alexa app by tapping the Alexa Circle Icon and just speaking without using the wake word. This time my phone was listening for my wake word and responded, exactly as if it was an Echo device.

I don't want my phone to be an Echo device, I want it to be a Google Assistant device (which works quite well). And I don't want it to be a Bixby device either, but that's a different tread (The Vent and Rant Thread)

[Catlady]

OT: ApK, for your paranoia files:

The other day I used my phone to take a photo; my Facebook app immediately asked if I wanted to post it. That hasn't occurred with a few subsequent photos I've taken, so I'm thinking I must have unknowingly had the Facebook app open at the time, but still--where do they get off invading my privacy like that? Isn't it enough that I was one of the millions whose info went to Cambridge Analytica?

When you start your tinfoil hat business, I'd like one with flowers on it.

[wodin]

I deleted by seldom use FaceBook account when the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke. My paranoia insists that it's not really gone, just hiding.

Just 'cause I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not after me!

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by wodin

WhisperSync works fine, if not a little confusing. What I'm referring to is that Alexa answered on my phone... To my wake word, even though I had closed the Alexa app.

Usually when I invoke her from my phone, I do it in the Alexa app by tapping the Alexa Circle Icon and just speaking without using the wake word. This time my phone was listening for my wake word and responded, exactly as if it was an Echo device.

I don't want my phone to be an Echo device, I want it to be a Google Assistant device (which works quite well). And I don't want it to be a Bixby device either, but that's a different tread (The Vent and Rant Thread)

How did you close the alexa app? Amazon does weird things with their apps. Just using the back button doesn't necessarily close an app.

I don't have any of my Android devices set up to use the alexa app by voice. I don't even have my Fire devices set up to use alexa by voice. If you don't want it listening at all you can remove the microphone permission.

[ApK]

Facebook exists solely for the purpose of getting people to share information publicly to make Zuckerberg wealthy. Why is the fact that that info is used to make people money all of a sudden such a surprise to people?

That's not the ONLY reason I won't have a Facebook account, but it is on the list.
Disabling or removing the Facebook app is always part of my new phone setup process.

As for Cat's tablet and Wodin's phone responding when it shouldn't, did you both verify the appropriate settings for hands-free are set to off? If so, have you contacted Amazon support? There could be a bug.

p.s. Note, also, that Android apps may not "close" or stop running when you might think they would. This is part of how Android works, not necessarily nefarious behavior on the part of Amazon or any other app devs. Blame Google.