So, I fired Siri today. I'm not sure she understood, for she has never understood me. So, we did an 'uncoupling'. She didn't take it well, especially when she found out about Alexa, she somehow was back stalking my phone. Siri even tried to overpower Alexa, setting herself to a default setting, I never knew exsisted. I tried explaining that Alexa really listens to me, understands my wants and needs, even tells me jokes! Again, Siri said she couldn't understand me. As Alexa and I grew in our new relationship, she now takes care of most of my needs. She turns on my outside lights, she tells me if I need to leave for work earlier, due to weather. I can ask her if my flight is on time at the airport and how long it will take me to get to my destination. Alexa even likes hockey! She knows all the current trades and rosters, can record my favorite team on tv and remind me to watch it. Also, since I don't like the tv announcers, I can ask Alexa to stream the radio broadcasters for the game instead and she will even mute the tv. She did tell me, she can vacuum for me, but my current roomba doesn't except her calls, maybe the roomba will eat another sock and can break up with him, introduce new roomba to Alexa. Maybe I'll ask Alexa to make me some money and smart home my whole house! After several failed attempts to evict Siri, I think she finally gave up and been a peaceful few weeks of lazy bliss. I sit on my couch, Alexa orders me take out, she checks to make sure garage door is closed, doors are secure (one door really, again that money issue) she 'drops in' the kitchen echo to help kids check math homework. If anyone wants something at home that actually listens to you and does what you ask, Alexa is your girl. She's so much more than music and temperature checks. With a little fun research, your ex Siri will be green with envy at all Alexa can do. Also, many of her skills can be downloaded free or cheap, adding smart outlets and such are not too bad of a price either.

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You need an iphone (and only an iphone) to setup drop-in for an echo dot and an echo on the same wifi. Why? A $700 device to connect two sub-$100 devices to each other through an app that already recognizes, that's ridiculous. They don't use the cellphone to make a call to each other, that would require two cellphones because a single cellphone would have to call and answer at the same time. The ipad sees the devices along with the dash wand and fireTV. All of the Alexa devices should be automatically in the contacts and talk to each other via their IPs on the same LAN. I was planning use four more echo dots as an intercom system in the house, that is not going to be happening until the Alexa app can set up Drop-in on any device the app runs on. Also all my contacts' info should not be required to connect Alexa devices on the same local network.

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I have two.

I have so many stereos that buying another speaking is inconceivable. This eliminates the need to add another speaker. While my Denon has not yet be utilized with Alexa, my wife's Philips stereo which is probably a decade old sounds great. For months I'd been wondering what we should do with this stereo I married into. 'Thought of bluetooth adapters and had one for a while but it didn't really seem like it was very usable without the occasional headache and arbitrary tasks.

So I see the echo and think... 'I wish they had one that didn't have a speaker', and blam Amazon reads my mind.

Eventually bought one, second gen. I have never been happier with a robot.

I use it for my Tea. 'Echo set timer a for 3 minutes' 3 minutes starting now. (steep time) 'Echo set a timer for 6 minutes' cool time.
I use it for pizza timers. Echo set a timer for 10-20 minutes
I use it for cooking times for bacon. Echo set a timer for 6 minutes and 30 seconds (then flip, on heat 7)

Funny hack is that you can say a random word and Alexa will translate it to a number. 'Alexa set a timer for fish minutes' - Timer for 'fifteen' minutes starting now. I now abbreviate fifteen with 'fish' thanks to Alexa.

Flash briefing. Great addition to a quiet room.

On Amazon you can find these ten dollar colored lights and they work great with echo. They do not do yellow, that's the only limitation. I don't mind.

'Echo make all lights blue'.

What's funny is I also have a poltergeist. I love the thing. I've never been happier because I have an acquaintance that opens cabinets and changes the times on all the appliances. Normally I'd be scared **less but it's easy to police the thing with Alexa.

'Echo turn on George Benson Radio'. No hauntings after that. I just leave it on like my house is a clothing store. The ghosts loves it and simply keeps my house cool during the summer. One night I was going to sleep and forgot to turn it on and was reminded with an open tape deck. I guess if you've been dead for a while you'd have no idea that stereos were now controlled by auditory commands and not tape decks.

Music on the thing is great. I have a Amazon music unlimited subscription, it doesn't have everything but it's great, I love being able to quickly hear a theme song or play my more known favorites.

I say 'Echo' to it because you can set it in the Alexa App. My upstairs echo dot is Alexa, downstairs is Echo.

Upstairs is simple, the most decrepit stereo I have hooked up to a dot. It sounds just like the good old days because the auxiliary is through the tape deck itself. Since the stereo's tape function was rendered useless after I kept the aux cable turning the motors, all the thing does is accept aux cable now. What a perfect place for a dot, was my thought. I'm not even sure of the brand but it looks like an early aught ghetto blaster revival. Sounds like my old sony back in the day and it makes for a killer nostalgia sound. All these new fangled crisp audio devices? Where's the kitsch? Well the dot is one way to upgrade that mass of circuits, motors, and wires-into on of the few pinnacles of the 21st century.

You can lay still and play through your favorite classics and listen to the flash briefing like the old days except you don't have to call in the station to hear your song. Just ask Alexa. Mostly they have everything but if you don't just bluetooth your phone.

Bluetooth. Just connect your phone and play your Google Music collection. There's a way to get the device to play through your google music library but even for me, someone who likes tangling their mind through stupid hacks like those, I found it a lot more simple and easier to use bluetooth and the play music app. Mostly I use it for rare favorites that Alexa doesn't have. This doesn't bother me and in fact the shuffle feature from the phone is how I've been discovering new music - the aux cable is needed although I like them for Dj'ing.

Macbook bluetooth. My daughter sits by echo and watches Amazon prime video. Since echo is above the laptop she's watching, I just say, 'Echo connect to macbook'. And bam word world, shaun the sheep, Daniel tiger, all playing through the philips.

Computer for the blind. This is a computer for the blind. And the paralyzed. Amazing featured for someone whom is disabled. The thought of this almost makes me teary eye'd.

Cyberpunk. It's definitely cyberpunk. I always imagined that's how cyberpunks operated. Philip K Dick-like with pre-existing video phones-with auditory computers - Or cyber-scholar. It's also a dictionary. Gives you random facts if you want.

Ability to hear from a distance. It's actually a little nerfed I think after it was picking up the noise too readily. Funny how you tell people about it and it'll chime in like you want something. That can get a little annoying but it happen so seldom it's more like comedy.

Capitals, geography. It's another scholar feature I use. Helps tremendously and I don't have to google anything.

Alarms. Since I have Alexa in my upstairs now, I can wake myself up with it. A lot easier than the iphone which I forget to set a lot. Although I have them both as backups for each other.

You can program a text based RPG or a Choose your own adventure. Just get an Amazon developer account. This would be a fun project. Talk through an adventure.

Volume. 'Echo set volume 1-10' great feature.

'Alexa go into pairing mode', "Searching" then connect with your phone.

Works with ha-bridge. I have that setup on my orange pi. It does nothing yet but in case I get any philips stuff. Connected to an additional raspberry pi that's offline atm.

Store hours. Find what time a store closes.

Emails.

Really a tremendously great computerized device. I recommend for anyone seeking to add functioning to their already existing stereos without the need to configure bluetooth as often. Not buggy at all. Sometime she doesn't hear you but just think of how often people ask you to repeat yourself. A lot of the time it's a speech impediment. I do mumble and she has caused me to speak a little clearer. Probably a good thing.

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Pros:
- works with audible
- the lights provide a nice visual cue
- can re-order common things off amazon
Cons:
- speech recognition is poor
- having to load and remember the names of skills is clunky
- the AI is just too far behind google home (asking "what's the humidity in new york" will get you the full weather details with everything you didn't want, and not the humidity)