# Amazon Echo First Impressions



## Betsy the Quilter

OK, here goes.

As I mentioned earlier in the other thread, it comes in a plain black box, though the inside is Amazon orange. The Echo itself is a cylinder about 9 inches high (about the height of two soda cans stacked) and 3" in diameter, weighing in at a chunky 2.5 lbs.

It's a matte black finish. The bottom half of the cylinder has speaker holes in it, the top is solid. The very top is a ring that you can turn to manually adjust the volume. It's got two buttons on the top, a microphone button to turn off the microphones (though you can still use the remote which requires a pressed button to send voice requests) and an action button that can turn off a timer or alarm sound (though I would likely just yell at Alexa) and to manually enter setup mode if you need to change something.

There's a light ring at the top. It's pretty cool. When you ask the Echo something, it turns blue and a light blue (cyan) bit appears on the side the requester is on, so you can tell who/what it is responding to. If you have the TV on, you may get several cyan lights all around the ring. If you are changing the volume either by voice or manually, the ring turns white.

It was great fun when I plugged it in--it started talking to me right away. Gotta love a gal that bosses you around, right? 

Setup was very easy, as several have said. You use the app to help set up (for example, to enter the WiFi password) and you'll want to use the app for other things once you start playing with it. I picked the word Alexa for the wake word (or safe word as I think of it). We say Amazon too often. Though we say Alexa a lot, too, as we tend to call it "Alexa" not "the Echo." And she blinks at us when we say it.

We jumped in right away to asking it stuff. Sometimes competing for the Echo's attention.

If the Echo can't do what you ask, sometimes she asks for clarification; sometimes she just makes a soft honking noise. (The female voice is the only option right now.)

The Echo comes with a bookmark-sized card of suggested things to ask, and in the app, under "Things to Try" there are even more. As you make requests, a history of your requests builds on the home screen of the app. They are stored as "cards" and you can indicate on the bottom of each card how well the Echo responded to your request.) As soon as you make a request, the App, if open, will switch to the latest request. The first "card" is a welcome message.



> Welcome, Betsy! Requests to your Echo will show up here on the home screen. Follow the link below to learn more about what Echo can do.


Learn more takes you to Things to Try, which is also an option on the side menu.

You can actually go to the cards and tap on them to make requests.

Here are some of the things that we requested and how it worked (All phrases preceded by the word Alexa):

*Play Bob Dylan* - It picked out Dylan music from my library that I already had.

*Play country music.* - It picked out music from my library that met that genre criteria.

*Play Prime music.* - It picked out a playlist from Prime Music--in this case "Conway Twitty and More." "Play some prime music" did the same thing, different country playlist.

So if you just ask for genre music, it will fill it from your library, but if you ask for Prime, it will go there.

*What's the weather?* - it gave us the local weather. And here's a cool thing--the card that it creates has the local weather as of that time. You can individually remove cards if you want. It was 39 degrees Wednesday afternoon. Just asking "Alexa, weather" or "Alexa, temperature" does the same thing. You can also say "Alexa, what's the temperature in Hibbing, MN?) 2 degrees Wednesday evening.  You can also ask
"what's the weather tomorrow?" or "what's the weather on Sunday?"

I tried to buy a song but it told me it couldn't do that because it was already in my library. Which was good!

While a song is playing, you can ask "*Alexa, who is this*?" and the music will keep playing and the Echo will tell you the name of the song, the artist, and the album. Wish she would tell us the year of the recording. You can also ask things like the time while the music is playing and it will resume automatically. Some things made the music stop.

If the music is too loud, you may have to shout for the Echo to hear you. You can always say "*Alexa, softer*" or "*Alexa, turn it down*." Or "*Alexa, volume 4*"

You can ask for a "*Flash Briefing*." This can be from NPR or BBC or both (one will follow the other). Whatever you pick will be followed by a weather report. Maybe five minutes total. Go to Settings to specify your news source. I imagine there will be more sources as time goes by! We really like this too, as we are news junkies. I can see us walking into the house after being gone for awhile and asking for a news brief.

You can ask the Echo to tell you a joke. They are "dad jokes" as one reviewer said. "What's more amazing than a talking dog? --A spelling bee."  That was one of the best ones.

I asked it how many days until Christmas -- 28 at the time I asked it.

Asking for symphonies got tricky, but you can ask for classical music, opera, gospel or you can ask for composers. You can ask for songs by title and artist. Sometimes it doesn't work.

You pretty much need to include the word "play" if you want music. "*Play New World Symphony*."

If you ask for a song by title, it will look for that in your library and in Prime, and if it isn't in either of those, it will play a sample which you can then buy by telling the Echo "Add this to my library."

You can thank Alexa, she'll respond. You can apologize to Alexa (hubby almost knocked her over). You can tell her she's not very smart. ("I'm sorry, I'll try to do better next time.") You can say something rude. ("That's not very nice!") You can mute by saying "Alexa, mute" or, in our house, "Alexa, shut up."  You can then resume the music that was playing.... "Alexa, resume."

You can ask her to spell words (hubby will love this--he usually asks me). She'll spell it out.

You can ask for a brief Wikipedia reading. You can ask ages and stuff. Oddly, I could get Sasha Obama's age but not Malia. (Was watching their teenage response to the turkey on the news.)

Tried to take it to a friend's house and set it up to demonstrate on Thanksgiving day and could not get it connected to her WiFi, though it came home and reconnected to ours. Gotta play with that some more.

Using the App

I really like using the App in conjunction with playing the music. If you go to Now Playing, it will show you the queue of songs that are coming up. You can change to another song by tapping on it in the queue.

You can also manually pick radio stations and podcast episodes. Using voice commands to get podcast episodes will play the latest one--but then a queue of older episodes appears in the app, so you can always do it that way.

Right now, the three things I wish they would include are 
Prime Radio
Audible books
local traffic reports.

Siri vs Alexa. Or, as Jimmy Kimmel said, do we need another device to shout at? 

I think there's room for both. There's clearly some overlap, but for home use, Alexa works better, to me. I don't have to pick up the phone. Though, you CAN set up Siri to answer to "Hey Siri" without pushing the button, but your iPhone has to be plugged in to use it. Most general information can be gotten either through Siri or Alexa. If you like music, Alexa has the access to Prime music. But Siri has Spotify, I guess. The jokes are better on Alexa, believe it or not.

All in all definitely a keeper for us. Hubby using it for his music makes it worth it. He'd never use Siri. I'm actually thinking I want a second one for the studio, as this one won't be leaving the living room.

Betsy


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## D/W

Thanks for the detailed and very helpful review, Betsy!


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## Betsy the Quilter

Glad you found it useful, DreamWeaver!  Hopefully you'll get an invite soon.   I made some very slight edits/corrections.

Betsy


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## Eeyore

Really nice review, Betsy. I signed up Nov. 6th but still no invite to buy.    After reading your review I'm looking forward to getting one.

All the Best.


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## Betsy the Quilter

We are having so much fun with it....Fred Astaire music is playing now in the background.

We've had opera, Al Jolson, gospel, Marian Anderson, Billie Holiday, jazz, Beethoven, Dvorak, country, Louis Armstrong, Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Barbara Streisand, Coldplay, The Frey, World War I songs (this took a little work--just asking for World War I songs didn't work) playing since Wednesday afternoon.

I feel like we've just tapped the possibilities....looking forward to what Claw and others discover!

Betsy


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## The Hooded Claw

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201549660

Amazon claims you can connect your phone to hire Echo, but you can only play audio files and such, not make or receive calls. Seems of little use, since I'd expect any files on your phone would also be in your Amazon cloud. I tried it anyway, and my phone couldn't see my Echo. I even tried turning off my Fire tablet, since only one device at a time can be connected by Bluetooth. Didn't help.

_fixed link --Betsy_


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## Betsy the Quilter

The Hooded Claw said:


> http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201549660
> 
> Amazon claims you can connect your phone to hire Echo, but you can only play audio files and such, not make or receive calls. Seems of little use, since I'd expect any files on your phone would also be in your Amazon cloud. I tried it anyway, and my phone couldn't see my Echo. I even tried turning off my Fire tablet, since only one device at a time can be connected by Bluetooth. Didn't help.
> 
> _fixed link --Betsy_


I don't believe that your Fire tablet connects to the Echo via Bluetooth, at least mine doesn't! It connects to the mothership via your WiFi network.

And yes, you're right--it seems weird that you can't use the speakers and microphone with your phone.  But you can use services like Pandora or other audio services that aren't available through Amazon. (Playing Pandora from my iPhone on the Echo right now via Bluetooth.) Or you could connect the Fire Tablet via Bluetooth and play Pandora that way, I suppose--it is available for the Fire, isn't it?

I was able to pair my Echo to my iPhone 5S and to my Samsung Galaxy S2 using the voice command method from the link you provided, Claw:



> With your voice:
> 
> Tell Amazon Echo: "[Wake word], pair." Your Amazon Echo should respond with: "Ready to pair. Go to the Bluetooth settings on the device you want to pair, and choose your Amazon Echo."
> 
> From your Bluetooth-capable device, go to the Bluetooth settings menu, and then choose your Amazon Echo. It may take a few seconds for it to appear in the list. If successful, your Amazon Echo should respond with: "Connected."
> 
> When you're finished, say: "[Wake word], disconnect." Amazon Echo will disconnect from your Bluetooth device.


Betsy


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## The Hooded Claw

Oops, you're right about the tablet and wifi. I'll try the phone again later, I can conceive of wanting to listen to Pandora,  I'm  more used to it than the radio choices they offer on Echo now. But the difference may not matter, really.

In settings, you can change the source of your news briefing from NPR to BBC. You can also just listen to a BBC channel fromTuneIn by commanding "Play BBC". I'm listening to the nice English accents now.

I set my Echo up in my living room like I suspect most of us did, but I can definitely conceive of wanting a second Echo in my bedroom to listen to while dressing in the morning, for alarms, and to listen (with a timer set) for awhile after going to bed. White noise or whale sounds and the like might be relaxing.


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## Betsy the Quilter

The Hooded Claw said:


> In settings, you can change the source of your news briefing from NPR to BBC. You can also just listen to a BBC channel from TuneIn by commanding "Play BBC". I'm listening to the nice English accents now.


I'll have to try *Play BBC*. Good tip! You can also have both NPR and BBC be in your news briefing--the Echo will play them both back-to-back.



> I set my Echo up in my living room like I suspect most of us did, but I can definitely conceive of wanting a second Echo in my bedroom to listen to while dressing in the morning, for alarms, and to listen (with a timer set) for awhile after going to bed. White noise or whale sounds and the like might be relaxing.


That would be great, especially if you could tell it to turn off after so many minutes.

Betsy


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## The Hooded Claw

Betsy the Quilter said:


> We are having so much fun with it....Fred Astaire music is playing now in the background.
> 
> We've had opera, Al Jolson, gospel, Marian Anderson, Billie Holiday, jazz, Beethoven, Dvorak, country, Louis Armstrong, Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Barbara Streisand, Coldplay, The Frey, World War I songs (this took a little work--just asking for World War I songs didn't work) playing since Wednesday afternoon.




For WW1 songs, the above is good, though I have to play it from my music collection.


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## JetJammer

Thanks for the tips Betsy!

I've actually had mine for a week (/blush), but just got around to setting it up last night.  So far I'd probably label it a "completely unnecessary gadget that I absolutely love!"

Question.  Anyone found a way to filter OUT music types?  Last night I asked it to play Elvis - up comes Elvis Christmas music (from Prime).  So I thought maybe that's all the Elvis there is on Prime, so swapped it to Dean Martin.  Again, Christmas music.  Hmm, okay, swapped it to Cyndi Lauper.  Yep, Christmas music.  Now I like Christmas music, but pretty sure I'm not going to want it to do that in June...

I guess it's possible that I accidentally picked 3 artists that only have Christmas music available on Prime, but the odds aren't that great.  Has anyone discovered a way to say "Play Dean Martin except Christmas?" or something along those lines?


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## The Hooded Claw

JetJammer said:


> Thanks for the tips Betsy!
> 
> I've actually had mine for a week (/blush), but just got around to setting it up last night. So far I'd probably label it a "completely unnecessary gadget that I absolutely love!"
> 
> Question. Anyone found a way to filter OUT music types? Last night I asked it to play Elvis - up comes Elvis Christmas music (from Prime). So I thought maybe that's all the Elvis there is on Prime, so swapped it to Dean Martin. Again, Christmas music. Hmm, okay, swapped it to Cyndi Lauper. Yep, Christmas music. Now I like Christmas music, but pretty sure I'm not going to want it to do that in June...
> 
> I guess it's possible that I accidentally picked 3 artists that only have Christmas music available on Prime, but the odds aren't that great. Has anyone discovered a way to say "Play Dean Martin except Christmas?" or something along those lines?


I asked Alexa to *play Elvis,* and it began playing Blue Christmas. I told it to *skip,* and was told that was the only song available. I suspect it is the only Elvis song in Prime music. I have Cyndi Lauper in my music collection, which doesn't surprise me, and Dean Martin, which does, so I can't help you there.

I also wish there was a way to exclude some things in a request. I was trying to ask for something with "classic" in the title, and Alexa refuses to consider that I might be asking for anything other than a classical music playlist or station.


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## The Hooded Claw

I found another voice commands conundrum. I have an album of 19th century sporting music called Play the Game"and was inspired to listen to it by Betsy's mention of World War I music. Alexa refuses to hear the word "play". She insists I want to hear something called "the game." Even commanding* "Alexa, play album play the game" *or "*play Play the game.*" doesn't work.

I sent detailed feedback.


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## Betsy the Quilter

JetJammer said:


> Thanks for the tips Betsy!
> 
> I've actually had mine for a week (/blush), but just got around to setting it up last night. So far I'd probably label it a "completely unnecessary gadget that I absolutely love!"
> 
> Question. Anyone found a way to filter OUT music types? Last night I asked it to play Elvis - up comes Elvis Christmas music (from Prime). So I thought maybe that's all the Elvis there is on Prime, so swapped it to Dean Martin. Again, Christmas music. Hmm, okay, swapped it to Cyndi Lauper. Yep, Christmas music. Now I like Christmas music, but pretty sure I'm not going to want it to do that in June...


Note that it will (as far as I can tell) first play music from your library. Do you have a Christmas collection of some kind, either as a playlist or album in your library? My experience has been that if you have music in your library that meets the criteria, it will play that first and won't mix in Prime.



The Hooded Claw said:


> I asked Alexa to *play Elvis,* and it began playing Blue Christmas. I told it to *skip,* and was told that was the only song available. I suspect it is the only Elvis song in Prime music. I have Cyndi Lauper in my music collection, which doesn't surprise me, and Dean Martin, which does, so I can't help you there.
> 
> I also wish there was a way to exclude some things in a request. I was trying to ask for something with "classic" in the title, and Alexa refuses to consider that I might be asking for anything other than a classical music playlist or question.


I've also been getting a lot of Christmas music as the first options in the albums I've asked for....but I have a lot of Christmas music in my library by various artists.---Claw, is Blue Christmas in your library? I also have the Million Dollar Quartet in my library, it played that when we said *Play Elvis*

When I did a search on my Fire, in the Prime music part of the music tab, it came up with the following non-Christmas songs:
Can't help falling in Love
Burning Love
Suspicious Minds

and these albums:
Elvis Ultimate Gospel
Elvis 30#1 hits
The Essential Elvis 
How Great Thou Art
Peace in the Valley
The Classic Christmas

You can add Prime albums or songs to your library, so you may want to do that.

Betsy

playing Jerry Lee Lewis now....  There's a whole lotta shakin' going on.....


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## Betsy the Quilter

I think we need to keep giving them feedback....

Betsy


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## The Hooded Claw

Interesting. I have ask album I didn't remember called The Essential Now That's What I Call Christmas in my library. A freebie from a previous holiday, I've stopped picking up Christmas albums, even free ones. It has the one Elvis song, as well as Dean Martin singing Baby It's Cold Outside. The Elvis song was the only Elvis song in my library, though I've now added a couple of Prime albums for free.


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## Betsy the Quilter

The Hooded Claw said:


> Interesting. I have ask album I didn't remember called The Essential Now That's What I Call Christmas in my library. A freebie from a previous holiday, I've stopped picking up Christmas albums, even free ones. It has the one Elvis song, as well as Dean Martin singing Baby It's Cold Outside. The Elvis song was the only Elvis song in my library, though I've now added a couple of Prime albums for free.


That kind of confirms what I've found. It will look at your library first and play what's in there and not go to Prime unless you specifically tell it or unless there's no music in your library that meets the search criteria.

Betsy


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## Betsy the Quilter

The Hooded Claw said:


> For WW1 songs, the above is good, though I have to play it from my music collection.


That looks good! No digital version and I've stopped buying CDs... Will wishlist it, though, in case I decide we need it!

Betsy


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## The Hooded Claw

Betsy the Quilter said:


> That looks good! No digital version and I've stopped buying CDs... Will wishlist it, though, in case I decide we need it!
> 
> Betsy


I ripped it and put it in my library.


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## Betsy the Quilter

The Hooded Claw said:


> I ripped it and put it in my library.


Yeah, I'm going to do that with the CDs we already have, but I'm trying not to buy more CDs. I prefer to buy digital unless it's something we absolutely have to have...and the WWI album isn't in that category right now. I'm going to be buying even fewer now that hubby is enjoying the Echo so much. Literally the only CDs we bought in the last year were for him.

Betsy


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## barryem

The Hooded Claw said:


> I found another voice commands conundrum. I have an album of 19th century sporting music called Play the Game"and was inspired to listen to it by Betsy's mention of World War I music. Alexa refuses to hear the word "play". She insists I want to hear something called "the game." Even commanding* "Alexa, play album play the game" *or "*play Play the game.*" doesn't work. I sent detailed feedback.


I've found that for things I upload I have to adjust the metadata to be able to get the Echo to recognize it. I uploaded Louis Lamour audio dramatization and I was completely unable to get it to play it by name or artist. No pronunciation of Louis or Lamour seemed to work. I also tried correcting the spelling to L'Amour but it still didn't recognize it.

I finally put it in a playlist called Drama but it couldn't recognize that either until I asked Alexa how to spell Drama. That did it! Now Alexa Play Drama Playlist works just fine. I'm not really sure I fixed it. It might have just been a coincidence or maybe just the temporary change of subject gave Alexa time to think things over. Anyway it now works.

I think a lot of learning this stuff is going to be trying things till something works. I'll learn to deal with Alexa and possibly at the same time she'll learn to deal with me.

Barry


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## Patricia

I was reading a book last night that mentioned a 1930's band called Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy.  I had never heard of them, so I asked Alexa to play some...and she did!!  It was so awesome!!


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## Betsy the Quilter

Patricia said:


> I was reading a book last night that mentioned a 1930's band called Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy. I had never heard of them, so I asked Alexa to play some...and she did!! It was so awesome!!


Oh, that is a cool way to use Alexa....and now I want to hear the band, too!

(playing Woody Guthrie now.)

Hubby learned saying *Cool it* pauses the Echo. 

Betsy


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## The Hooded Claw

Patricia said:


> I was reading a book last night that mentioned a 1930's band called Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy. I had never heard of them, so I asked Alexa to play some...and she did!! It was so awesome!!


When reading historical fiction detective stories by Max Allan Collins and others, I've used youtube for a similar purpose. Back in my pre-Alexa days, when things were, you know, primitive?


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## Ann in Arlington

The Hooded Claw said:


> When reading historical fiction detective stories by Max Allan Collins and others, I've used youtube for a similar purpose. Back in my pre-Alexa days, when things were, you know, primitive?


"Keyboard? . . . .How quaint."


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## Betsy the Quilter

Hubby and I now want to be able to voice control our TV.  We're so over remote controls.
  

Betsy


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## Betsy the Quilter

Playing Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy...

Betsy


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## Ann in Arlington

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Hubby and I now want to be able to voice control our TV. We're so over remote controls.
> 
> 
> Betsy


Can't you do that with the Fire Stick and an appropriate Fire app?


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## Betsy the Quilter

Change channels to CNN, PBS, C-SPAN or MSNBC or HBO?  I don't think so....  Change the volume?  Mute it?  I don't think so.... 

Betsy


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