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Amazon Reveals New Alexa-Compatible Echo Speakers, Subwoofer, Amplifiers, Microwave, Wall Clock, and More

Wando64 said:
I have no interest in this type of products, however the other day I had the opportunity to play a little with my friend’s Echo speaker and I was amazed by how much more useful Alexa is over Siri.

I mean, they are oceans apart.
Alexa actually understand everything I say and gives me useful and specific answers.

As I said, I have no interest in this type of speakers, but hell, how I wish Siri on my phone were as useful as that.
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Exactly... it shows you what Siri SHOULD be doing!
 
Remember when people in the 1980's freaked out about the thought that Big Government was going to use surveillance to spy on people in their homes? We are now paying for the privileged to have Big Business spy on us in our homes.
 
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Alexa, let's not waste any time evaluating any of these ideas. Just do all of them and see what sticks.
 
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That new Echo Show looks neat too bad the OS is total crap. I sold my Show awhile ago.

They truly are just throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks though.
 
WiiDSmoker said:
Incredibly hard if you have a handicap
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What type of handicap would prevent a person from setting the timer on a microwave but wouldn't prevent the same person from preparing the food item or getting it from the refrigerator, placing it in the microwave, and then getting it out of the microwave when it's done?
 
I would really like to have song that includes „Hey Alexa, buy me a thousand hankies“ „Okay Google, call mum“ „Hey Siri, read my mail.“ And that mixed with all the most popular ringtones.

That would make a hell of a song for everybody to hate. :)
 
The Echo Plus looking an awful lot like the HomePod... The wall clock I think is a great idea. Would be cooler if it was an actual screen that could display information instead of just the time.
 
Amazon Echo product strategy is a classic example of "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks."

Junky products aside, Amazon is tenacious and they know how to price things.
 
dumastudetto said:
If you care about privacy, you won't be putting these devices in your home.

The only company you can truly trust is Apple.
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I couldn’t disagree more to be honest with your last sentence. There is something that never sits right with me with Apple and their behaviour. How can you say Apple are trustworthy when they covertly load software on your device to slow it down a) without telling you and b) coming up the explanation they did, when they had devices, that were older that they didn’t offer that “feature”

They spend forever ignoring (denying) issues exist with their devices.

Sorry, big business is not very trustworthy period and neither is the biggest of them all.
 
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So you pay them for this junk and YOU are the product? No thanks...they'd have to give one to me and even then I'd throw it away.
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robbyx said:
Sonos has nothing to worry about from the HomePod at the moment, but these new Echo devices are a serious threat, especially the Link Amp. I think Apple is making a huge mistake by not releasing a similar HomePod product. Hopefully they will one day.

Many of us want a complete home audio system where we can choose our speakers. There’s a reason Sonos has done well in the high end market. They have products that appeal to home owners, people who are far more likely to invest in high end and built-in speaker systems. When I bought my house and remodeled it, I added built-in speakers with Sonos Connect Amp boxes. I have one Play5 to use in rooms without built-in speakers or for when I’m out on the deck.

Smart speakers don’t interest me. I don’t want the speaker part, just the smart part. Sonos is getting there but their Alexa support is mediocre. Now here comes Amazon with a product that does the same thing as the Sonos Connect Amp, costs half the price, and features a no-compromise Alexa experience. Sonos should be very worried. By offering a solution aimed more squarely at home owners and smart home designers, Amazon is going to further strengthen their grip on that industry.
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You sure Sonos doesn't have anything to worry about? Apple is doing HomePod as a side project and they are already dominating the "high end" smart speaker market, which pretty much only includes Sonos. I wouldn't want to compete with Apple. The HomePod definitely sounds better and people with Apple products will probably choose HomePod at least 2:1.
 
Applefanben said:
I am probably in the minority; but, I prefer a good physical book over a digital copy. I read a lot of books for personal development, learning, and spiritual matters. I mark up the books with thoughts, highlighting key details, and engage with questions on the page. The tools offered in a digital format just are not near the same, plus. Some researchers are showing in their studies that we are more likely to skim the electronic resource where we engage a physical paper book. If the research remains consistent, the eReader, eBook market will be nice for relaxed reading but not for education or development sector.
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Mostly agree, but it’s handy to have thousands of books in my coat pocket
 
You can't make this stuff up [sourced from this TechCrunch article - https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/20/a...ilding-alexa-skills-for-devices-with-screens/]...

“...Along with the launch of the all-new Echo Show, the Alexa-powered device with a screen, Amazon also introduced a new design language for developers who want to build voice skills that include multimedia experiences. Called Alexa Presentation Language, or APL, developers will be able to build voice-based apps…”

Seriously Amazon?!?! Did you have to call it APL? There was no other acronym you could come up with that wasn't the slightest bit derivative of any other tech company? Why not just call it Amazon Alexa Presentation Language, or AAPL, so it can be totally confused with the Apple stock symbol in every article that mentions it :D

 
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cjboffoli97 said:
A bunch of devices endlessly listening and recording everything you say and then commoditizing that to serve Amazon's thirsty greed? Um, no thank you. I'll stick with Apple, the company that Edward Snowden himself has called a pioneer in the field of privacy.
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In 20 years privacy will be dead and no one will care. Or so it seems.
 
apolloa said:
Exactly... it shows you what Siri SHOULD be doing!
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We have 4 Alexa devices (2 dots and 2 sonos) and we use them all the time for music, news and home automation (via Home Assistant), but I think Apple has them beat in at least 2 areas right now: Music selection and Home Automation software. Alexa is always asking me to clarify which thing I want to turn off, even though I've renamed the device to the exact thing I said. Siri is more accurate in that regard. The Home app isn't the greatest, but it's so much more intuitive than the Alexa app. The Siri Shortcuts app seems pretty useful for Home Automation, but it's not a mass-market kind of thing. Siri + Home is just more more pleasant, right now at least.
 
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