Amazon Slashes Prices Across its Echo Smart Speaker Range for Black Friday

[canyonblue737]

Not a bad offer. But nothing Siri can't really do either, for the most part.

sorta.

despite my Lutron Caseta smart home lighting system working with Apple HomeKit, the "Hey Siri" call function is hit or miss at best and requires me to remove the phone from my pocket to work or have it laying out. its a massive pain in the ass and almost makes it worse than just getting up and walking over to hit a switch.

i purchased 3 echo dot's for $150 total that are ALWAYS listening and cover 75% of the main and upper floor of my house. anytime i am in those 75% of areas where a echo can hear me I can literally just speak out loud at any given time "Alexa, dim my bedroom lights to 50%" or "Alexa, turn on the kitchen island lights" or "Alexa, turn off all of the downstairs lights" and it gets it 100% perfect all the time. no button press. no "hey siri" that works 50% of the time and requires a slight pause before saying a command. for me that $150 made my far more expensive lighting system WORK.

believe me i want apple to get there, the only reason i haven't bought MORE echo's is because i'm trying not to sink too much money into echo if i end up going to a similar apple solution in 2017 but for now it KILLS SIRI to actually do things people want it to do and not just demonstrate you can ask 12 ways to get it to say the weather.

 

[MH01]

Not a bad offer. But nothing Siri can't really do either, for the most part.

Siri implementation is very expansive to setup in each room

I get a dot for £40

 

[Fiestaman]

I was in the same place as you, but I use this way more than Siri. Its more responsive and gets it right first time more of the time. Plus everyone in the house can use it, there is no voice print.

My sentiments exactly and very convenient when you have them all over the house. I put an Echo or Dot in every room, unfortunately before they halved the cost of the Dot, but I never have to worry about where exactly my phone is at the time or whether the face of my watch has been up too long or I spoke too soon making Siri not respond. The Echo line does a ridiculously good job of picking your voice out from the noise and this is especially useful if using them to stream music. I love my Alexa devices, almost as much as my Apple gear.

(leans awkwardly into microphone) Wrong.

...unless you don't count pre-orders as part of the products' "history."

And there was Prime Day. I have 6 Alexa devices and didn't pay full price for any of them.

 

[x-evil-x]

sorta.

despite my Lutron Caseta smart home lighting system working with Apple HomeKit, the "Hey Siri" call function is hit or miss at best and requires me to remove the phone from my pocket to work or have it laying out. its a massive pain in the ass and almost makes it worse than just getting up and walking over to hit a switch.

i purchased 3 echo dot's for $150 total that are ALWAYS listening and cover 75% of the main and upper floor of my house. anytime i am in those 75% of areas where a echo can hear me I can literally just speak out loud at any given time "Alexa, dim my bedroom lights to 50%" or "Alexa, turn on the kitchen island lights" or "Alexa, turn off all of the downstairs lights" and it gets it 100% perfect all the time. no button press. no "hey siri" that works 50% of the time and requires a slight pause before saying a command. for me that $150 made my far more expensive lighting system WORK.

believe me i want apple to get there, the only reason i haven't bought MORE echo's is because i'm trying not to sink too much money into echo if i end up going to a similar apple solution in 2017 but for now it KILLS SIRI to actually do things people want it to do and not just demonstrate you can ask 12 ways to get it to say the weather.

exactly. siri is limited with home automation which i don't understand. Wasn't it open to developers as of september?
I just bought a dot and it is linked to my wink hub and works great. I can control all my lighting and nest with voice commands with always on using it. Siri can't do any of this unless there is some major workaround?

 

[Jessica08]

How close do you have to be in order for the echo to hear you or what's the range for one unit? Do have to speak loudly for it to understand you?

 

[44267547]

How close do you have to be in order for the echo to hear you or what's the range for one unit? Do have to speak loudly for it to understand you?

It has a decent range for to hear your voice, I would estimate approximately 12-15 Feet, depending on the noise in the background. And you don't have to speak loudly per say, more so more clearly.

 

[mkeeley]

I bought a Dot, £10 off plus another £10 code, so for that price it was worth trying it out. Always nice to have a new toy.

 

[Crazy Badger]

£119 and £39 now in the UK store. Still wish I'd picked one of these up as a Prime member for £99 pre-order, but might give one a go now. Hopefully better than Siri at turning on/off lights and without the need for as phone!

 

[576316]

We've just bought one of these to replace our kitchen radio, but my dad has this ancient iPod Classic (the one with the spinning disk!) with hundreds of albums on. He's wondering whether there's a way for him to play the music on the Classic through the Echo?

 

[testcard]

We've just bought one of these to replace our kitchen radio, but my dad has this ancient iPod Classic (the one with the spinning disk!) with hundreds of albums on. He's wondering whether there's a way for him to play the music on the Classic through the Echo?

He could try a Bluetooth transmitter:
http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/apple/how-add-bluetooth-ipod-3511535/
Alternatively, there's always the option of Amazon Music Unlimited for £3.99 per month on a single Echo.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/ref=dmm_hfup_voi_lea_sfte/b/?ie=UTF8&node=11368385031

 

[576316]

He could try a Bluetooth transmitter:
http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/apple/how-add-bluetooth-ipod-3511535/
Alternatively, there's always the option of Amazon Music Unlimited for £3.99 per month on a single Echo.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/ref=dmm_hfup_voi_lea_sfte/b/?ie=UTF8&node=11368385031

I may push him towards Amazon Music for Echo or Spotify. To be honest, there's not much of it he actually listens to he just likes to find unique problems with tech that nobody else seems to find. But I'll get him to choose the albums he wants on Amazon Music. The £3.99/m for Echo is actually a good deal, I guess.

 

[testcard]

it's a very good deal, particularly as it has a free trial period. Note that you can only sign up for the Echo deal through Alexa on an Echo device.

 

[coachingguy]

For those of you in the "Why? Siri does the same thing" Camp... I picked up a DOT at Best Buy yesterday, took 3 minutes to set up, update and I've already used it more in the last 24 hours than I have Siri for non-texting things in the last 6 months. I like that it's always on and my wife can use it as well. Connected to my Pandora and Amazon Prime accounts and it plays both easily. For a small speaker, at full volume "Alexa play at 10" it's plenty loud - not party loud, but for 2 people in the living room loud.

I can see why people would buy 2-3 dots for different parts of the house... Living room, Kitchen and Bathroom, maybe the bedroom for being able to set alarms and quick weather, news updates.

However, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Happy Holidays!

Coachingguy
[doublepost=1480207581][/doublepost]

We've just bought one of these to replace our kitchen radio, but my dad has this ancient iPod Classic (the one with the spinning disk!) with hundreds of albums on. He's wondering whether there's a way for him to play the music on the Classic through the Echo?

On the Dot, there's a "line-in", I don't know about the other ones... He could try that too... That'd be cheaper

Coachingguy

 

[Applebot1]

I bought a dot on impulse being discounted. Have to admit quite impressed. Great way to control music with added benefits. Wouldn't say it's any better than Siri but the device it's self just melts in the background. Even my children and wife have used it which speaks volumes lol
[doublepost=1480226405][/doublepost]

It has a decent range for to hear your voice, I would estimate approximately 12-15 Feet, depending on the noise in the background. And you don't have to speak loudly per say, more so more clearly.

Agreed this aspect is quite impressive even in a loud environment .
[doublepost=1480226623][/doublepost]

£119 and £39 now in the UK store. Still wish I'd picked one of these up as a Prime member for £99 pre-order, but might give one a go now. Hopefully better than Siri at turning on/off lights and without the need for as phone!

For me I find Siri better for controlling the lights.
[doublepost=1480226876][/doublepost]

£119 and £39 now in the UK store. Still wish I'd picked one of these up as a Prime member for £99 pre-order, but might give one a go now. Hopefully better than Siri at turning on/off lights and without the need for as phone!

The dot is great. £39 and does everything the same but fraction on the size apart from the proper built in speaker of the Echo. However if you can link up to a Hi Fi via blue tooth or line out save your money and buy the dot.
[doublepost=1480227305][/doublepost]

at best and requires me to remove the phone from my pocket to work or have it laying out. its a massive pain in the ass and almost makes it worse than just getting up and walking over to hit a switch.

Yes this is where Cook and the gang have it so wrong. In terms of user interface stand alone device like the Dot is the way forward imo.
[doublepost=1480228414][/doublepost]

Does anyone know if you can/if it's easy to use Alexa alongside HomeKit/siri? I already have some things (smartplugs) set up using HomeKit/Siri, but a dedicated device such as the echo dot for voice commands would be nice. I would want to be able to use siri and the home app traditionally though. So I guess I'm asking if you can set up the devices to respond to both. So in theory I could tell Alexa to turn the light off and then tell Siri to turn it back on.

Yes just tried it! However I had to name my living room zone differently in Alexa as it kept saying "I've found several devices with the same name..." This could be down to my naming of the lights though tbh.

 

[Ed217]

Personally, even if I got a link saying I was able to get one for free, I just wouldn't bother.

I don't see the point in the 'smart speakers' - it can't do anything my phone can't do, and my phone isn't tethered to the power socket in one room of my house.

I don't get the hype.

I remember hearing similar words when smartphones first came out. Those proved to be less than insightful too...

 

[Applebot1]

Alexa appears to becoming more accurate the more I use my Dot. Didn't realise I could control my thermostat (albeit very limited control) and I believe iSmartAlarm will be supporting Alexa very shortly. For £39 I'm really impressed and has so much potential.

 

[Crazy Badger]

I thought I'd go all out with the Echo and so far have been very impressed. I still need to play around with the Hue app and set-up a few more scenes (I'd been using the Huemote app which is much better on the iPhone) but I can get Alexa to switch between the few I have and also turn things on and off. I'm loving the Shopping List as I (we) can just add things when we use them and you have a list for wandering around the supermarket. Would be nice to be able to sort/order this, but not a big thing. It's pretty good as a music player too, and the speaker is fine for the kitchen (Alexa lives on my dining room table, so I can talk to her from the kitchen and lounge). I'll probably give the Music Unlimited service a trial over Christmas as the Prime selection is a little limited, but it's got me thinking about more Amazon (rather than Apple) services which I guess is their master plan!

My 4-year-old daughter is fascinated by her, and keeps asking questions. Alexa, how far away is the moon? Alexa, how many bones in my body? So far she's been pretty good at answering her, and is very good at helping out with sums. Alexa, what is 3 plus 4 Be interesting to see what this technology can do when she has a 4-year-old

 

[testcard]

I've bought a rechargeable Li-on battery base from Amazon for my Echo. Means I can use it anywhere in the house without being tied to a mains lead, with around 8 hours usage including music playback.