
Amazon Echo Released - _red
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00X4WHP5E/
======
aaronbrethorst
I've had an Echo for a couple months. I bought it for $99 as a Prime customer.
Generally, I'm very happy with it, but I don't think I'd be as satisfied at
the $180 price point.

Good:

\- The hardware is really well designed.

\- Being able to listen to NPR affiliates elsewhere in the country is awesome
(Seattle's KUOW affiliate is bad, but my hometown stations of MPR and The
Current are great).

\- The Prime Music and Pandora integration is generally pretty cool, although
the Prime Music selection is a bit thin at times.

\- Timers and kitchen measurements are helpful.

Bad:

\- The iOS app is absolutely horrendous. Imagine the worst web/native hybrid
app that you've ever seen, now set your expectations down another order of
magnitude. I _cannot_ understand how a company with as many resources as
Amazon—especially one that did such an amazing job on the hardware—could
create such an utterly horrible mobile companion app.

\- The Echo has trouble understanding my girlfriend (a complaint I've heard
from a couple other Echo users)

\- You call it Alexa, not Echo. The box says Echo, but you will never interact
with it as such. Can you imagine Steve Jobs saying: "here's our big feature
for iOS 5, it's called Siri, but you'll interact with it by calling it Yoko"?

\- No really, the iOS app is awful. Like, I'll go out of my way to avoid ever
having to open it.

~~~
rsync
"You call it Alexa, not Echo. The box says Echo, but you will never interact
with it as such."

Wait, what ?

Never mind the name mismatch - I agree that is odd.

But ... this is quick convenience device for rapid reaction to spoken commands
... and the command is three syllables ?

I understand the need to avoid false positives - waking up and responding to
common speech patterns that get used throughout the day that are not directed
to the device, but _surely_ you can come up with a two-syllable command that
won't generate those.

I have no intention of ever using a device like this in my home, but if I did,
50% more syllables for every interaction would drive me nuts.

~~~
nogridbag
There's one benefit to having both Echo/Alexa. When I have guests over and
their fascinated by Echo it's much easier to have a conversation about it
using the word "Echo" \- otherwise they'd trigger Alexa using the wake word
every other sentence..

It's also handy when Alexa is accidentally triggered (like one time when I was
watching a youtube video). I whisper to my wife "Don't talk Echo is
listening!" :)

~~~
cobrophy
Is there any way to change it?

I imagine if your name was Alexa (or even Alex) or had a close friend with
that name you could also get a lot of false positives.

~~~
genericuser
You can easily change it to Amazon if you do not want it to be Alexa. However
that is your only other option.

------
ranman
Disclaimer: I work for AWS (not Amazon but part of Amazon).

I like the idea that this is backed by a service that has an API that can call
out to other APIs. It has an "app store".

I think you can sign up for the SDK already:
[https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/devices/echo](https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/devices/echo)

It's one of the only devices in my home I use as often as my cell phone.

I look forward to the day when I can push information back to the echo using
apps like tripit:

"ranman your flight is leaving in 2 hours, should I call an uber or give you
the train schedule?"

"It's lunch time, want to see what's in the neighborhood you haven't tried
recently?"

"You have an incoming skype call from X"

"Welcome home, want me to turn on the news?"

The only downside is that it depends on always on and fast connectivity.

I'm not particularly _concerned_ about the privacy of it all (I do recognize
the concerns other people have) but I would be interested in learning more
about how the privacy is handled.

The other interesting device in this category is the Jibo:
[https://www.jibo.com/](https://www.jibo.com/) but I haven't seen any of the
details on the developer side of that yet.

~~~
Navarr
I do love my Echo, it's just.. it's entirely Amazon ecosystem and that really
limits its usefulness for me.

As an amazon employee I'm sure you're probably bought into the Amazon
ecosystem. Maybe you even have a fire phone? :p

But I'm primarily an Android user. I'm just imagining what a device like the
Echo would be if backed by Google Now. It would be ten times more powerful,
easily.

My girlfriend's primary complaint was "it can't even recommend me a book"
(Because Amazon was.. well.. a book seller!)

~~~
ranman
So, here's the thing that I like about it... if google now had an API then you
could build an app that talked to google now for you. I like the idea that I
can host my own echo endpoints at echo.ranman.org and then have my own server
make calls out to other stuff.

I don't really use anything amazonian besides a kindle and the echo (although
I do really like the fire TV stuff).

I use a ton of other apps/stuff -- and many of those have APIs. If I could
call out to those APIs with my voice and then get stuff back it would enable a
lot of convenience and intelligence that's hard to do on just a phone (or if
more apps supported making API calls via siri, google now, cortana, etc.)

I'm really excited to see what people build with the SDKs and I hope it takes
off.

~~~
Navarr
I have access to the SDK but I haven't built anything with it, and I remember
having an NDA. So I don't know how much I can say about it's functionality.

I'm excited about it, but it's more cautious optimism because it's kind of
limited, but I don't remember if it's too limited to have the kind of stuff
another commenter pointed out like "When does McDonald's close?"

And Google Now does have an API.. they're just super protective of it right
now. It will definitely be more interesting once it starts to open up ;)

~~~
slg
Just curious how early did you sign up for the SDK and how long was it between
your request and when you were given access? I requested access probably a
month ago and haven't heard anything since.

~~~
Navarr
I signed up fairly early and I got a request in a few weeks.

~~~
slg
Thanks. It seems like they have either slowed down sending out SDK invites or
the number of developers requesting has increased. I'm probably not the only
one who waited to signup for the SDK until I had received my Echo.

------
Trisell
If I had told George Orwell that people would pay for the right to have an
always on microphone in their house, he would have said, "That's to far
fetched even for me. I'll stick with the government forced TV in the living
room."

~~~
maxmcd
Smart tv's have already beaten this one to the punch by a few years now.

~~~
r00fus
Does anyone actually use the "smart" features on their smart TV?

I know of zero people who do this... and I've asked.

~~~
emidln
I used the $200 off feature when I purchased an identical panel without a
half-finished roku knockoff builtin.

------
buffportion
A cautionary tale: Echo starts recording when it hears the "wake" word
('Alexa' or 'Amazon'), but it can mistake other words or parts of speech for a
wake word (for example, consider how close the phrase "he likes her" is to
"Alexa"). Browsing through the history I have found snippets of conversations
that Echo had no business listening to, and which the recorded subjects
certainly did not wish to send to Amazon.

~~~
shepardrtc
I've had Echo ever since it was first released for Prime members. I live in a
small studio apartment. Not once has it ever accidentally turned on. Not from
me, guests, or the tv.

~~~
pdkl95
Do you have complete tcpdump logs to prove this, or are you _assuming_ it
works that way Amazon said so?

What about new versions of the firmware?

~~~
TheTravCav
You can go to [http://echo.amazon.com/](http://echo.amazon.com/) and see the
entire history of recordings with the option to delete any.

~~~
pdkl95
Why is this hard to understand? The map is not the territory! Any data you
didn't record yourself may not be complete.

If you controlled the firmware of a device that surreptitiously records more
than it should be recording, would you show those "extra" recordings to the
mark nicely chronologically sorted with the legitimate recordings?

If you were a criminal (or government agency) attacking these devices with bad
firmware or buffer overrun, would you have even the slightest care about
making sure echo.amazon.com is updated to show your eavesdropping?

// only five karmas and a username that is a googlewhack (!) bringing up
exactly 5 posts and nothing else smells a bit like JTRIG

~~~
TheTravCav
...I guess i just misunderstood the nature of your question. Yeah there's no
way to tell if the history is everything they send or just the commands it
heard. But at least it's something. Guess you're looking for something more
along the lines of this type stuff

[https://www.piettes.com/hacking-alexa-the-new-amazon-
echo/](https://www.piettes.com/hacking-alexa-the-new-amazon-echo/)

[http://echo.amazon.com/js/eb25f-app.min.js](http://echo.amazon.com/js/eb25f-app.min.js)

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_l...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_left_v4_sib?ie=UTF8&nodeId=201626480)

But who knows. they could still be hiding stuff. time will tell

// TIL about JTRIG. neat! HN wouldn't let me use TravCav. Search that if
you're curious.

------
twistedanimator
I would like to know the ways in which people who already have an Echo use it.
I have had one for months now and all I use it for is listening to music while
I prepare dinner. Lately, the music has begun to stutter and that irritates me
so much that I say "Alexa goodbye" and pull the plug out of the wall.

~~~
nogridbag
I use it daily to check the weather forecast, manage my shopping and todo
list, and set timers (mainly when cooking) while I'm just walking around my
apartment. I also bought the Philips Hue Lux bulbs for the cool factor
("Alexa, turn off all the lights") - but the jury's still out on them. If I
had to actually use their Philips Hue android app to turn the lights on and
off I would flip out. Echo actually makes them usable.

Once they open up the SDK, there's lots of things I'd love to add which will
make my life easier.

It was a great buy at $99. I would have even liked to buy an additional one
for my bedroom. At $179 it's a tougher sell - I would have to think twice
about it. I also noticed they're selling the remote control separately for an
extra $30.

------
jm4
I have been using one for a few months. It's still a novelty at this point,
but it's a neat device. The voice recognition is great and it works from very
far away. I can change songs or adjust volume from 20 feet away with no
problems. If nothing else, it works very well as a music player and Bluetooth
headset.

The instant answers, unit conversions, etc. are convenient in the kitchen,
although they could improve on this front. Alexa doesn't always understand the
question and seems to screw up sports scores and schedules pretty frequently.
It seems about as good as Siri but not as good as Cortana. I have never used
Google Now so I can't compare to that.

Amazon pushes out frequent updates and integrations with third parties -
Audible, Pandora, IFTTT and some home automation systems just to name a few.
They definitely seem committed to Alexa.

Overall, I like Alexa. I wouldn't say it has changed my life or anything and
I'm not sure how much I would miss it if I didn't have it, but I'm glad I do
if you know what I mean. It is definitely still an early adopter device. It
will be exciting to see where it goes as they add more features. I already
feel like I'm in a sci-fi movie from as recent as the late 90's where I talk
to the house computer. Neat stuff.

------
cromantin
I can't wait for the times when i would ask my wife "where are my sneakers?"
and in 10 minutes amazon would send me email for buying brand new sneakers
with drone delivery in 5 minutes.

------
mpdehaan2
I like my echo a lot.

I mostly use it to ask it the weather forecast and control my Hue lights
(Alexa, turn on the living room lights, dim the office lights to 50% percent,
etc).

Rather unexpected, I find I like to ask it to tell me jokes too. it has a
rather large library of particularly terrible jokes that I like :)

The shopping list feature is nice when trying to keep things paperless (or at
least, I never find my notes). It's now possible to have IFTTT email you the
list when you ask what's on your list.

As a bluetooth speaker, I don't find myself using it a whole lot, but has a
wide range of options from TuneIn to IHeartRadio and there is a lot on Amazon
streaming too.

I'm looking forward to seeing them add new features and they come out with new
features about every single month.

It's not the most neccessary thing by any means, but it is a nice step towards
Jetson-land and it's fun to have around.

It also learns voices better over time and has a nice "training" app in the
phone app I'd suggest using 3-4 times. Neat stuff.

Oh - Alexa support is super awesome, most questions get answered by real
humans super fast, and then they implement some of those things!

~~~
sparrish
My kids love the jokes too.

And I've not had to answer a single "Dad, how do spell..." question since we
received it.

------
smackfu
How we use ours:

* "Alexa, what's the weather look like?" (every day)

* "Alexa, set a timer for 10 minutes"

* "Alexa, what time is it?" (we don't have any clocks in our living room.)

* "Alexa, play some 80's music." (this works great if you just want some music playing)

Also, it's a pretty good Bluetooth speaker.

Yes, you can do most of this stuff on an iPhone with Siri, but this kind of
button-less voice control is just better.

~~~
koala_man
>you can do most of this stuff on an iPhone with Siri, but this kind of
button-less voice control is just better

Have you tried the newer Android phones with the same kind of button-less
voice control?

~~~
smackfu
No, I haven't. How do they work if you can't look at the screen? Siri tends to
be bad about that. Like "how's the weather" gets a response of "Here's the
forecast:" and shows it on the screen.

One of the things with Echo is that it doesn't have a screen, so everything
has voice responses.

~~~
notatoad
google now will try it's best to answer questions out loud if they were asked
that way. Your weather example works, but in general it's inconsistent enough
that i can't assume it will give me an audible answer, and I usually limit
myself to speaking only questions or commands that i know to work.

~~~
dragonwriter
> google now will try it's best to answer questions out loud if they were
> asked that way.

And its a fairly amazing technical achievement, but its still got a long way
to go -- if you ask when a business opens, it will show you the hours but not
tell you the time it opens, even though Google has enough semantic
understanding of the open/close times to tell you on the results page with the
hours that it is "closing soon" or "closed now" if that is the case.

------
techscruggs
I have two at my house and absolutely love them for the simplest tasks:
weather, time, timer & shopping list. It's other features are fun, but I
haven't found more useful than grabbing my smartphone.

For me, it's a more useful Siri.

------
CrunchyJams
Great - an always-on microphone in my home that sends all of my conversations
and interactions directly to Amazon for analysis

~~~
famousactress
Let's be fair, the product is designed to specifically _not_ do that:

 _" Echo uses on-device keyword spotting to detect the wake word. When Echo
detects the wake word, it lights up and streams audio to the cloud, where we
leverage the Alexa Voice Service to recognize and respond to your request."_

------
kstrauser
Good! I signed up for the beta on a whim and got one just in time for
Christmas, so that was a family present to all of us. At first, we spent a lot
of time yelling random orders and questions at it, and that was fun. But after
a while, it just faded into the background of our living room and became
something that Just Works, like the TV and DVR. How much time do you spend
consciously thinking about your TV versus taking it for granted? That's how
Alexa is for us now.

Our most used apps:

\- Alexa, set a timer for 10 minutes. (Our new standard kitchen timer)

\- Alexa, play [...]. (Lots of music in Amazon Prime.)

\- Alexa, turn the lights on. (Interfaces with the Hue lighting system to
brighten the living room.)

I could live without it, but I could survive without a lot of the tech that
makes everyday life a little easier. I'm glad I don't have to, though.

------
pgrote
I was one of the first people to get an Echo when they were offered to prime
members at $99 in November 2014. It has quickly become a great device for our
family.

Some of our thoughts:

* The integration with third party services has put it into a new realm of usefulness.

* I am still disappointed I cannot tell it to read me a book from anything but Audible. I would love to say, "Read Hamlet from Guttenberg."

* The connection between Echo and Prime Music is sensational. If you like genres of music over specific artists, it really shines.

* If you have kids, the Echo is a blast for them to interact with. Endless questions from your kids is great to hear.

* It would be awesome if they opened it up more. I could see it being a game master for family games of trivia or spelling contests.

* I'd say we use the Echo for 3-4 hours a day with a majority of the time used to stream music. "Amazon, play Kidz Bop 28" is a common refrain.

* When playing scrabble we use it as a timer.

* We've never used it to order anything from Amazon.

* We do use it to compile shopping lists. I was surprised how quickly this became an essential part of our household. So easy to say, "Amazon, add olive oil to shopping list."

* You can choose between Alexa and Amazon as they wake word. We use Amazon since it is easier for the kids to register with the Echo.

* You cannot change the wake word from those two.

* We use the Android app for non voice control and it has gotten much better recently.

* The news function could use a ton of work. I don't want to hear things I am not interested in from NPR.

* It listens to everything. If you happen to mention Amazon in conversation it'll pick it up, even if you are 2 rooms away.

* At $99 it is a device I'd recommend to almost any family. At $179 I couldn't justify buying one.

Anyway, they have a winner for families if the price point was lower. I am
very glad we got ours for $99.

~~~
arturadib
This. We use it in our family mostly as a jukebox with occasional Siri-like
fun (I'm now in the habit of asking for news updates from NPR every morning).

As Jack Dorsey said, Echo is the future.

------
fishtoaster
I got one of these for work with my office decorating budget because I thought
it would be cool to hack on it. Maybe even set it up to do silly dev-related
tasks like "Alexa, how many users are active right now?" and "Alexa, comment
'looks good' on Janet's pull request."

What I found, though, was that it was a divisive product. 50% of the office
thought it was neat, 40% didn't care, and 10% hated it with a surprising
passion. Privacy concerns were brought up, but the biggest complaint was just
that it was "creepy."

We ended up unplugging it and leaving it in a corner because it wasn't worth
making people uncomfortable for a largely useless toy.

------
phinkle
The first review about a wife buy Echo for her husband with Parkinson's warms
my heart. Its so inspiring to see how technology has such a great impact on
people's lives! Definitely would recommend reading as a pick-me-up for the
day.

------
click170
An interesting situation would be if one person got the device knowing their
room mate was privacy conscious.

The other person has now lost their reasonable expectation of privacy in their
own home and might not even know it.

~~~
smackfu
You do not have privacy from your roommate. They could easily set up a bug
just like they could set up Echo.

------
frik
18.543 reviews in 5 days? (19th-23th June) That's a lot.

The customer reviews section was previously hidden during the closed beta
test, though the review section was accessible with the right URL and just a
few weeks ago there were only 4 mixed reviews.

I wonder how many amazon customers got a free sample as one wrote: "SO happy
we got to sample one of these playtoys, first! What a disappointment!"

~~~
jm4
Amazon blasted out an email to early users a few days ago soliciting reviews
so that could explain it. I have had Echo for 6 months and I imagine many of
the other reviewers have as well. I got a 50% discount for being a Prime
member. I'm not aware of any free samples simply for being a Prime member and
good customer. My Amazon account is over 15 years old with an absolutely
massive purchase history across nearly every product category and I have been
a Prime member since the beginning. I'd like to think I would have been in
line for a free sample if that was a thing.

~~~
frik
Thanks for the info, that explains it.

> My Amazon account is over 15 years old (...)

As a long term Amazon customer too I doubt Amazon cares. They nag me with
their Prime subscription opt-in dialog every time like I am a new first time
user. Though I couldn't care less about a subscription model - I use Amazon as
a online storefront to buy physical and digital goods on demand.

------
uslic001
I really enjoy my 99 dollar Echo. I am also not sure I would have bought it at
the higher price. I have had it since last November and still use it daily. I
love that they keep slowly adding functionality to expand its uses without
overwhelming me. After using it so much at home I often miss it at work. I may
have to get one for work at my next Prime renewal date.

------
simonswords82
So how do I get one of these in the UK? :)

------
dsugarman
product will not work well if you have an Alexa in your family

------
mrcrassic
The Echo is awesome; my girlfriend and I have had it for the last few months
and LOVE being able to just play music by telling it to play. It's also an
AMAZING bluetooth speaker; seriously, it's so fucking loud and on point. It's
worth every penny.

------
robg
Mostly useless. The AI is really bad. I get the weather and maybe a few music
stations from asking. Otherwise, a lot of promise wasted and not convinced it
will get anywhere exciting anytime soon. Asking "Alexa" not "Echo" is very
silly.

------
rajadigopula
Just out of curiosity, if I want to change the track, Do I need to shout hard
the wake word when a song is already playing at full volume?

My first test if I get the device is to change the wake word to "baby" and
play Justin Bieber's number.

~~~
mooxie
You don't have to shout. With its multiple microphones Alexa is pretty good at
hearing you over the music. There is also a remote with a built in mic in case
you want to control it from a ways off or there is a ton of background noise.

Sadly you cannot change the wake word. 'Alexa' or 'Amazon' are the two
available wake words.

------
spacefight
Has anyone analyzed the outgoing connections yet? What TLS cipher suites are
being used?

------
Finbarr
I find their home page design aesthetic for these product announcements very
unusual. They make it look like an email, leaving large amounts of whitespace
on the page. I wonder how well this converts to purchases for them.

------
jakejake
I feel like I need to get with the times. I have an aversion to talking to
computers. Though when I try using it once in a while to dictate a text, I'm
always surprised and amazed at how well it works.

------
tomjacobs
Imagine what happens when a computer hears everything you say.

And tells you what it thinks you want.

Sorta like: [http://theinternetthinks.com/](http://theinternetthinks.com/)

------
piyush_soni
Sincere Question: Can it do _anything_ my 'always on' Google Now can't? (At
least there was nothing in the two promo videos they show on their webpage)

~~~
echosmith
Turn lights/switches/home-automation stuff on/off. Read stuff from Audible.
One command music streaming. (Google Now will bring up a link for you to
click) Shopping. (Reorders prime items from Amazon)

Coming Soon: Integrates natively with all sorts of apps - (There's an SDK in
the works)

~~~
piyush_soni
Wouldn't it need you to buy compatible devices for the home automation to work
(If yes, the phone would do that as well - there are 'app' controlled
lights/other fixtures).

And Google Now _does_ do one command music streaming (I do that everyday - "Ok
Google, Play Music" \- and it starts playing). Audible and Reordering past
Amazon orders - Some people may find value in that. I don't listen to audio
books or reorder stuff in general from them.

------
garagemc2
So was it not released before?

------
FlaceBook
It still amazes me that people actually pay money for the opportunity to have
one of these things listening to what goes on in their home 24/7.

