
Ask HN: How do you use Amazon Echo? - trapped
What are your main use cases and go to questions for Echo? How effective and useful it is?<p>For those who also have Cortana&#x2F;Siri&#x2F;Google and Echo which one is most useful?
======
oogali
Initially, my wife and I just used it for weather, music, and to occasionally
order an Uber.

But we just had a newborn, so I built a custom skill for us to serve as log of
our son's activities. So our primary use is now that.

Demo:

\-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CqBmjxOFCQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CqBmjxOFCQ)

\-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHaTUm9sQpM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHaTUm9sQpM)

The first custom skill I wrote that calls out to an API to do CNAM (caller ID)
lookups. So when I get calls from a weird number, I can quickly get the
corresponding name (if there is one). This was mainly an exercise to see how
Alexa/Echo would pronounce various names and abbreviations.

~~~
natdempk
Out of curiosity, is logging newborn activities a common thing? Do most
parents do this? What is the value in knowing the counts and times of your
newborn's routine? Is there a good use case for historical data or trends?

~~~
morgosmaci
Yes, the EPS log (eat, poop, sleep). The first thing a Dr. will ask you if
your baby is not feeling well is are there any changes in any of these.

------
jordanarseno
I wrote a custom skill so I can say "Alexa, ask the bus stop, when is the next
bus?" ... and she responds "x minutes" for the bus-stop outside my house. I
use it everyday - such a time saver!

~~~
archgoon
For those interested, here's an integration with Alexa and One Bus Away, with
instructions on how to build your own skill that uses the library.

[https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-
alexa](https://github.com/OneBusAway/onebusaway-alexa)

------
schappim
I live in Australia and imported an Echo.

AFAIK Amazon only sells the Echo in the US, and a lot of the functionality is
locked to the US, this makes it unusable for certain tasks (like dealing with
time, dates, calendars and alarms).

The Echo won't let you change it's timezone to an Australian one (hacks like
setting a timezone to one of the US military bases around the world no longer
work).

So with the Echo assuming I'm living somewhere in the US, what do I use it
for?

\- Telling the time. Having said all the above, I do use it for telling the
time, but I need to say "Alexa, what's the time in Sydney Australia?"

\- Finding out the weather "Alexa, What's the weather like in Sydney
Australia?"

\- Controlling the Lights. "Alexa turn on the lights?"

\- Reporting Revenue from Shopify (I've built a custom app) "Alexa, ask
Shopify what were the sales?"

I'd love to hear more from others outside the US as to how they use their
Echo!

~~~
derwildemomo
German Echo user here.. I googled a bit a while ago and found a perfect
solution for the timezone-thing. It turns out that you can (via some request
tinkering) set the timezone to whatever you want, instructions here:

[http://www.echotalk.org/index.php/topic,228.msg1081.html#msg...](http://www.echotalk.org/index.php/topic,228.msg1081.html#msg1081)

edit: typo.

~~~
schappim
Perfect, thank you!

------
BrentOzar
Kitchen appliance, basically. Timer, play music, listen to news, add stuff to
my shopping list.

The kitchen is the perfect spot for it because my phone and tablet are usually
in the living room or on their chargers in my bedroom, and Siri doesn't work
anywhere near as well in a big, noisy area like a kitchen. The microphone is
so much more accurate and reliable than the Apple Watch on my wrist (which
doesn't say much, because the Watch is so bad at this sort of thing.)

~~~
dreamsofdragons
Interesting, my Apple Watch is virtually perfect. It actually really surprised
me the other day, I was listening to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History the other
day, and forgot what a satrap was, and it wasn't clear from the context.
Paused the podcast, asked what a satrap was, and it returned a definition.

------
dcosson
I have the echo hooked up to a Harmony Hub[0], it's a universal remote that
controls devices via IR or wifi that the echo can trigger via IFTTT. The
Harmony Hub UX is annoyingly overdesigned IMO which makes it more complicated
than it should be, but it still works pretty well. I can use it to turn
up/down the volume of the tv, hit pause on the Apple TV when I get up to do
something, turn on/off the fan if I get hot/cold, etc.

The TV use is pretty neat since it takes so many clicks to navigate those
menus. I'm hoping the echo will integrate natively with Apple TV or Fire TV,
it would be sweet to be able to say "Alexa, play the latest Game of Thrones"
and have it just start.

[0] [http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/harmony-
hub](http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/harmony-hub)

~~~
helper
I've also got mine hooked up to my harmony hub. I've got a program on my
network pretending to be a bunch of smart lightbulbs. So I can say "Alexa,
turn {on,off} TV".

I think I could do volume control by simulating a bulb that supports
brightness but I haven't tried that yet.

~~~
dcosson
Nice, is there a github link to the program?

------
moritzplassnig
Main reason why I bought it was to use my phone less at home.

Main use cases: * Managing my shopping list (not necessarily for ordering on
Amazon) while I'm in the kitchen and/or cooking * Calendar/Newsflash/Weather
in the morning * Timer for cooking/workouts * Ordering an Uber (main reason
why I use primarily Uber vs. Lyft because there's no Lyft skill right now) *
Switching lights on/off (WeMo)

Would use it more if there would be (good/easy to use) skills: * Public
transportation arrival/departure times * Controlling my Sonos (I know the
workaround but a better integration would be awesome)

------
ohazi
I don't. I think people who do are crazy.

~~~
dreamcompiler
Judgmental tone notwithstanding, I resonate with this. The idea of an always-
on, always-connected gizmo that I can't audit and that listens to everything
in my house gives me the creeps. Why are security-aware people not bothered by
this idea? Am I missing something?

~~~
archgoon
Hi,

The echo does allow you to see a history of all previous recordings sent to
Amazon (Settings > History), along with the actual voice samples that were
sent.

Now granted, I don't think you'd be able to ensure that all packets that were
sent corresponded to what is displayed there, but you can estimate it based on
the sizes of packets and maximum data that _could_ be sent. Would a proxy
server that you controlled resolve your concerns? Or is it more "I don't know
what's happening on the backend"?

~~~
amelius
> The echo does allow you to see a history of all previous recordings sent to
> Amazon (Settings > History), along with the actual voice samples that were
> sent.

Wow, that makes it even more creepy. Imagine e.g. your significant other
accessing this log and finding things they aren't supposed to find.

~~~
archgoon
You are able to delete items from this log; this is no different than your
browser's search history. You simply cannot have this both ways though; you
can either be ephermal, or you can be auditable.

I personally find the log to be very useful and interesting (as well as a free
annotation source for my own projects).

I guess the main take away from this thread is that some people are just going
to be creeped out by this sort of technology. And that's okay.

------
curiousDog
I have the echo. For me, the annoying part is when you play music at a
slightly loud volume, it can't hear you anymore. So i have to physically go up
to the device (I didn't buy the remote). Other than that, I also use it to add
household items to my shopping list.

~~~
wille92
Agreed, setting any volume above 7 or so completely torches all voice
recognition.

------
WesleyJohnson
Same as was most everyone else has listed: kitchen timer, play music,
occasionally ask her the time. A new skill was recently released that lets you
control your alarm.com system and I have Vivint (ugh) which is backed by
Alarm.com so it works. I've played with that a bit, but not as much I'd like.
Oh and shopping list from time to time, but the mobile app is terrible so it's
not much fun to use once you're actually in the store and trying to shop.

~~~
asimuvPR
_Her_. Beautiful. :)

~~~
cushychicken
This comment squicks me out so, _so_ much. Not so much that the Echo as a
product has been humanized, but because that seems like it was its _purpose_.
You have this little thing sitting in your house that you bought, nominally to
make your life easier. But all that other "make your life easier" stuff is
icing on the real cake here, which is Amazon having, quite literally, a voice
in your house that will sell you stuff at the slightest opportunity. Was that
Amazon's goal? Maybe not intentionally, but it seems to be the end effect.

I don't know why that comment made me think that, but it casts the Echo in a
much less wholesome light for some reason. I suppose it's because once people
start to humanize it, they will start to bond with it, which means they are
less likely to get rid of it. That comes off as just a little ethically
dubious to me.

~~~
squeaky-clean
>Amazon having, quite literally, a voice in your house that will sell you
stuff at the slightest opportunity

I don't see how the second half of this statement follows the first. There's a
big difference between "can" and "will". The Echo doesn't do this. You could
make this statement about anything. With a forced OTA update, your phone could
become nothing but an advertisement tomorrow morning. That new intern your
company hired? They could secretly just be a shill for Microsoft who will try
to sell you upgraded office software.

------
jhwhite
I wish there was a seamless assistant from place to place.

Home -> Car -> Work. But I wind up using Echo at home, Siri or OK Google in
the car (depending on what I'm doing), and nothing at work.

I use my Echo to play music. I uploaded my music collection to Amazon Music
for $25/year and also have some Prime playlists.

I use her to find what day a date is on, like what day is June 16th. (Did this
once to double check the end date for something).

I use Echo to check the weather before I leave every morning. I ask the time
ALL THE TIME. I use her when I'm cooking for unit conversions. And I've set
timers with the Echo quite a few times. I've got one going now actually.

I also got some Philips Hue lights and use Alexa to turn my lights on and off.
I want to get a Trackr since it has an Alexa integration so I can find my
keys.

I also set up IFTTT and have a trigger for Alexa to call my phone so I can
find it when I lose it.

Do I like the Echo? YES. I'm considering giving one as a Christmas present
this year.

------
mrcabada
I connected the Echo to my home automation startup API to control my entire
home. I can ask her stuff like:

\- Control the lights, TV, AC, or smart device in the house.

\- Is anyone in the swimming pool? (I'm processing CCTV cameras)

\- Who's home? (Geo-fencing and OpenWRT Wi-Fi data)

\- Where is the people in the house? (I'm doing indoor locationing with RSSI
signals)

Is fun and I keep adding cool stuff on it.

~~~
thebiglebrewski
Tell us more. Is this open source?

~~~
mrcabada
I'm planning to make it open source but I gotta make it more structured first,
is kind of dirty and a mess.

If you want to follow up the project, I'll be adding it to my blog/portfolio
as soon as I release it: [http://www.cabada.mx](http://www.cabada.mx)

If you want to see more of it, like videos, images and screenshots, I've got
some in that site.

------
jraines
every morning I say, "Alexa, news" and that's pretty much it. Occasionally I
ask for the weather (for which I still have to specify the city, because Alexa
doesn't understand "Set my home [location] to [current city]". Once I used it
to order a whisk, which was pretty cool, I'll admit.

If I have a question which I think a voice assistant could answer, I pick up
my phone and use the Google app 100% of the time because it is so much better
than Alexa it's not funny. It regularly outperforms my expectations, where
Alexa regularly underperforms them.

~~~
GabrielF00
If you go into the companion app and set your location, it should give you the
weather for your city automatically when you say "Alexa, what's the weather".

------
bilalq
I've been meaning to expand Alexa's abilities to be more tailored to my life,
but in the meantime, these are the things I use:

    
    
      * Light control through Philips Hue: "Alexa, turn on lamps", "Alexa, dim hallway lights to 50%"
      * Assistance when cooking: "Alexa, start a 5 minute timer", "Alexa, how many teaspoons are in a tablespoon?", "Alexa how many grams are in an ounce?"
      * Entertainment control through Logitech Harmony Hub & IFTTT: "Alexa, trigger Netflix", "Alexa, trigger FireTV", "Alexa, trigger shutdown"
      * Getting ready: "Alexa, how's the weather?", "Alexa, will it rain tomorrow?"
      * Easy music controls: "Alexa, play some music", "Alexa, play songs by Imagine Dragons", "Alexa turn it [up|down]"
      * Enabling laziness:
        * When I wake up but don't want to open my eyes: "Alexa, what time is it?"
        * When I'm already in bed and want to close lights, TV, etc...: "Alexa trigger naptime"
    

Things I wish I could do (and probably could do if I spent the time to make it
so):

    
    
      * Control colors/scenes on my Hue lights: "Alexa, set the scene to warm", "Alexa, set the scene to variety"
      * Use fine-grained controls on my TV and devices: "Alexa, play Daredevil on Netflix", "Alexa, turn down the TV volume by 5"

------
guiambros
Nobody said yet, so here's mine: "Guess the Number" [1].

My 4 year-old loves it. He learned to count to 100 and got a lot better in
understanding higher/lower numbers by playing GTN with Alexa.

It quickly became our favorite pastime when outside; we now turns on who'll be
Alexa :)

[1] [http://echoskillstore.com/Games/Guess-The-
Number/76](http://echoskillstore.com/Games/Guess-The-Number/76)

(ps: unfortunately it's buggy as hell. I'm considering developing a new one,
just to fix it)

------
markbao
I don't do smart home, which seems to be the main use for it – instead, I use
a simple remote control to turn on/off my lights, which is way easier for me
than saying "Alexa turn on bedroom light" and waiting for it (I've tried this
and unplugged the smart outlet the next day).

I only use it for two things:

• Weather and sometimes news in the morning as I'm getting ready.

• As a Spotify player that I can control from my sofa / bed / elsewhere
through Spotify Connect, so basically a quasi-Sonos.

Other than that, I haven't really found any good uses for it.

------
echelon
I use it to set alarms, control my lighting, and check the weather. I find it
kind of useless for music since it doesn't have a lot of the bands I listen to
(it only plays "samples"), and it usually cycles the worst tracks first for
some reason. I wish it would integrate with Google Play or have a non-Cloud
(ie. local network) API. I've written my own home automation gateway (turn on
the tv, set mood lighting, control blinds), but I'm unwilling to open it up to
Amazon's cloud.

~~~
hsod
Do you have Amazon Prime? My Echo automatically plays from the Prime Music
library which seems to have all the music I listen to (full songs, not
samples). I've also integrated mine with Spotify though since that's where all
my playlists are.

~~~
echelon
I do. It can't find "Django Django", "Cloud Control", etc. There are dozens of
others, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

Even if it did have a full library, it nearly always picks terrible, garbage
songs from artists when shuffling them. I just told it to shuffle "Foals", and
I don't think I've ever heard this song before. I don't like it, whatever it
is.

------
epaulson
Weather, kitchen timer/alarm to start something at a specific time, control a
few LIFX bulbs, the common household shopping list, a bluetooth speaker.
Occasional sports scores.

The microphone is really good and I can talk to it from a room over, so it's
the sort of thing I can ask it about the weather as I'm walking to the door to
put the leash on the dog and not break my stride.

I wish the Amazon shopping list had a better API, because I'd like to use that
list for things outside of the Echo app.

------
7ewis
Not made by me, but someone in my office created a Lambda function, so we can
ask Alexa if a meeting room is free, and it links into the Google Calendar API
to check.

It then uses a library to say how long until it is free in a human like way.

You can also ask it to find if any rooms are free in the building, and most
importantly if the pool table is in use or not! As well as that, there is even
a web cam above the table that counts the balls, and can tell you who is
winning!

~~~
logicallee
sounds like you work at either the most or least productive office in the
world :-D

------
jstx
I use it for kitchen related lookups, timers, and music. The music selection
sucks, so I often end up just connecting my phone via bluetooth.

My only custom use was to write a WOL task that targets my Steam Machine so I
can turn it on without leaving the couch. The machine is a frankenstein, so it
doesn't have any fancy IR receiver or whatever people typically use to
remotely turn on a game console.

------
philip1209
I have an Echo Dot in my bedroom. Here's what I use it for:

1) Lights - all of my lights are on WeMo switches. They turn on automatically
at sunrise (note - they're energy-efficient LEDs), and they turn off
automatically at 10:30. Whenever I want them on or off outside of this
pattern, I use Alexa.

2) Music - I used to use Chromecast Audio on my speakers, but it took so long
to connect - get phone, open spotify, find playlist, connect to speakers over
network (after realizing phone wasn't on wifi and had to be reconnected), then
hitting play. With Echo, I just say "Play <foo> on Spotify" and it works. This
functionality is good for mornings when I'm not specific about music, but does
not work well when there is a specific album you want to listen to. (Side note
- I also use the sleep timer to automatically turn off music if I'm listening
to something before sleep).

3) Alarm - I prefer using Echo over my phone to wake up in the morning.

4) Calendar - I listen to my schedule for the day while getting dressed.

------
jorde
I never got into the habit of using Siri as it requires more interaction and
voice recognition success rate with my light accent is somewhere around 75%.

Echo on the other hand is awesome and picks up commands way better and knows
more answers. My regular use cases are limited to timers, alarms, listening
podcasts and dimming lights with Philips Hue.

I wrote my own skill to return arriving bus schedules. It was surprisingly
easy with Lambda and I open sourced the code with a tutorial:
[https://github.com/jorilallo/muni-alexa-
skill](https://github.com/jorilallo/muni-alexa-skill) Disclaimer: code is
somewhat sloppy as I wrote it in ~1h based on Amazon's tutorials :)

When it comes to skills, the Alexa app is horrible: very flaky and buggy,
clearly Cortana (not native) and there's basically no discovery for skills.
There's some great reddit threads where people list good skills.

------
ethank
My son uses it to answer random trivia questions. See:
[https://twitter.com/ethank/status/730809136972079105](https://twitter.com/ethank/status/730809136972079105)

Of note: for a great hardware product, it has terrible software.

------
thebeefytaco
I have an Echo as well as an Echo dot.

I use it mainly for managing smarthome devices, which is great. I control all
the lights with it (Phillips Hue), as well as my AC/heating (Sensibo), remote
controls (Harmony), outlets, and just about anything on IFTTT too.

It also manages my timers & alarms (which are also linked to my lighting
system), music (great speakers on this thing), to-do list, and is useful for
other random tasks you might google, e.g. kitchen measurement conversions.

It's really useful to me as is, but will get a lot better once custom skills
are allowed to run in the background. It can also be kind of frustrating when
Alexa doesn't hear you properly or do what you want, but yelling "ALEXA, SHUT
THE FUCK UP!" and having it work, is quite satisfying.

------
sashk
I've got Echo sitting on my desk. Sometimes I ask her how much gas left in the
car (via Automatic). Weather. Asking to remind me something only to remember
next day that that thing is called "timer". When remember what I need to say,
I'll ask her to set temperature on my ecobee to one I want.

As to Siri - I use it slightly more:

    
    
      - tell my wife I'm on my way. 
      - ask my wife what to buy in the grocery store.
      - wake me up tomorrow at 5am
      - delete all alarms
    

and many many more.

To sum up: since I don't use Google much, Echo is mostly useless to me. I
can't do much with it, and getting mostly "Sorry I could not understand your
question."

------
partycoder
For timers and alarms: waking up, setting a time limit to an activity (e.g:
reading), cooking, taking breaks or 15 min naps. ("Alexa, set a timer for 15
min", "Alexa, wake me up at 7 am").

I live near a stadium and traffic is heavily affected by it, so you can ask
when is the next game to have an idea of how much traffic is going to be
("Alexa, when is the next <team name> game").

Also, weather. "Alexa, weather forecast".

You can connect it with your google calendar. "Alexa, when is my next event".

You can also order a cab from Uber, order a pizza from Domino, and other
things.

In alexa.amazon.com there's a section called "Things to try". That can also
answer this question.

------
n8henrie
I use mine much more than I expected. The number one thing I love is Pandora
integration -- ours is outside the kitchen, so virtually every day I can
holler for it to put on an appropriate Pandora station (with both hands dirty
/ full of dishes) or for it to set a timer.

I also updated a Python script that emulates Belkin Wemo devices so I can
control HomeAssistant and various http enabled home automation devices around
the house. For anyone interested:
[https://github.com/n8henrie/Fauxmo](https://github.com/n8henrie/Fauxmo)

------
ilamont
In order of use:

\- Timer

\- Play specific radio programs or stations

\- Play music I've uploaded or stuff on Prime

\- Check weather

\- Check upcoming calendar appointments

\- Ask for definitions/encyclopedia entries (the logic is good ... I once
asked how old Reagan was at the beginning of his first term and got the
correct range)

\- Checking game times or if a local team is playing that day

\- Ask about local traffic conditions

I don't use the shopping list feature. I don't like opening the Alexa app, and
my wife and I split shopping duties according to destination store.

I've looked at the IFTTT scripts but did not see any that looked appealing or
useful for us.

I would love to see phone/messaging capabilities built into the Echo.

------
erikcw
I use it to play white noise to soothe my newborn (hands free control is a
great benefit when the baby is crying!).

Other than that, lots of use from the kitchen. As a timer, to listen to music,
control my Hue lighting....

I also coded up a custom Skill to control my Anova via a little Bluetooth
proxy I wrote[1].

[1]
[https://github.com/erikcw/pycirculate](https://github.com/erikcw/pycirculate)

------
payne92
Primary: fancy kitchen timer.

------
wkrause
I wrote a skill that lets me ask what tech events are coming up, or are on a
given day. Took half a day, and most of that time was spent figuring out aws
lambda for the first time and writing the scraper for the event list I was
pulling from. Now before I leave for work I can ask if anything is happening
tonight.

------
jackcarter
I use it for exactly 3 things:

* Weather (do I need a jacket or umbrella?)

* Music (I never used Prime Music before)

* Checking how long until my train arrives. This is by far the most useful application for me; I use it every morning. I bought the Echo so that I could develop a Chicago train app (CTA Tracker), but there seems to be one for every major city now.

------
late2part
I use it to play music, set timers when cooking or when we need to leave,
games for the kids, to spell words, ask what time it is in other time
zones/cities, and to help enrich Amazon's passive listening analysis of my
life so they can provide me with better shopping experience.

------
meatsock
it's a good solution to listening to the radio for me, it'll tune in any fm or
am station by call letters, so i can keep up with news and everything. its
great to be able to tune in more than just the local stations. a young
relative loves to hear new jokes on echo as well.

------
darrenkopp
It's excellent if you have kids friend's coming over. We used to have to keep
track of who had to go home when, but now they just come in, say "set an alarm
for <time>" and go off and play.

------
mpdehaan2
Hmm, I have yet to explore any of the skills, but need to.

I tell it to control my Hue lights, and ask it jokes, and occasionally ask it
for the weather - though Dark Sky is a lot better for weather data.

So it's not used a ton really.

------
matchagaucho
A typical day:

"Alexa, what's on my calendar?" (Integrated with Google cal)

"Alexa, how is the commute?"

"Alexa, when do the Warriors play next?"

"Alexa, set an alarm for 7:30pm"

"Alexa, how much wood does a woodchuck chuck?"

------
dlevine
I set a lot of kitchen timers and alarms. I also use it to play music.

It seems to work pretty well for my use cases. With alarms and timers, the
accuracy is about 100%. With music, it's maybe 70%.

------
igotsideas
Music, timer, weather, lights, alarm, sport scores & schedules.

------
dominotw
Music in bathroom .

Weather

Sleep music on timer at bedtime.

Traffic conditions before I leave for work .

News while I brush my teeth.

------
pbreit
Mostly music, timers and weather. I don't use the questioning very much. I'd
like to use it for talk radio/podcasts with something like Antenna Radio.

------
kogir
I listen to my flash briefing (news podcasts/summaries) every morning, and
occasionally reorder bulk items like paper towels and toilet paper.

------
veeragoni
npr, baby rhymes, control nest, some skills occasionally, as a bluetooth
speaker at parties, weather forecast, find nearby places

------
gourneau
I use it with WeMos to toggle lights in my house. I lot more fun than using
light switches :)

------
seereadhack
I'm sort of disappointed that no one uses Alexa to practice their poetry
declamation.

------
smackfu
One that I haven't seen mentioned: "Alexa, how do you spell X?"

------
ajaimk
All the lights in my apartment and alarm clock.

------
malloryerik
How does it do with non-native accents?

~~~
palakchokshi
Works great with a slight East Indian accent!

------
georgehaake
It fills a spot in my Wish List.

------
consto
Not at all

