Amazon Echo / Alexa music

[tinx]

We already had a couple of dots in the house and I was going to buy a new sonos play 1 for the bedroom (We already have a play 5,3 and 1) but when the Echo came in at £80 this week I couldn't not buy one. Half the price of a play 1, sound quality is almost the same and we now have alexa covering pretty much the whole house. Be even better when they had native support for Sonos.

 

[marcos3263]

Sorry Bozza, but my Dot is fabulous as well. the joy on my 3 year old's face when it played his music choices, the horror on my wife's face when he learnt how to turn the volume up. the early promise of all the things it can do. I now want to get sockets and switches to automate my house.

 

[Normal Rob]

forgive the not reading through 120 odd posts beforehand, but i have a simple question - do you have to call it by name (Alexa), or is there a way to make it less cringy?

 

[Dirk Lehmann's Python]

forgive the not reading through 120 odd posts beforehand, but i have a simple question - do you have to call it by name (Alexa), or is there a way to make it less cringy?

App settings. You can call it Amazon, Echo or Computer.

So no, not really!

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

[BBassic]

Had Alexa for a couple of days now and I've not yet found a great use outside of playing Spotify. Which in itself is brilliant of course.

My other half, in a drunken state, managed to enable a Skill which makes the Echo respond when you meow at it. Naturally it responds with a meow. I'd long since gone to bed and woke up to what sounded like a strangled cat chorus only to bumble into the living room to find her sat in front of the Echo meowing at it. Most bizarre.

 

[Bozza]

The Echo is back down from £149.99 to £99.99 for those sitting on the fence still:

Black: http://amzn.to/2wYXwIc
White: http://amzn.to/2w83Ks7

Are recent buyers still happy? I have some Amazon gift vouchers I could spend on one right now (to make up for iPhone disappointment)

 

[Triggaaar]

Are recent buyers still happy?

Of the Echo Dot, yes.

I have some Amazon gift vouchers I could spend on one right now

Do you not already have an Echo of one flavour? I imagine the larger version (in your link) is ok if you don't need much from the sound. You have Sonos speakers though, right? You could link an Echo Dot to them.

(to make up for iPhone disappointment)

Eh? Do you mean the price?

 

[Bozza]

Of the Echo Dot, yes.

Do you not already have an Echo of one flavour? I imagine the larger version (in your link) is ok if you don't need much from the sound. You have Sonos speakers though, right? You could link an Echo Dot to them.

Eh? Do you mean the price?

We are echo-less, but have several Sonoses. I can't find anything that suggests the Echo/Dot can integrate with Sonos 1s and 3s, which is what we have yet, eg: https://sonos.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4158/~/amazon-alexa-and-sonos

My iPhone waffle is on the iPhone X thread!

 

[Triggaaar]

We are echo-less, but have several Sonoses. I can't find anything that suggests the Echo/Dot can integrate with Sonos 1s and 3s, which is what we have yet

Ah ok, so it's just not available yet. No guarantee it will be, but they have been trying for a good while.

If you want the Echo to be in a room where you don't currently have speakers, it'll do a job, but it won't you won't want to listen to music on it if your speakers are also an option. You could grab one for the novelty and then move it to another room if they ever fix the echo/sonos pairing.

That link you gave is how I link my Echo to my 20th century hifis, so not what you ideally want with the clever Sonos.

My iPhone waffle is on the iPhone X thread!

I'm on it

 

[Gazwag]

They had the Alexa advert on the tv last night and my dot was woken up by it, thankfully it didn't place an order for coffee (or whatever it was they were purchasing)

 

[Jam The Man]

I'm still happy with it!

 

[BensGrandad]

Just a personal opinion but my son has one and in my mind it was great as a novelty for the time that he bought it, and I considered buying one : but I believe that in the long run it is an expensive 5 minute wonder and therefore a waste of money. I prefer my I pod playing through a unit with speakers and charger

 

[Easy 10]

The Echo is back down from £149.99 to £99.99 for those sitting on the fence still:

Black: http://amzn.to/2wYXwIc
White: http://amzn.to/2w83Ks7

Are recent buyers still happy? I have some Amazon gift vouchers I could spend on one right now (to make up for iPhone disappointment)

For a hundred quid, its a no-brainer. I'm loving it.

Obviously the music is the No1 function (for me). I especially love how I can have it through my Bluetooth headphones and wander around listening to my tunes and my podcasts. Its just the little things as well though. Like last night, I had a moderate interest in the Champions League games as I had an acca on, but not enough interest to watch them. So every now and then, I'd say "Alexa - how are Manchester United doing tonight ?". She'd give me the current scoreline and the minute the game was in. I swear she had a little chuckle when she gave me the Celtic score, but I may have imagined that.

I've had her about 4-6 weeks now, and wouldn't be without her. 3 of my mates have also invested soon after they'd had a little play as well. She's very seductive.

 

[Bozza]

Hooray! >>> http://www.techradar.com/news/sonos...s-existing-speakers-with-beta-launching-today

 

[Bozza]

All the assistants >>> http://press-us.sonos.com/159680-so...aker-with-support-for-multiple-voice-services

 

[Jam The Man]

Okay so I've just discovered that as of January 2019, all songs that you've uploaded to Amazon Cloud will no longer be accessible, as Amazon don't want the burden of quantity from those that have uploaded between 250 and 250,000 songs into the cloud.
I personally uploaded 40,000 which took some effort and now, frankly, is going to be a waste of time!

Got a year to look at other options I guess, but that was my main reason for getting the Echo 12 months or so ago, to be able to play my music and playlists on demand. Gutted!

 

[boik]

Okay so I've just discovered that as of January 2019, all songs that you've uploaded to Amazon Cloud will no longer be accessible, as Amazon don't want the burden of quantity from those that have uploaded between 250 and 250,000 songs into the cloud.
I personally uploaded 40,000 which took some effort and now, frankly, is going to be a waste of time!

Got a year to look at other options I guess, but that was my main reason for getting the Echo 12 months or so ago, to be able to play my music and playlists on demand. Gutted!

Stream them from a PC? I don't have any of mine in the cloud for this kind of reason. I buy CDs, rip them, and keep full control of them.

 

[Jam The Man]

Stream them from a PC? I don't have any of mine in the cloud for this kind of reason. I buy CDs, rip them, and keep full control of them.

The voice control was such a boon in my house though. Streaming is the cheap option, but it's not what I bought the Echo for.

 

[Best Foot Forward]

Received an Echo for Christmas, and have been quite impressed, although yesterday I had Sky Sports News on in the background, and several times during the evening Alexa piped up asking how she could help, without any prompt from me.

Eventually I worked out The echo was picking up on the Alexis Sanchez transfer (which was continuously repeated)....must have been the reporters accent

So it appears Alexa is a tart, and will answer to anyone!!

 

[Icy Gull]

Okay so I've just discovered that as of January 2019, all songs that you've uploaded to Amazon Cloud will no longer be accessible, as Amazon don't want the burden of quantity from those that have uploaded between 250 and 250,000 songs into the cloud.
I personally uploaded 40,000 which took some effort and now, frankly, is going to be a waste of time!

Got a year to look at other options I guess, but that was my main reason for getting the Echo 12 months or so ago, to be able to play my music and playlists on demand. Gutted!

It was potential shit like this that made me buy a 160gb IPod, so no ****er could put up hurdles for me to listen to my music.