Amazon Echo Dot

Also picked up a Echo Dot yesterday. Grabbed it for light duty use or as a spare. After I ordered on my Echo Dot 1st gen with the extra $10 "order with Alexa discount" how could you pass it up if you like AI devices. Now we will see which one has better audio quality when hooked into a nice stereo.
 
Also picked up a Echo Dot yesterday. Grabbed it for light duty use or as a spare. After I ordered on my Echo Dot 1st gen with the extra $10 "order with Alexa discount" how could you pass it up if you like AI devices. Now we will see which one has better audio quality when hooked into a nice stereo.
Yeah, the $10 rebate made this a no-brainer. I bought some Gummi Bears and an 8 terabyte drive while I was at it.
 
Bumping/Butting in here to say that I've found and bought the BEST accessory for the Alexa/Dot last month.

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Amazon's $30 remote is a wet dream. The control and range is remarkable. It's basically what I pontificated about early on in the thread about using my walkie-talkies. The nutshell is that I have a Dot connected to an amp that drives my deck speakers but it's inside the sunroom well out of ear/Dot shot. This gizmo works pretty dang flawlessly in the palm of anyone's hand wherever they go about inside and outside the 3 level ranch. Great for music socials. Pass the remote...demand a tune, artist, radio station, book, news, podcasts, who died when, etc.. Barrels of functionality, practicality, and damn good monkey fun.

I could go on and on but I'll let this vid explain the bennies of the Amazon remote. Note, hard-wiring all your devices with Ethernet is by no means a necessity but cool multi-room schtick this guy has nonetheless.

 
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I already have a Chromecast Audio and AppleTV, but this looks interesting:

http://www.cnet.com/products/amazon-echo-dot/

http://www.amazon.com/b/?node=14047587011
I think it would be fun to get one of these working in my living room and then, over the course of a week or two, talk with someone about our plans to take out some government building at a certain time via a certain method, and see how long it takes to get my door busted down by a swat team.

And then sue the pants off them.
 
Just for the record, a statement from Amazon on that subject:

"Amazon will not release customer information without a valid and binding legal demand properly served on us. Amazon objects to overbroad or otherwise inappropriate demands as a matter of course."

From the same article:

"As a refresher, Echo only captures audio and streams it to the cloud when the device hears the wake word "Alexa." A ring on the top of the device turns blue to give a visual indication that audio is being recorded. Those clips, or "utterances" as the company calls them, are stored in the cloud until a customer deletes them either individually or all at once. When that's done, the "utterances" are permanently deleted. What's more, the microphones on an Echo device can be manually turned off at any time."

If the cops showed up every time some discussion of crime was heard in earshot of every Echo device, Breaking Bad belng played in the background would end up costing people a lot of doors being busted down.

In the murder case where the Echo recordings were handed over, the defendant gave Amazon the okay to hand them over.
 
I like the idea, but would like it more if it had a digital output (which it appears to be missing). I also wonder how many people have a radio/stereo that they leave on all the time so that they can take advantage of this without flipping on their stereo every time?

If you get it, I would love to see your review.

I got an echo dot and hooked it up to my old nakamichi Soundspace 5 which was basically sitting unused on the wall. I leave it on 24/7 and it's great. I'm adding a second one with a small class D amp from Orb audio and a pair of Pioneer bookshelf speakers by Andrew Jones.
 
I got an echo dot and hooked it up to my old nakamichi Soundspace 5 which was basically sitting unused on the wall. I leave it on 24/7 and it's great. I'm adding a second one with a small class D amp from Orb audio and a pair of Pioneer bookshelf speakers by Andrew Jones.
What I did was connect my Marantz to an iHome plug that can be turned on and off by telling Alexa to turn on receiver. Works great!

I have three Dots now and the other two are connected to Tivoli Pals that stay on all the time. One of them has a splitter, so it also feeds my Onkyo receiver in my office.
 
What I did was connect my Marantz to an iHome plug that can be turned on and off by telling Alexa to turn on receiver. Works great!

This is what I do and it works great. The one caveat was one time we had a power outage and when the power came back the iHome plug turned 'on' by itself. Not sure why. My receiver could have been on for days if I hadn't noticed. Not good for equipment that puts out some heat, especially a tube amp.

CORRECTION: I have WeMo plugs, not iHome.
 
This is what I do and it works great. The one caveat was one time we had a power outage and when the power came back the iHome plug turned 'on' by itself. Not sure why. My receiver could have been on for days if I hadn't noticed. Not good for equipment that puts out some heat, especially a tube amp.

CORRECTION: I have WeMo plugs, not iHome.
I have not had that issue with the iHome. There must be some setting or something. Half of my Hue Bulbs have that issue, while it doesn't affect the others. I should look into that at some point. :idea:
 
Oh, I forgot to mention. The Alexa remote eliminates the need to use a wake word...just speak and it obeys.
:rockon:
 
^^^That is the nice thing about the Echo Remote. Push the button and talk. Some of the Echo voice commands to control the Fire TV 4K box work quite well when you link the two devices. The other night the Fire TV locked up and by saying "Alexa Go Home" it went back to the main screen and solved the lockup, without having to do a reset. Keeps getting better.
 
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Funny, I use the Fire TV remote a lot, but never via voice. Dunno why, because I talk to the Echo all the time.
 
^^^That is the nice thing about the Echo Remote. Push the button and talk. Some of the Echo voice commands to control the Fire TV 4K box work quite well on you link the two devices. The other night the Fire TV locked up and by saying "Alexa Go Home" it went back to the main screen and solved the lockup, without having to do a reset. Keeps getting better.

So wait... that means I could mod the remote into a Star Trek insignia badge.... and tap it, say "Tea, Earl Grey, hot." and it would respond??? Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By the way, yesterday I asked "computer" (Because I renamed Alexa "Computer) I asked, "Computer; Tea, Earl Grey, hot." just to see what would happen! Try it! It'll make you smile.
 
I've got an Echo Dot running through a three way switch box into the Aux of my Pioneer SX-1980.
Wonderful!
I just ask it to play either my stored music or radio stations. If I hear a tune I like and don't know the artist I ask Echo Dot to tell me! Then order it to be stored on my Amazon Music Unlimited account.
Brilliant!
Quality of sound is also great!
Might give that remote a go though. Sounds good. Occasionally the Dot chooses not to hear you!
 
Multi-Room groups now available in the Alexa app. Perfect syncing between multiple Dots, testing it now. Sonos Connect has just been pretty much killed, finally, by $50 Dots.
 
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