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Heart Dad says:

The Echo has become the most used appliance in our home. I requested an Echo (Alexa) in late 2014 and Amazon sent me an invitation to purchase one in February. I’ve used it daily since then. This review is going to sound a bit contradictory. I love her. I hate her, I love her. Let me start off by saying that Alexa, while I do love her, is at times about 50% smarter than a bulldog. Her IQ is somewhere between 25 and 160 depending on what you’ve asked her. You will very quickly learn how to talk to her in a way that she will understand and it’s not unlike speaking to a small frustrating toddler. Alexa, when was George Washington born? George Washington was born…blah blah Alexa stop. There were rumors his teeth were wood but these turned out to be false, ALEXA stop speaking! There will be many times she will not understand what you’re saying which can be both frustrating and hilarious. Alexa, put tomatoes on my shopping list. I’ve put potatoes onto your shopping list….Well, guess I’m eatin potatoes. That said, now that I’ve learned how to speak to the Echo it usually does exactly what I want it to do. I think the echo is well worth the price Amazon is asking and I’m thinking of getting a second one for the living room.Pros:+ Amazon has done a great job updating the Echo and adding features to it frequently. Since my purchase, they’ve added traffic reports, sports scores, Pandora, IFTT, voice control over the smart lights and appliances in your home, iTunes support, Spotify, and new fun features like rolling dice, and Simon says.+ You can use the optional echo remote to control the volume or speak commands. It works really well from a good distance (I’ve tried 20-30 ft). I use it frequently and feel like it’s worth the additional cost.+ The Speaker sounds great with music and gets plenty loud.+ You can teach the Echo how to understand you better using a Voice Training feature in the app.+ It integrates with Audible! All I have to say is “Alexa, play my book”, and it starts off from where I was listening on my phone or PC. You can also say “Alexa go back” and it will go back 30 seconds. Yay!+ Bluetooth streaming is seamless. Just say “Alexa pair Bluetooth” and you’ll be connected in 30 seconds.+ It does a great job at finding the music you want to play quickly. “Alexa play kids music”, “Alexa play my 90s station on Pandora”. “Alexa play American Pie”…. playing American pie by Don McLean.+ Using “Simon Says” you can make Alexa repeat anything you say.+ I love the shopping list. Throughout the day my wife will add things to the shopping list as she thinks about them and then when I go to the store the list is on my Echo phone app and I don’t have try to remember what she wants.+ One of my favorite things to do is mess with my kids using Alexa. My son will go into the kitchen and ask her questions. I sit in a different room and speak into the remote asking it to answer other random questions or I tell it to play country music and he gets super confused. I’ll say things like “Add Landon needs to brush his teeth to the to do list.” and when Alexa repeats what I’ve said he jumps. I find this a non-stop source of enjoyment that I am probably going to pay for one day.+ The Echo has the ability to start and stop timers and alarms. Just say “Alexa set an alarm for 8 am”, or “Alexa set a timer for 15 minutes”. I find the timer very useful in the kitchen when I’m cooking more than one thing.+ You can pause, stop, skip, and start music with your voice and it works really well. You can also control the volume with your voice by saying “Alexa turn the volume up.” or “Alexa volume 5″.+ The jokes and random facts it can answer are really fun and can also be very helpful. Every time someone comes over I’ll ask it questions like “How many teaspoons are in a cup?”, what’s 962 x 47?, or “How much does an Adult Elephant weight?” and the Echo can usually answer me.+ They built in a lot of funny Easter eggs. You can say “Alexa Beam me up”, “Alexa I love you”, or “Alexa do you find me attractive?” and you’ll get pretty funny responses.+ There are lots of other random things it can do. Give you sports scores, tell you the weather, inform you of traffic conditions, order stuff on Amazon (thankfully not enabled by default), and read the news.+ The Amazon Echo SDK is coming soon! That means software developers will be able to make new apps that work with the Echo.Cons- It’s not portable. You have to keep it plugged in at all times. They should come out with a wireless rechargeable version.- I wish you could ask the Echo to do more than one thing without repeating it’s name “Alexa”. For example I’d like to say “Alexa add milk, eggs, olive oil, and onions to my shopping list” and have it add 4 items to the list…