Amazon Echo

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › Amazon Echo

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#1313512 28-May-2015 14:24

Almost june. Mine should be shipping soon. All the delay has kinda taken the excitement away somewhat.

Richard rich.ms

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#1313578 28-May-2015 15:41

Mine should be at Youshop on 17 June. Wife is sick of me calling her Alexa and telling her to add stuff to the shopping list so hopefully the Echo will save our marriage. ;-)

Cheers.

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#1326086 16-Jun-2015 21:04

Mine arrived today, works well but seems to rely on post code for everything from news, weather, time, date etc and you cant change this to a NZ post code so that limits it a bit. Asking for Auckland weather gives me oakland weather but im working on training it.

Seems to link in with amazon music OK and says spotify is being worked on if you ask it.

Very good voice recognition even from a distance im liking it so far.

richms

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#1326093 16-Jun-2015 21:18

Mine is sitting at shipito waiting on some more stuff to consolodate.

My last one went over the GST threshold by a bit because I stuffed up and didnt notice the exchange rate had got so bad. If only I had left a couple of non important things out like the long HDMI cables that say they will do 4k 60Hz I would have saved $130. So that has hobbled the crap I dont need budget for a while now.

Richard rich.ms

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#1330336 24-Jun-2015 07:45

The Amazon Echo is available to everyone without invite now. Not sure about shipping times though.

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hairy1

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#1330722 24-Jun-2015 14:14

Just got ours. Very cool. It will be interesting to see if voice commands wear off after a while. The voice recognition is pretty stunning especially for us nu zeelandrs.

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networkn

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#1330727 24-Jun-2015 14:17

hairy1: Just got ours. Very cool. It will be interesting to see if voice commands wear off after a while. The voice recognition is pretty stunning especially for us nu zeelandrs.

We have had ours a good long while and I'd say it's gotten better all the time.

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#1330760 24-Jun-2015 15:21

How it picks up "Alexa" from across the room while playing loud music has got me stumped.

It came in a Minions box. I am now thinking it has a small minion inside who spends his day listening for us!

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networkn

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#1330761 24-Jun-2015 15:24

hairy1: How it picks up "Alexa" from across the room while playing loud music has got me stumped.

It came in a Minions box. I am now thinking it has a small minion inside who spends his day listening for us!

LOL.

The big problem for us is my Sons name is Alex. Second problem is the word Amazon is a word used in our house a lot because of how integrated we are with all our devices. They need another word.

We are always activating it by accident :) I shudder to think what Amazon might have heard :)

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#1331060 24-Jun-2015 23:34

I'm trying to order Echo from Amazon.com and it won't allow shipping to New Zealand. So I tried UK, ditto.

Is there a knack in getting this that I don't know about?

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#1331086 25-Jun-2015 06:16

Yeah. You have to use something like youshop. No international shipping unfortunately.

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#1331134 25-Jun-2015 09:03

Thanks.

What about the power supply/adapter, since it is not yet designed for outside the USA? I saw an Echo on TradeMe a few days ago but there were no details there on how it uses our plugs.

And since it seems we have to enter a US zipcode for weather etc and so losing a lot of the functionality, it seems worth waiting for a New Zealand version. Anyone using one able to tell me?

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#1331145 25-Jun-2015 09:29

It has a 110 to 240 V power supply but with US pins so you need a travel adapter to power it. US zip code screws up alarms but that is about it.

Weather works fine if you add the country to the request. I say "Alexa, what is the weather for Auckland, New Zealand" and it works great. It will be interesting to see how they handle the location in the future. It is solely based around US zip codes (typical Americans!)

Cheers, Matt

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networkn

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#1331230 25-Jun-2015 10:55

kevro: Thanks.

What about the power supply/adapter, since it is not yet designed for outside the USA? I saw an Echo on TradeMe a few days ago but there were no details there on how it uses our plugs.

And since it seems we have to enter a US zipcode for weather etc and so losing a lot of the functionality, it seems worth waiting for a New Zealand version. Anyone using one able to tell me?

I have it on good authority there is no intention for a NZ model. They will simply remove the dependence of the Zip code, to allow for localization and there are discussions around it, but not certainty that this
generation will get international support.

kevro

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#1331255 25-Jun-2015 11:11

Thanks hairy1 and networkn.

I have about 10 WeMo wall and powerpoint switches which would respond well to Echo, but of course the portability of Siri is a better option since my home is on three levels.

I'm hoping Apple HomeKit might be the answer since I understand they're in talks with Belkin.

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