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Alexa is the brain of Amazon's newest product,
Echo. Echo is a Siri-like device, but does much more than the mysterious AI woman on your iPhone. Echo is aims to organize your entire life, from building your shopping list to managing your calendar. No more making a mess of all the to-do's in your life through 10 different planning apps!
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With an open platform, your inner nerd can even integrate different technologies with Echo. This way you don't have to worry about shifting your entire life to a completely different tool. For example, Evernote is one of the apps that is integrated with the product, and I personally use Evernote every single day so this was a perk for me in keeping all of my current lists and notes organized in the same place. What the Echo promises to do is make my note-taking easily accessible. If I don't have my computer, tablet, or phone near, I can tell Alexa to add whatever I need to my notes.
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A friend of mine let me borrow the Echo, to see if "Alexa" and I could bond and convince me to buy an Echo of my own. All you need to do is place the Echo in your home and starting talking to "Alexa." Here's what happened:
Hello, Alexa.
Saying, "hi" to Alexa is like saying hi to Siri. Her jokes are cheesy and full of puns, but I'm a sucker for puns so it won me over there. All you have to say is, "Alexa," and the Echo will be activated for your question or request. Easy and simple to use, check!
Built For Home
Like Siri is built for the iPhone, the Echo is built for your home. You can place the Echo anywhere and yell for Alexa when you need "her". The Echo is also integrated into
Amazon Fresh, which is the uh-mazing grocery service provided by Amazon. (I've been meaning to try this, too.) If you have Fresh, you can just tell Alexa to add toilet paper or tampons or whatever to your order, and it will be done immediately.
Connected To (Almost) Everything
The Echo prides itself on being able to integrate into multiple products, (
Wink and
WeMo, among others), and when I discovered it integrated into
Hue it peaked my interested. Hue products are these awesome connected light bulbs with multiple colored light settings that I control from an app on my iPhone. Yes, I actually have personalized settings for when I'm watching
Game of Thrones or
Teen Wolf. It's awesome.
It's frustrating when you get comfortable on the couch - popcorn, blanket, and dogs all in the prefect spot - and right before your favorite show comes on you realize you have to get up to turn the lights down. With Echo, I can just say, "Alexa, dim the basement lights," and it will dim the lights based on my Hue app settings. Of course, you have to integrate the Hue app with the Echo first, but it's smooth sailings from there.
Another big perk (for me), is the Google Calendar integration. Once you sync your calendar to Echo you can ask Alexa what's on your schedule for the day, and she'll tell you. She's basically a personal assistant that you don't have to worry about being nice to all the time. Sometimes I'm just in a bad mood, okay?!
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Cons
Alexa should be able to hear you from anywhere in the house, but even when sitting next to the Echo, Alexa didn't respond to me consistently. I'm not too hung up about this, though, since not all technology is perfect, and it doesn't happen every time.
Pandora is integrated into Echo, but Spotify isn't. Echo is Bluetooth and Wifi enabled, so you can play your Spotify music on the Echo from your phone or tablet that way; however, that kind of defeats the purpose of the Echo. I don't use Pandora - I pay for a premium Spotify account, so I'd rather use the Bluetooth speaker I already own. I will give it to Echo on their efforts for sound quality, though - they have 360-degree immersive sound, so at least the speaker is (sort of) legit.
All in all, I would grade the Echo a B. This product is ripe to disrupt many markets; it just needs a little more time to get its feet wet. Amazon left the product capability open to integrate with existing and new products, so the product will improve and add on new features at a fast rate. The Echo retails for $179 for Amazon Prime members and $199 for non-members.
What do you think - is the cost too much for what you get in return? Will you try the Echo?
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