Amazon Echo (2nd Gen) - Smart speaker with Alexa - Charcoal Fabric

First of all, let me mention to really make Alexa shine, you need Amazon Music for full voice control over music vs subbing to spotify, so Amazon is going to get a sub fee out of you for full advanced music control. Barring that, most of the skills you can add (skills are apps for Alexa) are great fun and it's very easy to set alarms, reminders, ask for a flash briefing (get the news and local weather). Some skills will need you to log into a website from the provider (like the BBC) to get them working fully.Quality of the speaker rivals most Bluetooth speakers of the same size and price for listening to radio-music etc. So it's a replacement for most smaller Hifi's etc but not rival quality systems (although there is an audio out port so you can connect much bigger speakers to full size echo no issue).While many skills are gimmicks and fun for a bit, like playing the Audio version of Skyrim. Using Alexa to control home automation like lights is very easy to do and actually useful and the voice control for setting reminders, alarms etc much better than most smart phones.Set up is easy using the Alexa app on your phone-tablet, and you can turn off communications and Amazon ordering to stop accidental dialing soemone or buying Amazon stuff with your voice in the app. All you have to do is type in your Amazon Account details and Wifi details to get going the echo does the rest and then start adding skills as needed.Creating more complex home automation scripts is easy to do in the Alexa app and about as hard as learning how Facebook works for the average users (pretty idiot proof).The Phase array built-in mics are awesome (much better than some rival products) and can hear you when the TV is on and even in another room (or floor of your home!).You can also change the keyword from Alexa to 'computer' and some other choices to stop people on TV-podcasts or just chatting accidentally triggering Alexa.So it's a fun toy-gimmick to start with and as you add some of the skills and home automation products, it becomes very powerful and useful.

At first, I had a problem getting the connection working and was going back and forward and round in circles, I bought both the Echo Plus and this, the Echo Plus was a breeze to set up (took about 5 mins) but this one took about an hour fiddling around with it. I found out you have to use a 4G connection to make it work best. Once you get past this stage, you download the Amazon app to tell Alexa (wake up command word) to do things useful like start a shopping list. This works great though if you lose the internet connection the app refuses to boot up for some reason which means you can't access your shopping list while in Sainsburys etc lets hope they fix this with an upgrade soon.You can set alarms to wake you up or remind you of something or event and Alexa's voice will tell you what the remainder is. This is handy but I would have liked awaken to music station or waken to music from Amazon Music etc at the moment it still bleeps just like the old Echo I had. Why they haven't implemented this yet beats me.Setting up my Hue lighting system was kids stuff, just tell Alexa to "Pair with Philips Hue" or "Pair with Hue" and she sets it all up as many bulbs as you want. I set up my living room, kitchen, bedroom light, Lamp smart plug, all with one command very neat and time-saving. Alexa will also change any colours too if you are using colour bulbs by just saying "Alexa change living room to blue" or whatever colour you want.As Tune in is built in to Alexa you can say " Alexa tune to "Celtic Music Radio on tune in" and it will tune in your favorite station and there are hundreds of stations around the world via the net by checking with the TuneIn app or online.At the moment I have the Amazon Echo in my bedroom and the large one Echo Plus in my living room. I also noticed that the Echo plus and both the small version both now have AUX out which is hand for plugging Alexa (Echo) into your HIFI for better sound. The sound from the system it has though is not bad and reasonably bassy with very clear highs though I still prefer my HiFi system. The speaker is hand for late night listening to avoid upsetting the neighbours with too much bass which can travel more.The sports setting in the app is good as you can now set up your favorite team from any league in the UK including the Scottish leagues which is a new upgrade.There are hundreds of other things you can do with the Echo but it would take forever to explain them all here. If you want to find out more buy a good kindle book on Amazon and even have Alexa read it back to you. You can make notes of which ones are handy and useful. You can stop at any time and Alexa app will remember where you left out, kinda like a bookmark if you like. A very useful device and a breakthrough for blind people and if you're lonely its like having a girlfriend around sometimes.