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| Bunch of savages in this town  |
I bought/sent one to my brother, thinking he might like it. My wife got me one for Christmas. It's actually pretty cool, and I'm having more fun with it than I thought I would. Any other members have one? Tips, advice, or skills? I don't have any smart home features, so I just listen to music, set timers, ask the occasional Chuck Norris joke... ----------------- I apologize now... | ||
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Member |
I'm tempted to get one myself and the $50 for the dot almost has me reaching for my wallet ... I was intrigued with the Amazon "Echo" but wasn't going to pay the $139, ($199 IIRC when they first came out) If you really want something you'll find a way ... ... if you don't you'll find an excuse. I'm really not a "kid" anymore ... but I haven't grown up yet either  | |||
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Tinker Sailor Soldier Pie |
That thing practically records everything said in the room and saves it to the cloud. No. Thank you. ~Alan Acta Non Verba NRA Life Member (Patron) God, Family, Guns, Country Men will fight and die to protect women... because women protect everything else. ~Andrew Klavan "Once there was only dark. If you ask me, light is winning." ~Rust Cohle | |||
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| Just for the hell of it  |
I've had an Echo for about a year now. Picked it up when Amazon was running a deal on them. I use mine to play music and get weather. I like the new dot that you can connect to speakers for better sound. _____________________________________ Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain. Jack Kerouac | |||
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| Little ray of sunshine  |
Since I am not discussing plans to take over the world or reciting my credit card numbers, it doesn't really bother me if the device records me and my wife talking what to have for dinner. The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything. | |||
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Glorious SPAM! |
Neither am I, but I prefer to make the NSA work for their information, thank you very much. | |||
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| Knows too little about too much  |
Youngest (engineer) son got one. Pretty cool. It learns when you ask it questions. It may not be able to answer the first time around, but it will retrieve the info from the web and have it ready the second time through. Wife liked it and thought it was fun and she is a total iPhone screwing up/computer breaking Luddite. Maybe she can't hurt this device, so I got her one on the way. RMD TL Davis: “The Second Amendment is special, not because it protects guns, but because its violation signals a government with the intention to oppress its people…” Remember: After the first one, the rest are free. | |||
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| Tinker Sailor Soldier Pie |
So the extent of your private conversations is what's for dinner? I find that hard to believe. But I'm paranoid by nature, so... ~Alan Acta Non Verba NRA Life Member (Patron) God, Family, Guns, Country Men will fight and die to protect women... because women protect everything else. ~Andrew Klavan "Once there was only dark. If you ask me, light is winning." ~Rust Cohle | |||
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eh-TEE-oh-clez |
Have had the Echo since it came out, it's pretty cool. We use it in the bedroom for the music, to set alarms, and to ask for the weather. A friend sent us a Google Home for Christmas, and I coincidentally bought a Chromecast for the living room TV. The Google integration between devices is slick. I can tell my phone to start a song downstairs on the Home, or tell the Home to play a music video from YouTube on the Chromecast, etc. | |||
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| Something wild is loose  |
It works through your Wi-Fi (and Bluetooth locally), and responds to voice commands you have pre-programmed. It uses your Wi-Fi connection to do exactly the same thing you would do with your computer keyboard. If you believe your wireless connection is not secure (speaking to the NSA fears), you should increase security or stop using it. The type of wireless device on your network is irrelevant. Broadcasting wirelessly is not risk-free, but many of us accept the risks for the convenience, with all the precautions we can install. Problems arise when we have insufficient security installed, or none, or worse, aren't even aware of the risks. "And gentlemen in England now abed, shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin's Day" | |||
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| Staring back from the abyss  |
If you want Google/Amazon/Facebook/NSA/whoever to be mining all of your conversations and data, go for it. I'm with Balze on this one, not a chance in hell you'll find one of those in my home. My sister thought it would be fun to get an Alexa a few months back. She discovered that Alexa "learns" from you. Your likes, dislikes, music preferences, food preferences, previous searches, etc.... Even being the big government pinko commie progressive that she is, it freaked her out and she got rid of it. Me? I like my privacy. ________________________________________________________ "Great danger lies in the notion that we can reason with evil." Doug Patton. | |||
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| Ol' Jack always says... what the hell. |
What's the difference between the Echo and the Dot? | |||
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| Something wild is loose |
SIG Forum would be a good place for NSA to mine conversations, should they choose to do so.  "And gentlemen in England now abed, shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin's Day" | |||
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| Just for the hell of it |
Those that have privacy issues do you use Amazon, any streaming music services, order food online, use a grocery store card. Unless you are paying in cash and using no store cards that privacy ship sailed long ago. Grocery stores have been mining your shopping habits for years even before Amazon or Facebook where even thinking of doing it. They make you use their store card to get the best prices. Every time you scan that card they are tracking your purchases. _____________________________________ Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain. Jack Kerouac | |||
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Honky Lips |
http://www.androidcentral.com/...which-should-you-buy | |||
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| Something wild is loose |
Echo is a larger device with a (pretty good) built-in speaker. Dot is about quarter of the size of the Echo, with a not-as-good speaker. The Dot can be connected to an external Bluetooth speaker of your choice for better sound quality; Echo is strictly Wi-Fi. They both operate identically - you give it a voice command to take some action: make a purchase (through Amazon), tell you the weather or time (anywhere), perform math calculations, read Wikipedia articles, read news from whatever organization you set up, send a shopping list to your phone, set an alarm or timer, read a recipe to you while you're cooking, tell you when Cary Grant died, identify state capitols, tell you the distance to Neptune, play music (from a wireless device or the Internet), tell you a joke, or virtually anything else you can incorporate into a question or command that you might perform with your computer. "And gentlemen in England now abed, shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin's Day" | |||
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| Thank you Very little  |
Wife won a dot at the company christmas party which was great as I got to return the Echo to Amazon and save $140. Big difference is size the Echo has a large speaker for the money the dot is the way to go. It responds well to commands we used it to play holiday tunes for the family christmas dinner at the house. Not much more yet, my guess is it will go to the side and not get used a ton. If the NSA is tagging our conversations it's not going to learn much. Probably be significantly bored... | |||
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Nullus Anxietas |
Difference is you have to consciously type something into SF, or even FB or Twitter. Something sitting there listening to your every word: Not so much. No thanks. I found out that Google, bless their hearts, had enabled Google Now to be listening all the time on my phone. Put an end to that, too. (When my not-so-smart watch dies: The Google Now launcher will be removed entirely or disabled right after I un-install Android Wear.)
There's a slight difference between your shopping habits being profiled and every word you speak in the "privacy" of your home being monitored. "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic philosopher | |||
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| Tinker Sailor Soldier Pie |
Huge difference between me googling "baby diapers" and getting an advertisement for Pampers on every website I visit, and me having a private conversation with my wife in my home about having a baby and then getting bombarded with ads for baby stuff. That's a line I don't want to cross. ~Alan Acta Non Verba NRA Life Member (Patron) God, Family, Guns, Country Men will fight and die to protect women... because women protect everything else. ~Andrew Klavan "Once there was only dark. If you ask me, light is winning." ~Rust Cohle | |||
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| Something wild is loose |
Neither of these devices "listen" to anything you say unless you activate them with a voice command, just like my car GPS works. Yes, they could be secretly bugged to go straight to Joe Biden's email with Dragon transcription. All several million users. CIA could be tagging my picture window with a laser pickup. Aliens could be farming my thoughts (other than the aliens I already know about). Life is risky. Choose wisely. "And gentlemen in England now abed, shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin's Day" | |||
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