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The google gadget


Cockney Jimmy

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Yeah that thing you speak to 

my mum calls it Doogle 

anyway I have one - been bought by the brother in law 

better than the wife nagging 

pleasant voice - accurate - polite 

it’s time to invest time learning about technology 

if it wasn’t for a full English breakfast the wife could leave now 

amazing 

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1 minute ago, maxjam said:

Got the Amazon Alexa for Christmas - was a bit sceptical at first but its actually pretty damn good.  Getting more use out of it with each passing day :)

What do you use it for? I got my Mum one last Christmas, I thought it would change her life, but it just sits in a corner gathering dust. I genuinely want to know what I can do with it so I can show her. 

My sister just got one this Christmas, she was going to either the google or the amazon one, and I recommended Alexa, as I read somewhere it has more cross platform compatibility. 

Personally, I will wait for the Apple device. I know it’s twice the price, but I am one with the Apple infrastructure, so I can’t really get out of it now. 

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I work from home so am around it all day.  You can use them for a lot of things but I use mine for;

 

- radio stations

- podcasts

- my to do lists

- creating alarms

- shopping (on ocado and amazon)

- get answers to questions

 

They won't suit everyone but not having to stop what I'm doing, losing my train of thought etc to add something to a to do list or getting an answer to something without having to search google in invaluable.  Walking round the kitchen looking in the fridge or cupboards and asking Alexa to add whatever to the shopping list is a nice trick too!

Now considering upgrading our heating/lighting/tv to take advantage of those being voice activated as well :p

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Lighting can be a pain, both Alexa and Google have brain farts and forget what a lightbulb is, after 5 minutes of shouting at them you get up and just turn it on yourself.

Weirdly Siri never fails with lighting, I just forget to use her. I think as HomeKit is part of the iPhone it just works flawlessly.

If Apple brought something out to compete with the Home Mini and Echo Dot at the same price and not the £350 single speaker I'd be all over it. Sadly even if they were to compete with the mini speakers it would probably be 3x the cost still which I would struggle to justify paying to turn the lights on

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Alexa/Amazon Echo is jprimarily there to let you buy more things from Amazon.

Google knows most things about you and everyone else and own Deep Mind so they have much the smartest AI and it will get even better, if you're happy living in a 1984 society.

Apple is some way off the pace but the herd will buy it because twenty years ago the company was quite innovative.

Microsoft's Cortana is hilariously bad. Which is a shame for them because some of their devices are way better for people such as designers than Apple's stuff nowadays, but this is an area they have totally missed the boat.

Personally I'm more than happy with the Google Assistant on my phone and don't understand the need for a separate static device.

Here's a review of the three main contenders in case anyone's thinking of buying anything other than Google home: http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/smart-speakers/1405996/google-home-vs-amazon-echo-2-vs-apple-homepod-the-smart-speakers-are-reduced

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11 hours ago, David said:

Lighting can be a pain, both Alexa and Google have brain farts and forget what a lightbulb is, after 5 minutes of shouting at them you get up and just turn it on yourself.

Weirdly Siri never fails with lighting, I just forget to use her. I think as HomeKit is part of the iPhone it just works flawlessly.

If Apple brought something out to compete with the Home Mini and Echo Dot at the same price and not the £350 single speaker I'd be all over it. Sadly even if they were to compete with the mini speakers it would probably be 3x the cost still which I would struggle to justify paying to turn the lights on

You’d justify it.

Watch him deny it.

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We have two Amazon dots...one in the living  room and one in my son's room...apart from its other uses its brilliant to use it a personal intercom to request he visits us downstairs for tea etc!

Both connected to music,podcast and radio apps and we use it to play those quite a lot....easier than messing about with your phone to change tracks.

My son also uses it for studying,getting relevent references and such like.

Hoping to get a home hub for the heating/lighting next.

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22 minutes ago, kash_a_ram_a_ding_dong said:

We have two Amazon dots...one in the living  room and one in my son's room...apart from its other uses its brilliant to use it a personal intercom to request he visits us downstairs for tea etc!

Both connected to music,podcast and radio apps and we use it to play those quite a lot....easier than messing about with your phone to change tracks.

My son also uses it for studying,getting relevent references and such like.

Hoping to get a home hub for the heating/lighting next.

I just wish it was more compatible with Apple Music. I tried to get some of my mums songs onto amazon music so that Alexa would play them, but could only get a couple of things on. Now she has a choice between Micheal Jackson or the Beatles (not a terrible play list mind, if you could only have two albums). 

Its definrkey part of the plan to get her a smart home set up. She struggles to get out of bed by herself, so it would be great to empower her to be able to turn the lights off and things by herself. But I thought you could just buy a smart lightbulb, didn’t realise you need a gun and everything to go with it. It starts getting quite expensive. 

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The Amazon devices like the Google version favour streaming music from dedicated services.

Amazon allows Prime music,spotify or Google play to be dedicated to it or if you want to play music directly from your phone instead you can Bluetooth directly to it from your phone/iphone

that's nowhere near as convenient as using a steaming service as all of the music providers no doubt have more music to suit your mum on their servers than she could cope with.

Incidentally,you can add the full Prime music streaming service to your amazon device for for just 3.99 a month....that's a lot cheaper than Apple music.

Another benefit is if you have a Amazon device yourself or have the app on the phone,you can enable a drop in mode whereas you could drop in on your mum's dot of you were worried about her,without her having to answer it herself...(this is an optional setting by the way)

In respect of lighting and heating etc,yes the homehub is a expensive at first but it would be a massive help for your mum in the long run and the costs then lower to add extra kit later.

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14 minutes ago, kash_a_ram_a_ding_dong said:

Just further to the above .....the new amazon echo plus has a hub built in to control your hesting/lights etc and it's only £140 all in which would save you quite a lot tigertedd?

Bugger. Why did you tell me that? I should’ve got her one of those. 

In fact, now my sisters bought one, we could’ve bought a plus for my mum and my sister could’ve had the old one. 

Very useful info though. Thanks. I have found out recently that at least Electra plays nicely with Apple calendars, so we’ve set that up for my Mum now, that’s handy. 

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7 hours ago, kash_a_ram_a_ding_dong said:

We have two Amazon dots...one in the living  room and one in my son's room...apart from its other uses its brilliant to use it a personal intercom to request he visits us downstairs for tea etc!

As the parent of a bedroom dwelling teenager, he's getting an Amazon dot for his birthday - will make shouting upstairs a lot easier!

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