They’ve been talking about this since last year. It’s one of the reasons why I went with a Dot. I figured I already had a nice speaker with the Sonos. The Dot as a speaker is pretty crappy.
I’m in the exact same boat. Have a couple of great sounding Sonos:1 speakers, and I picked up an Echo Dot to experiment with. thinking I’d take advantage of the announced integration. Now it seems to be not coming in the near future, and Apple’s announced it’s HomePod. I’m all in on the Apple ecosystem, from HomeKit, to iPhone, to Apple TV, so I might just sell my Play:1s (got them at a good Boxing Day sale, so won’t lose too much) and go that route at some point. But for now, I’m just trying to stay patient. Mainly because the one Apple item I’m not in on is Apple Music. And Spotify did get their improved Sonos integration on iOS working, so I don’t have to touch the Sonos app often at all.
Echo control of Fire TV
Now you can control any Amazon Fire TV with your Echo device. Let Alexa help you start a show, open your favorite apps, find a good movie to watch, control playback, and more. Learn more. Just ask:
Vizio already learned that people still want remotes, but this is still interesting. When you lose your remote, it might be interesting.
I think my Echo just advertised a book to me. I was doing the news flash thing and at the end of NPR brief, I was barely paying attention, but someone was describing a book and ended with it being a must read. I don’t know if this was an NPR ad, or an Amazon one. Anyone else notice this? Never heard an ad before on it.
I haven’t heard any Amazon ads, but there are a ton from NPR. Most of them are for other NPR shows, but there are a decent number from sponsors as well, so you may have heard one of those.
Amazon had a deal for a free Echo Dot for opening a business account so I got one. I have it connected to good speakers and I love it as a better Spotify Connect device than the Chromecast Audio. The Echo doesn’t disconnect after the stream ends so Spotify still sees it the next day or whenever. Sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s much easier to repair than the chromecast audio, I just say “Alexa, play Spotify” and it grabs the stream back. It’s also a nice bluetooth speaker for playing local files that Spotify Connect can’t play. I didn’t realize I wanted voice control of playing music until I tried it, but it is nice, and I like it as an alarm clock too.
Yep I got that freebie too! Great deal, everybody should do it if the deal is still available.
That’s my bathroom dot, heh.
It’s such a great alarm! I need something way louder on a regular basis for just one-off days I use my bedroom dot. I am looking forward to using a dot on my new speaker set-up too… once i get the sub and receiver, other speakers already on the way.
It must been have NPR then. Never noticed any ads in the NPR portion of the news flash before, but if it becomes a regular thing I will have to switch to something else.
Huh, I thought they’d pulled ads in June. Maybe that was just from skills. Haven’t heard a single one on Echo/TuneIn.
There is a sponsorship message from NPR on the NPR newscasts now, just as there is on the radio.
Ah, so it’s in the content itself.
Yep, guess so.
It just did it again. NPR started with an ad and closed with one. Both times making it clear it was an NPR ad. That is new for me, I don’t remember that last week. So NPR is going off the Echo. I don’t mind a quick 10 second ad, but it’s currently a bit too much.
Version 2 is out.
Much better pricing and the choice of less aggressive, more living-room friendly cosmetics. If it sounds good, Amazon will sell a ton of them. And if not, they’ll still sell a ton of Dots.
Hopefully this pushes the Google Home pricing down also.
Looks nice, I like the 2.5" mini echo clock echo spot, I wonder what the sound would be like from it.
I replaced my bedroom alarm clock with the older echo, and love the music and alarm clock features, but miss seeing a clock if I do wake up in the middle of the night. And I don’t want to ask what time it is. :p
I already have 6 echo devices, with the price drop I’ll probably have one in every room of the house by Christmas. Love that they added the ability to share music between them in the last update. A whole house wireless speaker system playing the same Christmas music in every room is my goal.
There’s also the Echo Plus, which has the Echo v1 styling but is taller, has a slightly better speaker, and includes a smart home hub for non-wifi IoT devices. $150.
And the Echo Spot, an Echo with a little screen, perfect for your bedside clock radio purposes. $130.
The Echo Spot is nice, but the $130 price is a bit steep just to get the clockface. I wouldn’t use the video display for anything else.
Yes, Amazon does not advertise the speakers on the Spot as “room-filling sound” so I’d guess it sounds something like the Dot. So, not super great. It would be a much more compelling product at $99.
$50 - Dot, voice control, crappy sound
$99 - Echo, voice control, great sound
$99 - Spot, voice control, crappy sound, tiny display
$150 - Plus, voice control, great sound, smart home
$250 - Show, voice control, really great sound, large display
Yeah, I saw they are mentioning an audio out jack on the Echo Spot, so not so great default sound. :(
I almost wish the bigger echo had a clock face.
So even with all these new versions, the older hardware doesn’t seem instantly obsolete. Which pleases me.