I don’t think an actual Echo speaker is going to help. They’re all mains powered as far as I’m aware. You should be able to get it to work with an alexa-enabled portable speaker like a Blast.
Alexa commands here
Hey, we found someone with a use case for the Echo Auto!
Unfortunately no public launch date announced yet, as far as I know.
Yeah, that’s sort of what I want, but I don’t want to play through my car’s speakers. The reason is that, um, my old sports car doesn’t have any working speakers. :)
I just want a portable speaker that will respond to voice commands for Audible while I drive. I have a portable speaker, but it’s not smart. I have a smartphone (iPhone) with Audible, but its Audible doesn’t respond to voice commands without Alexa. Gah!
Edit: Would something like this make an Echo Dot portable, so that I could talk to it in my car? https://www.amazon.com/Battery-Intelligent-Portable-Capacity-Wasserstein/dp/B074TV26TK
An Echo Dot can be battery powered, or you can plug it into a USB port in your car, or alternatively connect it to a standard power adapter then that into a power inverter that plugs into a cigarette lighter port. Then you need to tether it to an internet source like your phone.
Thanks! Those sound like promising options.
I finally got my Echo to talk to the Plex server I recently added to my raspberry pi (the main purpose of which is to block ads via pihole). It’s pretty amazing to be able to say “tell Plex to play Talking Heads” and stream music from the mp3 collection stored on the microsd card. The whole setup was less than 100 bucks. Crazy.
I think I had a Google Home thread here at one point but also had an echo. In a sign of the times (and marketing) the Home has finally been retired. We just added a dot (bathroom) and new Echo Show to the echo we already had, along with some smart plugs and other items. At this point we keep finding new things we use the Echo for, and as an example we monitor my SO’s mother by dropping in on her in her apartment occasionally.
There are still many things I wish they did better, but they have steadily become more useful over time.
I am excited about… this:
Reportedly, the new Fire TV Cube will have a six-core processor and support Dolby Vision, plus be able to interpret voice controls directly on the device instead of in the cloud.
If this is true, I hope this means if the internet goes down you can still use your devices. I could upgrade just for that.
Sounds like they are aware that the future of tv entertainment is streaming.
The old FireTV stick was more than fast enough to stream. Amazon had been going down a cost-optimization road; I’m surprised they’re investing BOM in performance again. My guess is costs came down, as they always do, and Amazon figured what the hell, why not.
Is the Cube used as a home media/IoT hub? Both Apple’s and Google’s devices can do that, which requires more processing capability.
It’s an Echo, if that’s what you mean, but all that processing happens in the cloud.
Which could be untrue for the next one. I’m excited about the possibilities.
Yes, looks like it’s doing some STT locally now. That could explain the heftier CPU.
This could just as easily go into the What Could Go Wrong? thread.
Anyone have a guess on Time to Nazi for this? I give it a week.
What “measures” they have in place, will not be good enough. Kids love using Alexa… and now they will probably start saying choice words and bizarre answer from it. What could possibly go wrong with having random strangers answer your child’s questions?
From a company whose store is littered with counterfeit products and fake reviews. What could possibly go wrong? :)
On the other hand, this is basically Yahoo Answers, but with voice. Think of all the podcasts this will inspire.
Tech companies continue to act like naive children as long as they can profit from it. Really wish Google Home devices were up to the level of Amazon’s in other areas so I could ditch my last Echo.
So I got an “invite” to buy an Alexa Auto for $25, so I figured, what the hell, and did it. Just got it set up, but haven’t used it much. Apparently it can bring up Google Maps if I ask it for directions, so that’s cool, but I could do that with Siri. In fact, it feels like my car stereo having CarPlay kinda obviates the need for Alexa Auto, but we’ll see. At least I can add stuff to my shopping lists!