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Ask HN: Best uses for Amazon Echo?

106 points by leesalminen ↗ HN
I got an Amazon Echo and some wifi enabled light bulbs and electrical outlets for Christmas.

What are your favorite uses for it? Any cool "skills" you've made?

77 comments

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mplewis
Echo is great for info that you need kind-of-right-now, but info that isn't detailed enough that you need to read it.

My favorite uses are:

* Flash Briefing: Weather and NPR news while I make the morning coffee.

* Weather: How cold is it? I'm about to leave and I need to know if I need a sweater or a coat.

* Set a timer: I'm cooking, and I need a reminder in 10 minutes, but my hands are dirty and my phone is on the table in the other room.

1_2__3
So I don't mean to be snarky, but what it's useful for is apparently exactly the same things every other device like this has always been useful for, nothing more. What you said is 100% identical to what someone with a Chumby would have said in 2007.

This just kind of fuels. Y skepticism about this kind of product. It's looking for a problem to solve.

michaelbuckbee
When I look at the technologies I've dismissed and that then went on to become big, there's a similar pattern: I didn't adequately weight the firm as well as the function.

You're right. These are the easy examples because they're kind of universal. But what _feels_ very different about this is how well and quickly it works.

My wife's 72yr old (and her heavily Tagalog accented English) used Alexa properly on her first attempt. My 5 yr old daughter wanted one for her room because she loves playing it so much.

Ease of use and actually freaking working seems like a game changer.

Nadya
>Ease of use and actually freaking working seems like a game changer.

I was honestly surprised that Alexa could recognize my voice from across an entire room, me standing in the hallway, over the music I had playing at full volume over the built-in speaker with me speaking at a normal level. That was impressive.

I hate voice technology because it's always been unreliable and shoddy, meaning I could check things faster myself rather than trying to ask a computer to check it for me. "What time is it?" - "What is the time?" "Time now" "What is the time now?" "Give me the damn time!" Ah forget it. pulls out cellphone

The only issues I've had with Alexa is trying to Wikipedia Japanese-related things. Alexa seems convinced I'm speaking Spanish - as any attempt to Wiki something in Japanese gives me a result related to Spain or Mexico.

So we're in complete agreement here. "Actually working" is the game changer. Coupled with an affordable price (the Echo Dot was like $40 on sale? Back-in-the day the same device would hardly work and be worth $200~ and had an Xmas sale of maybe $160~)

tomcam
Skepticism understandable. For me, the always on + super good microphones + hands free (super useful when cooking) won me over surprisingly fast.
ThomPete
I am on Google Home.

Its solving lots of problems.

Asking for weather is a real timesaver for our family as my wife is always asking what it is before the kids get to school. I used to find my phone and then open it up, find the app. Now we just ask.

Timer for when I am cooking much better than fiddling with timers it keeps track of it all for you too.

Playing music on spotify

Playing radio.

All these things can be done with a phone but it's surprisingly cumbersome compared to voice once you try it out.

We literally never use the phone for these anymore.

Besides that things like asking for how long walking somewhere takes, or when my flight is or even having fun like making a trivia. My kids love it, my wife thought it was stupid she now uses it all the time.

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tedmiston
Any chance of running multiple timers?
danso
Yes, you can. I'm not sure what the max is, but this morning I added 3. And there's a difference between alarms and timers, e.g.

Timer: "Set a timer for 42 minutes"

Alarm: "Set an alarm for 6:30 AM"

Though the NLP is smart enough to recognize the following as an alarm: "Set a timer until 6:30AM"

antoniomika
I made a smart home skill for my dorm room. I didn't have any wifi enabled lights, but I created a little IR adapter for some RGB LEDs around the room, and the TV. Ultimately, I was able to ask for the lights in different settings, control the TV (including setting the channel and changing inputs). I eventually want to make it able to control some simple aspects of the Chromecast like the Google home can.
jc4p
Love this! I made a similar IR controlled "API" to toggle my in-window air conditioner on/off last summer.

Btw, I don't think the Google Home can actually control Chromecast. They advertise it but each time I've tried stuff like "Okay Google, mute my TV" or "Okay Google, turn off Chromecast" it's said something along the lines of "Sorry, I can't do that yet, but I'm getting better every day". I switched off the Google Home after 2 weeks back for the Echo, so maybe it's gotten better.

timothya
The Google Home definitely supports Chromecast now [0].

My favorite related thing to say is "Hey Google, play House of Cards on my TV", and it will turn on my TV and then start playing the next episode from Netflix. Perfect for when I'm walking over to the TV with my dinner.

[0]: https://blog.google/products/home/google-home-holidays/

jc4p
Thanks for the info! Perhaps in the new year I should consider taking my Google Home back out of its box and giving it another shot. I really wanted to like it, I am an Android dev and feel comfortable in the Google ecosystem.

Out of curiosity, do you know if the the flow I describe works now? The link (and your comment) discuss putting content on the TV. The link says you can do:

> even control your media with commands like “Pause this episode”, without lifting a finger.

but that didn't work for me 3 weeks ago, does it work now?

antoniomika
It definitely works! I haven't tried muting explicitly, but I've been able to control play/pause and volume well. This past weekend I tested out the development of actions on Google and the development of skills is more or less similar. The documentation still needs some work but overall the experience was fairly straightforward.
dgacmu
Confirming - I'm using it that way right now. Sometimes if you're doing something funky you have to explicitly specify the name of the chromecast. ("Pause the kitchen speakers"). But for the most part, it just works.
jaxn
Simalrly, I haven't been able to get my Echo to talk to my FireTv Stick
ReverseCold
I'm emulating Belkin WeMo instead for my lights with a raspberry pi. No Amazon dev account required and it has native support.

https://github.com/n8henrie/fauxmo

(Not my project.)

The one thing I've learned about smart home is if you come up with a cool idea of how to do it DIY, someone's done it similarly and better. Wrote my own code for everything and ended up ditching it all for HomeAssistant.

antoniomika
I wish I would've known about that before I started... I went into it with the idea of creating a web interface to control everything, and adding in the voice control was easy because I was already using Google auth for the web interface. If I end up adding support for more things (buying some cheap RF controlled switches and creating a module for that), I might go the route to port everything over.
nr152522
I'm doing exactly the same thing. I also use t to turn on control my Xbox and TV. Just turning them on and off for now. It's great :)
jc4p
Splitting this up comment into my common use cases.

IoT:

All my lights are Phillips Hue. Outside of the Echo I have HomeKit set up to take care of automatically turning the lights off when I leave my apartment's geofencing zone. When I arrive home from work, I really enjoy opening my door and saying "Alexa, all lights on" followed with ripping my headphones out of my phone and saying "Alexa, Play Spotify" to have her transfer the Spotify session over (more on this in the next section).

It sounds really silly when I look at it now, but honestly when I'm traveling and I stay at a hotel or something, I definitely miss not having to think about turning all the lights off. It's an extra task that's very lightweight, but it feels good to not have to think about. Before I had the HomeKit compatible Phillips Hue bridge I said "Alexa, all lights off" when leaving my apartment every day. That too is a lot easier to do than recognizing that one of my lights is on and needing to go to the room to turn the switch manually.

Music:

I have a real sound system in my apartment but it's so much easier to just have the Echo play music, and it sounds pretty good.

If you use Spotify, you can use the Spotify app to directly stream to your Echo. You can also just be listening to an album or playlist on your phone or Spotify on your computer, say "Alexa play Spotify", and it'll pick up on the same part of the same song with the same queued up next songs. The Amazon Echo competitors I've tried don't do this, they start a new Spotify session and play whatever they feel like (e.g. Google Home defaults to the first playlist in your playlists list.)

Cooking:

I rely on the Echo while cooking a lot. Everything from "Alexa set a timer for 20 minutes" while roasting some potatoes to having it do the calculations for reducing the recipe's ingredients by 1/3 since I'm cooking for one and it's a recipe for three. I like cooking with the Echo a lot more than with the competitors because on the Echo you have a giant blue ring that shows you if it heard you or not. I burnt my sweet potatoes the first time I tried cooking with the Google Home because it has a "face" that faces a specific direction and my oven is outside of that field of view, so I didn't know that it didn't hear my "Okay Google" and set no timer.

API wise:

The "Skills" themselves are really easy to make, but I wish the communication for using your custom skills wasn't so clunky. The only thing that I've actually made with their real API is a simple interface for Halo achievements.

My xbox is in my living room near my Alexa and my friends and I routinely would see an achievement pop up like "Top Gun" and want to know what it meant, but since we're in the middle of the game we can't check now and we'd forget after the game.

In less than 30 minutes I was able to write some JavaScript in the Chrome console to scrape the list of achievement name and descriptions for the Halo 5 website, then make a Skill out of those. Since the list of medals is pretty static, this is a set-once and forget operation.

Now when I'm playing on my Xbox, if an interesting achievement pops up I can say "Hey Alexa, Ask Halo what's Killtacular?" and it responds with the description. The "Alexa, Ask Halo" is the clunkiness I mean. I wish I could just say "In Halo, whats Killtacular?"

For what it's worth, the Skills editor has a really decent flow. Here's what the Skill I'm describing looks like in the interface: http://i.imgur.com/8VPbt0v.png

damon_c
How much does Jupiter weigh? How tall is Kareem Abdul Jabaar? How far is it to Los Angeles? Set a timer for 15 minutes. Set another timer for 8 minutes. Play my discover weekly playlist on Spotify.
timfrietas
Right now Echo/Alexa is still surprisingly bad at NLP(1), so its strength seems to be in simple integrations with platforms that have done the heavy lifting.

I can't, for example, have Echo give me travel times to work by subway or even schedule anything beyond a simple timer.

However, I have converted entirely to Phillips Hue bulbs, a Kasa wifi plug and a Beme eRod curtain rod, with a Logitech Harmony Hub as a bridge for IR devices (like the eRod). With this I can do things like tell Alexa to open and close my curtains (well, "Alexa turn curtains on" since it is bad at NLP so it can't understand "Alexa, open the curtains"). I also have it turning on my Christmas tree lights at sunset and off at 1 am (thanks to the Kasa plug). It's nice to have it turn some lights in my house off and others to 50% with a couple quick verbal commands.

If I had cable and cared I could use the Logitech Harmony to tell Alexa to turn on ESPN, but I've been cordless for a long time.

I still really wish some things were first order operations: it is absurd I can't schedule the Phillips lights to turn on and off at a given time, every day, for example.

I'm still pretty new to everything given I held out for the Echo Dot so I could have something with a 3.5mm out to stream Spotify via my receiver, so I've only had a couple months to dive in. I can see it doing more for me, like watering my plants by hooking up another Kasa plug to a reservoir of water and a fish tank pump.

For now it is better than anything else I've tried (haven't seen/tried Google Home yet), but it is still bad enough at just recognizing my actual voice commands I am hestitant to build more on it until the platform has matured.

(1) When I left Amazon they seemed one of the stronger technical teams and I expected then to have been much farther by now.

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wagecuck
Allowing corporations and governments to spy on you.
ripken
So you use a flip phone then?
gmiller123456
This argument is only valid in a theoretical environment. In reality, the microphone on a phone is not as sensitive as those used for Alexa/Google Home. Additionally, if your phone really did record and transmit everything you said the battery life would be horrible. A giant microphone plugged in to the wall and connected to wifi actually makes it very practical for mass surveillance.
Tmp_login
Thought Police. Doubleplus ungood investigation of thought crimes.
wcummings
Playing music. It's still kinda shit for that because search / discovery is so awkward but it's the only thing I use it for.
RickS
I was very surprised by this, but had the same experience. The sound is great for what a small device it is, and the stop/play/volume works great, but it can't find songs to save its life.

It struggles with words that are very custom (like the group "rae sremmurd") or that are less common alternates ("clique" is interpreted as "click" and skews the perceived best match)

It also struggles with abstract instructions like "play the first song from this album". It doesn't seem to have the context of "this album" and just starts playing something at random.

tedmiston
To be fair, the way Rae Sremmurd pronounces Rae Sremmurd isn't even phonetic. It'd be content if it could get something like The Weeknd.
[dead] gtonic
Best use: not using it at all.
teddyc
set a timer

ask weather

ask for hours of a local business

play music from Amazon Prime library (asking by album name or playlist name usually works)

playing audible audio books (my son can control this without any other device which is cool)

telling knock knock jokes and other kids entertainment

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fake-name
Teach yourself hardware reversing by figuring out how to get shell on the echo, and (ideally), replace the linux install with your own.

You'll learn a huge amount, and you get the bonus of actively helping subvert amazon'd horribly creepy surveillance infrastructure.

TYPE_FASTER
I hooked it up to my Logitech Harmony remote, so we can tell Alexa to "turn on the TV" and it turns on the TV and amp. When Sonos integration is completed, 2017 is the plan I think, we'll use it for that.
joshuak
Checking my credit card account. Reading my audio books. Playing music. Listing to Radio. Setting reminders. Calculating things, while doing them.

Telling a bad joke, and then saying "Alexa, start my applause."

bem94
Surveillance capitalism.
waynenilsen
Say hello to smartphones, this is already pervasive. "Ok Google"
tedmiston
Does Google still listen if it's face down? (Siri doesn't, at least by default)
netsharc
I wondered the other day if the Echo could track people who pirate their Prime shows (e.g. The Grand Tour, which became the most pirated show ever). The show begins with a "Amazon originals" banner with a particular chime. So all the Echo needs to do is listen to that chime, and listen for another few seconds to determine which show it is. Since it's connected to your account, it can see if you have Prime and if you just started watching the show. If it's not the case, it can flag you as presumably pirating the show. Even if they don't do anything evil with it, they can also do metrics of "favorite shows among pirates".
bem94
Yeah that sounds like a dangerously feasible (technically speaking) thing to do. It certainly falls under my category of evil too. Using someones device for ends or as means to something the customer was not explicitly aware of when buying it has always occupied the morally (and often legally) low ground.
YCode
What does Alexa report home? I can't seem to find anything detailing what all is sent.
konspence
This wouldn't be reliable, it's very plausible it's somebody else's account being used.
CptJamesCook
"What time is it" -- being able to find out what time it is without looking at my phone makes it a little easier to go back to sleep. My voice is so mumbly when I am 90% asleep that I usually have to repeat this 2-3 times, though!

"Play NPR News"

"Set an alarm for x time"

RodericDay
my cellphone does these
err4nt
So does mine! Have you ever met anybody else with a phone that can do these things? Maybe we should start a club where we can share tips and tricks!
[dead] RodericDay
I wonder if dang will come and harass you over rude behavior like dang often does in my posts!
CptJamesCook
When I am laying in bed and call to Siri, these things don't work.
CptJamesCook
I just said "play NPR news" to Siri, and it loaded their proprietary news app.
untog
This is one of the reasons I'm hesitant about anything voice-based: you can't help inflicting it on other people.

If I ask what time it is in the middle of the night on a regular basis then my wife is going to get annoyed at me pretty fast.

tedmiston
I use dictation for text messages all the time when I'm by myself. I wish there were a way to use that in a controlled way around other people. Something like directional audio.
CptJamesCook
Good point. Alexa is more of a tool for a single person. I won't use this functionality if someone is sleeping anywhere in my house, because you have to speak pretty loudly to get Alexa to work.
amalag
Projection clock for the ceiling is the best.
Kaibeezy
best minimally light-intrusive time checking: wristwatch with tritium markers

best maker: Ball

see also: Marathon, Luminox, Traser

inthewoods
Linked it to common calendar that my wife and I use for ourselves and the kids - wonderful for when you get that notice about a doctor's appointment and don't want to pick up your phone.

Also use it for capturing a shopping list while walking around the kitchen.

lkrubner
The best use of an Amazon Echo is to connect it to your company's Salesforce account and allow high level executives to ask questions such as "Who was the best salesperson last month?" or "How many deals do we have in the pipeline with a 90% chance or better of closing?"

Or so I thought.

Me and a friend started a startup a year ago to do this, but we found the Amazon eco-system difficult to work with.

I wrote about this a lot a year ago:

http://www.smashcompany.com/business/i-believe-in-enterprise...

http://www.smashcompany.com/technology/how-to-enable-the-sal...

But I eventually became a sceptic, for all the reasons I wrote about previously. You can see a recent comment of mine here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=13214911&goto=threads%...

I now believe that voice interfaces for sales database could be useful, but the Android phone might be the better platform to target, and IBM Watson is likely to be the best service to use in the background.

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johnwheeler
the guy who responded to you on the alexa forums sounds like a troll.

it'd be interesting to hear about specific problems you had with the skill store. also, did you ever even try to submit an enterprise skill for a client? did you run into the Wifi problems in practice?

ww520
"Schedule and set up a webex meeting with Jack, Jane, Janet, and Joe."
allard
Every few months I ask it the mass of a proton.
YCode
That's hilarious, especially when she said it again in kilograms.
untog
I own a Google Home and I struggle to answer this question. It can do lots of simple stuff sort of well. Activating light switches by voice feels hopelessly inefficient to me when you compare it to just using a light switch - especially when you factor in the cost of the hardware involved. Playing music is also fine if you know exactly what you want, but browsing is pretty terrible. Video is kind of cool ("play show X from Netflix on my TV!") but controls like pausing, rewind etc are also very difficult without reaching for the remote you could have used in the first place.

When it's useful it's great. But it feels like a tool trying to find a purpose still.

tedmiston
Not sure about the Google Home but I really wish Siri could handle a query like "set my office lights to blue 25%" or "dim my office and bedroom". I end up having to issue several separate commands in a row to get (close to) the result I'd hoped for with the Hue bulbs.
bradbatt
Activating light switches by voice feels hopelessly inefficient to me when you compare it to just using a light switch

Once you have several lights installed it's not inefficient at all. I can say "Alexa, turn on the downstairs lights" and 3 lamps, 2 different lights, and my over and under cabinet lighting all come on at the same time. From the living room I can say "Alexa, turn off the kitchen lights" and all the lights in the kitchen turn off, leaving the 3 lamps on.

It's super convenient. Especially when compared to walking around and flipping on 3 lamps and several light switches.

Eridrus
Why is pausing difficult?
untog
Because I'm then talking over a video I'm supposed to be watching. Volume is a better example - I'm talking over the video and it isn't even about to stop. Worse, I'm likely making the request because I'm struggling to hear, and issuing the voice command only makes it worse.
ausjke
just a timer and alarm clock, that's about it.
RossM
My morning routine consists of asking Alexa:

> Stop

To cancel the alarm

> Ask National Rail to get my commute

The clunkiest of commands - the built-in "get my commute" skill only works for road commutes. My journey involves an overground and an underground train. The National Rail skill is good, but has this weird (I think, platform dictated) trap where you have to tell it "No [I don't want any more info]".

> Do I need an umbrella? / Is it going to rain today?

My experience with the weather skills is hit/miss - I'll get a weather report but not an estimate answer to "do I need an umbrella" (probably/unlikely would be fine).

> What time is it?

I don't have a visible clock at the moment, so I ask this repeatedly to keep track of time.

--

Overall, the conversational interface feels a bit clunky, and I'll be building a smart mirror in 2017 because I feel it's a better way to communicate status-y information. That said, having to ask for info has been a great way of discovering what information I really want in the morning.