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Alexa and the Amazon Echo... The newest technology into the hands of the average consumer is Artificial Intelligence devices. AI for short. I haven't seen the numbers this season, but retail sales are probably in the millions. Amazon is one company promoting their own line and has a few models starting with the Echo Dot that sells for $30. Also in the lineup with Dolby woofer speakers are the Echo at $80 and the Echo Plus $150. The Echo Spot has video for $130 an the top of the line Echo Show $230 does touch screen and interactive video. The 'wake word' that unlocks the system for questioning is ALEXA You start by saying "Alexa" then ask your question. A few months ago the local radio station started using one for their morning show. They were getting lots of response from this device asking all sorts of questions ranging from trivia, sports statistics and movie data. Ok, so an unexpected gift from my was the Echo Dot and a TP-Link Smart Plug. She bought the same combination for her husband and wanted me to teach them how to operate it. The Echo installation worked successfully but the Smart Plug wouldn't link properly due to 2 Wi-Fi signals in the house. I ran out of time and had to go to another party so I wasn't able to finalize the installation. The purpose of the Smart Plug is to voice command your Echo to turn on/off any thing plugged into it. That is if the device normally activates with powered up. Lights and fans are perfect for this. I'm not sure if a TV will actually turn on when you apply the power as it really depends on the TV. My first thought was to set it up to do translations to help my wife with English. She's on the computer for hours but all her sites are in Chinese... I understand her pretty well and not forcing her, but she needs to converse with other people to strengthen her speaking skills. Reading some specifications and asking Alexa for translations, the answer was English and Klingon are it's only languages. Since it's a learning device, I believe it's a matter of time before Amazon incorporates other languages into their Echo series. I did see and app called Translated that the Echo can access by requesting "Alexa open Translated" it's on my do list but I had other plans this week and Alexa wasn't in them. Surely things will progress and I'll have to do a blog update to our progress. . |
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I also found out that you can change the wake word with 3 other choices: Amazon, Echo or Computer. Not a lot of choice here. I would have thought something more obscure would be better suited or a custom word not on your everyday list.
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