I recently received an Amazon Echo as a gift. I figured I might as well give it a try.
Although the Echo seems well built, its functionality is extremely limited without other things. First, the good: the speaker quality is pretty nice and the microphone had not problems recognizing my voice commands right out of the box.
The basic setup was relatively easy. I did have to download the Alexa App onto my tablet, although I could have also used a smart phone. It does not seem possible to set up the Echo without having the App installed on some device first. Once configures, the App is not necessary for some uses at least.
The primary intended use of the Echo is to tie you into Amazon's ecosystem more tightly. You can order items through your Amazon account, though I did not want to do that. First, most of what I order from Amazon is still books. I could order a new book, but often there are used books also available at much cheaper prices. Amazon did not seem to want to give me access to those, probably because they were sold through Amazon by third parties. I ended up disabling the order feature as I feared it might start ordering items based on something I said.
The Echo can also stream music. It default to Amazon's music service. There are a few other services available, though not many, and you must make the configuration changes through the app to use another service. I changed mine to Pandora since I do not subscribe to Amazon. There is no way to play your iTunes or MP3 files you might already have.
Another feature is its ability to answer questions, much like Apple's Siri, or OK Google. I was very disappointed with Echo's range. It could tell me the capital of Ohio (Columbus) or the 13th President.(Millard Filmore). But when I tried a few more obscure questions, it did not know. When I asked who the commander of the Continental Army was during the American Revolution (George Washington), it could not find an answer. I reworded the question several ways to make sure it wasn't just confused about the wording. But despite my attempts, Echo remained as unable to answer the question as an 6th grader in public school. It also did not know who was president during the Civil War (Lincoln), how many people serve in the US House of Representatives (435), or whose face is on the $20 bill (Jackson). Google answered all of them correctly. Echo's knowledge of general facts seemed surprisingly limited.
I was also disappointed that it could not give me a current stock price or several other answers I thought would be easily obtainable. It also seemed unable to find any individual phone numbers, though it could find them for most businesses.
There are "skills" Echo's word for apps, that you can download and install. Many looked rather uninteresting, new sounds it could play in background or news sources to recap events for you. Echo can also be tied to a number of web enabled devices. Again, this can be handy if you get those devices and want a voice interface to control them, but it's another expense and looks like it takes considerable setup. I expect the "skills" are where Echo can really come into its own though. If you are willing to take the time to try them, configure them, and figure out which ones will let you do what you want, you may be able to customize Echo's advanced features to be a real help.
Perhaps I am too spoiled to do so much work though. I mostly want Echo to work out of the box. I don't want to spend hours plowing through lists of potentially useful skills and then seeing if they really work. I'm also still to cautious/paranoid to give all these skills from unknown third parties access to may personal accounts and financial information.
I attached Echo to my Google mail so it can read my appointments to me for any given day, though I could not set up an appointment through it. There did not appear to be any way to connect it to my email or Google Drive for access to anything there.
Echo could do a few other things like set an alarm for a certain time, or as a timer. It could also record a shopping list for me, which is stored on the Echo app. I'd really prefer to save in Google Drive, but that was not an option.
I could see the device being useful around the home if I could tie it into my TV, or my internal music system. The interface has potential. However, at this point, the limited use of the device makes it something that I likely would not use on any regular basis.
