You have to download the skills, some you can ask Alexa directly to enable them but others you have to use the Amazon Alexa app on the iPhone since things like Netatmo weather station, Lyric WiFi thermostat and so on require you to put in your login name/email address and password. I find a lot of the more trivial skills fairly useless because you have to remember the correct phrase to talk to it so that can get a bit tideous.
-----Original Message----- From: 'RobH.' via VIPhone <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 12:47 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Echo? Are Skills on it from the start, or downloaded, or whatever; I really hadn't followed the plot on these until Bro' was on about his latest gismo for an hour on the phone. Got cramp, then got bored listening to him! But fascinated really. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mama Peach" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 10:15 PM Subject: Re: Echo? There are tons and tons of skills as mentioned, and many of them are really fun dice, card and adventure games. You can do so much with the Echo devices. I have an Echo Spot and I have a fire tablet that also has Alexa on it. -----Original Message----- From: Sieghard Weitzel Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 12:41 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: Echo? I assume this refers to the Amazon Echo smart speaker which works with Amazon's digital assistant Alexa. Google has their line of google Home speakers which of course use the Google Assistant, in that respect Google is pretty boring, Apple has SIRI, Amazon has Alexa and Google has the "Google Assistant", very impersonal. Anyhow, just as with the Google Home speaker line-up, there are a number of Echo speakers available. The most popular ones I think are probably the Echo Dot and the regular Echo. Both are round cylinders, about 3.3 inches in diameter and the Dot is only about 1.5 inches tall, a regular Echo is probably about 6 or 8 inches tall. The Dot also has a 3.5mm output jack which allows you to hook up larger speakers for better audio or you can connect it to a receiver or Sonos player. You use the word "Alexa" to get it to listen and then ask your question, it can set alarms, timers and do conversions as well as answer a bunch of questions about countries, people etc. You can also enable so-called "Skills", basically think of them as apps. We have the Philipps Hue light bulbs at home as well as a Netatmo weather station and Honeywell Lyric WiFi thermostat. I can ask Alexa to turn on the lights, ask the temperature or humidity of the Netatmo outside or inside modules or tell it to set the temperature to 21 degrees or whatever. Alexa can also tell all sorts of jokes like Knock Knock jokes, dinosaur jokes etc., she can sing songs, tell stories or poems, and as for timers the nice thing is that you can set multiple timers which I still can't believe SIRI can't do after being around for what, 6 and a half years? In the US/Canada and Mexico you can also make free phone calls via the Echo to any landline or cellular phone although I must say the quality is often disappointing. Also, if you have multiple Echos throughout the house of even one in a different location but on the same Amazon account you can use them like a hands free Intercom, when I'm in the bedroom and want to talk to my wife in the living room I can simply say "Alexa, drop in to the Living Room" and after a couple of seconds my wife hears a few beeps and then there is an open two-way line where you can just talk. Regards, SieghardI can simply say -----Original Message----- From: 'RobH.' via VIPhone <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2018 11:24 AM To: viphone <[email protected]> Subject: Echo? hi, often saw threads or comments about "Echo", can't remember what this is or does or whatever. An app to do something with something else; all so vague. Enlightenment please, hearing a lot more lately as popular without any of them saying Why! Thanks, BobH. -- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. 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