{"id":25872,"date":"2015-02-20T12:46:54","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T12:46:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/?p=25872"},"modified":"2017-03-01T09:04:55","modified_gmt":"2017-03-01T09:04:55","slug":"video-review-amazon-echo-your-smart-home-assistant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/hardware\/video-review-amazon-echo-your-smart-home-assistant.html","title":{"rendered":"Video Review: Amazon Echo Your Smart Home Assistant?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The new Echo is a 9 inch high tube shaped Bluetooth and Wi-Fi speaker coupled to Amazon&#8217;s Alexa voice assistant, their version of Apple&#8217;s Siri or Google Now.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Amazon Echo is designed around your voice. It&#8217;s always on\u2014just ask for information, music, news, weather, and more. Echo begins working as soon as it detects the wake word. You can pick Alexa or Amazon as your wake word. Echo is also an expertly tuned speaker that can fill any room with immersive sound.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There&#8217;s also a free companion app available on Fire OS, Android, iOS, and desktop browsers, so you\u00a0can manage your alarms, music, shopping lists etc.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-25884 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/automatedhome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/amazon-echo-diag.png?resize=550%2C400&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Amazon Echo Examples\" width=\"550\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/automatedhome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/amazon-echo-diag.png?w=550&amp;ssl=1 550w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/automatedhome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/amazon-echo-diag.png?resize=300%2C218&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The guys from TWiT&#8217;s &#8216;Before You Buy&#8217; show have reviewed the Echo (spoiler: they love it). It&#8217;s well worth a watch as they put the speaker through its paces and give you an idea of what it can do.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  id=\"_ytid_16348\"  width=\"480\" height=\"270\"  data-origwidth=\"480\" data-origheight=\"270\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/R8OByF7ZaDk?enablejsapi=1&#038;autoplay=0&#038;cc_load_policy=0&#038;cc_lang_pref=&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;loop=0&#038;modestbranding=0&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;playsinline=0&#038;autohide=2&#038;theme=dark&#038;color=red&#038;controls=1&#038;\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  epyt-is-override  no-lazyload\" title=\"YouTube player\"  allow=\"fullscreen; accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>As ever our first thoughts turn to integration. Could this be adapted for smart home control use?\u00a0Would you buy an Echo or is your smartphone enough in this role? Let us know what you think in the comments below.<\/p>\n<p>The Echo is currently available by invitation only in the US at $199 (plus a limited time $99 offer for Amazon Prime members).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/oc\/echo\/ref_=ods_dp_ae\" target=\"_blank\">www.amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Want More?<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/ottomate\">Follow us<\/a>\u00a0on Twitter,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AutomatedHomeUK\" target=\"_blank\">Like us<\/a>\u00a0on Facebook, or subscribe to our\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds2.feedburner.com\/automatedhome\">RSS feed<\/a>. You can even get these news stories\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=AutomatedHome&amp;loc=en_US\">delivered via email<\/a>, straight to your inbox every day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The new Echo is a 9 inch high tube shaped Bluetooth and Wi-Fi speaker coupled to Amazon&#8217;s Alexa voice assistant, their version of Apple&#8217;s Siri&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2017-03-01T09:04:58Z","apple_news_api_id":"a5d9cb8c-c7da-4ea5-a4e7-354391b189b2","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2017-03-01T09:04:58Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ApdnLjMfaTqWk5zVDkbGJsg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hardware","category-new-products"],"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/automatedhome.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/amazon-echo.jpg?fit=209%2C570&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25872"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25872"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34823,"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25872\/revisions\/34823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automatedhome.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}