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IS THERE AN ECHO IN HERE?? WHAT IT’S LIKE LIVING WITH AN (ALEXA) AMAZON ECHO

Hey Alexa play some party music!

Here’s a station for party music from Amazon Music, best of party Music.

Hey Alexa who is Kayla Short ?

“Kayla Short is an award winning Canadian blogger, columnist and TV personality.

Hey Alexa what’s the weather like outside today?

It’s 21 degrees Celsius with partly sunny skies, with more of the same for this afternoon with a low of 13 degrees.

Ever wonder what it’s like living with an Alexa Echo Plus?? Recently I decided to put it to the test.

We have the Echo Plus,

the Echo Plus connects to Alexa—a cloud-based voice service—to play music, make calls, set timers and alarms, ask questions, check traffic and weather, and more—instantly. With the built-in hub you can directly set up and control your smart home devices.

WHAT DOES THE ECHO PLUS DO?

Echo Plus is a simple way to start your smart home. Alexa can control your compatible smart lights, thermostats, locks, and more. With the built-in ZigBee hub, you can directly set up devices from Philips Hue, GE, and others without the need for a separate hub. Just ask Alexa to discover your connected devices.

  • You can ask Alexa for a song, artist, or genre from Prime Music, Spotify, Radioplayer, and more. With multi-room music, you can play music on compatible Echo devices in different rooms.
  • Call or message almost anyone hands-free with your Echo device. Also, instantly connect to other Echo devices in your home using just your voice.
  • Improved speakers with Dolby processing deliver crisp vocals and extended bass to fill the room with immersive, 360° audio.
  • With seven microphones, beamforming technology, and noise cancellation, Echo hears you from any direction—even while music is playing.
  • Alexa is always getting smarter and adding new features and skills. Just ask Alexa to control your TV, check a flight status, and more.
  • Alexa Voice Service is currently only available in English (French language not supported).

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT MY ECHO PLUS + DOT


She’s super helpful! I love asking Alexa questions with voice commands not only because she’s quicker, but also because it saves me from looking at a screen (which I do all day as it is)! I even ask her for jokes when I’m feeling stressed while working and I need a break lol she’s pretty funny.

Alexa is also super compatible with other Bluetooth home devices, like for instance the Phillips Smart Light Bulbs, so you can save money by simply purchasing the bulbs and syncing them to your current Alexa! Also saving you from cluttering up your house with a thousand various bluetooth docs.

We also have the Echo Dot, so you can voice command from one room and play music in another, so say for instance you’re having a party, and your Alexa is in the kitchen, but your dot is in another room you can change the music if you want to, reduce or increase volume etc. I find it very convenient, and makes hosting so much easier! She’s also a fun party guest lol! We love asking her questions.

Here’s a fun list of Alexa commands you probably don’t know you can ask Alexa: www.komando.com

I’m really looking forward to adding more connected devices to our home, and utlizing Alexa even more 🙂 She’s so helpful we love having her.

Q&A


I asked you guys about what you wanted to know about Alexa and this is what you had to say.

“How easy was it to sync your amazon account/music etc”.

It’s super easy to set up with your amazon account bc it’s an amazong product. We use it to stream music from Amazon, pandora etc and there is much music and so many playlists she basically can play anything.

“Is it creepy?”

This is something I get asked a lot, and while some people are still weary about having connected devices in their homes I would make the argument that it’s no different than our cell phones, computers or tablets. All of those devices have microphones built-in, and have the ability to listen and record our conversations, so as long as you don’t have it disable (i.e if you’re using speaker phone, instagram or recording videos) it’s really no different. Let’s also not forget people take their cell phones into the bathroom these days, sooooo there’s that. After chatting with some folks who work in the industry the way I understand it, is that Alexa listens to what’s happening around her when you give her commands, so she will record things you say around her name, but she’s not recording it verbatim in the way you think.

Fun fact: you can also listen to all your records in Alexa, and also delete them 🙂 so if it gives you peace of mind (not sure what you’re up to) you do have the ability to do that. You can learn more about that here.

“Does she whisper sweet nothings into your ear”.

LOL this is my favorite question, one of my favorite things is that you can voice command her volume, so if you want her to speak softer she will!

“Do you use it often? Or is it a novelty ?”

I use Alexa everyday! I love asking her random questions, and because I work from home I always get her to play music for me. Sometimes I ask her to tell me a joke when I’m feeling stressed about work.

“Does yours know your location? Mine gets confused”.

Lol ours did too, but once set your location using the app then she’s good to go.

Overall we are super happy with our Amazon Echo, and we’re finding new ways to use Alexa’s skills everyday!  Do you have an Amazon Echo? What’s your favorite thing to ask Alexa?? If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to drop a line below, or hit me up on social media @shortpresents.

Also don’t forget that for today and tomorrow (July 16th Amazon Prime Day) you can save on your Amazon purchases (save $40 on Echo Spot, $65 on Echo Plus, and $35 on Echo Dot)! For more info regarding Prime Day and all the incredible deals available visit www.amazon.ca/primeday.

 

Hope you found today’s post helpful.

xx

Kayla

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These devices were gifted c/o Amazon; however all opinions expressed are my own.

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