Cheaper than the original (and a free hue white bulb), now comes with smart home hub built in. This has Zigbee support to control Hue and other smart home devices directly without requiring a Hue hub and other hubs.
All comments (105)
dragonstaar
27 Sep 17#1
MSK.
27 Sep 17#2
So this is basically an Echo with a Hue bridge built in?
Just watched the video, pillow forts need Hue light strips now? FML.
ant3000
27 Sep 17#3
Better off waiting for Black Friday
sammyantha123
27 Sep 17#4
Didn't even realise that my ordinary echo didn't do this
paulday564
27 Sep 17#5
Hope the sound quality's going to be better than the original!
cigbunt
27 Sep 17#6
got a echo dot i hardly use it.. i have hue i hate the way the home hub needs to be plugged in via rj45. i have been thinking about getting smart plugs i can control from phone or with automation...
if this is the centerpiece of my smart home i think it's a good idea tho i doubt i would actually use the voice control much
daskapital
27 Sep 17#7
i hate my echo dots now. i bought five of them, i could play different music on all of them in any room. ok it would occasionally say that the song I want to listen to isn't available without purchasing amazon music too... about two to three weeks ago they changed everything. They introduced groups so you can play the same song on multiple dots but now you need to purchase an amazon music subscription to play on more than one dot at the same time. So now our five dots are almost useless as we can only use one of them at a time to play music.
Apparently this was in the T&Cs from the start, but they never enforced it.... until now. So now I feel like it's a bit of a waste, they get you in then jack up the prices.
The google home is much better. I own one google home and five dots and I have to say that the google one is way better. Alexa fans will say ah but amazon has a bazillion skills and google has only a few... true... but 99% of the alexa skills i don't need / use anyway. But the big thing for me is, my kids ask it random questions. Most of the time, Alexa says "Hmmmm... I'm sorry I don't know that" but doesn't bother to look it up. If google home doesn't know.... it googles it and gives you the top answer which is much more useful than "hmm.....Im connected to Bing... but I don't use it for anything"...
powerbrick to daskapital
27 Sep 17#8
TLDR; I disagree.
FireOnAWire to powerbrick
28 Sep 17#9
Now there's a surprise.
robo989 to powerbrick
28 Sep 17#10
Well at least you backed up your view with a fully reasoned argument.
powerbrick to robo989
28 Sep 17#12
In the Twitter age he could of condensed that waffle.
starsi360 to powerbrick
28 Sep 17#14
You say it was TLDR, then disagree with it (how, if you didn’t read it?) and give no reasons why you disagree.
His ‘waffle’ was informative to me. Your comments are just a little unhelpful.
MSK. to daskapital
28 Sep 17#15
Sold my echo, it became a rather expensive kitchen timer. Agree very much.
Oneday77 to daskapital
28 Sep 17#17
While your post is pretty accurate. When will we all as consumers learn that these companies aren’t here to help us.
We are the source of their revenue. They will always try and find ways to make money from us. Yes Google offers more, though they probably are the bigger threat. I’d rather pay money for services than pay with information.
Depending on your home setup, Echo has its uses or it doesn’t. For me it helps with Hue and Music for the kids.
rwilts to daskapital
28 Sep 17#39
Is this correct, I have two devices both play music independently or as a group and I just have basic prime with the 2 million songs? all still works after the upgrade.
daskapital to rwilts
28 Sep 17#40
Then you are unbelievably lucky for some reason. All of my echo devices now say "Amazon music is streaming on another device... would you like to stream from here instead ?" Im also using basic prime. Either you are listening from two different sources (e.g. spotify and amazon) or you are just super unbelievably lucky. Care to get a lotto ticket for me ? :grin: seriously I don't know why it works for you and not anyone else.
Kyrt
28 Sep 17#11
Interesting move from Amazon, just bought a load of Hue stuff too. The limitation of Hue is of course not all light fixtures are suitable for bulbs, for some you need relays, smart sockets etc. Combining a couple of those hubs into echo itself could be very useful, and Amazon is big enough to knock their heads together to make sure they work properly. Could be pretty good for most, though I suspect it will be nowhere near the range of devices and automation achievable with the smartthings hub itself (and I see no mention of zwave, only zigbee LL and HA by the looks of it).
Just a shame I am into Google home, which is just far ahead with its knowledge graph. My young son uses it more than I do...
cigbunt to Kyrt
28 Sep 17#16
I was presuming it'd work with zwave... May need to hold fire
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Opening post
All comments (105)
Just watched the video, pillow forts need Hue light strips now? FML.
if this is the centerpiece of my smart home i think it's a good idea tho i doubt i would actually use the voice control much
Apparently this was in the T&Cs from the start, but they never enforced it.... until now. So now I feel like it's a bit of a waste, they get you in then jack up the prices.
The google home is much better. I own one google home and five dots and I have to say that the google one is way better. Alexa fans will say ah but amazon has a bazillion skills and google has only a few... true... but 99% of the alexa skills i don't need / use anyway. But the big thing for me is, my kids ask it random questions. Most of the time, Alexa says "Hmmmm... I'm sorry I don't know that" but doesn't bother to look it up. If google home doesn't know.... it googles it and gives you the top answer which is much more useful than "hmm.....Im connected to Bing... but I don't use it for anything"...
His ‘waffle’ was informative to me. Your comments are just a little unhelpful.
We are the source of their revenue. They will always try and find ways to make money from us. Yes Google offers more, though they probably are the bigger threat. I’d rather pay money for services than pay with information.
Depending on your home setup, Echo has its uses or it doesn’t. For me it helps with Hue and Music for the kids.
Just a shame I am into Google home, which is just far ahead with its knowledge graph. My young son uses it more than I do...