For just over a week, Amazon's home assistants have also been on sale in Italy: “things” that can be given voice orders of different types to get answers or – if coupled with other devices – make them do things like turn off the light. Many call them Alexa, which is technically the password to activate them, even if the name of the devices is Echo. There are four models that have different prices – the cheapest, Echo Dot, costs 60 euros now that the launch promotion is over, the more expensive Echo Plus costs 150 – and different technical features. The Post's editorial team tested an Echo Dot to find out what it can do for now and what it can't and understand who it can be used for.
Echo Dot, the bases
It has a rounded cylindrical shape; it is 4 centimeters high and has a diameter of about 10. It comes in three colors: anthracite (ie dark gray), mélange gray (a little less dark) and light gray. In the box in which it is received there is also the transformer to connect it to the current: it does not have an internal battery, it only works if connected to a socket. The sounds emitted by its loudspeaker come out from all over the lateral surface; there are also inputs for the transformer and to connect it to another speaker with a 3.5mm stereo cable. Let's say right away that according to an editor who has a Google Home Mini, the cheapest of Google's home assistants, the Echo Dot has a better speaker.
On the top surface it has four keys and four microphones. Two keys are used to raise and lower the volume, one to mute the device and stop receiving commands and the fourth, the “Action” key, to configure it and give it other types of input. Finally, along the upper beveled edge there is an LED light that lights up (unless you turn it off) when the device listens to commands or responds.
Installation is very simple: you need to turn on the Echo, download the Amazon Alexa app on your smartphone (this for iOS, this for Android), access it with your Amazon profile and then proceed to configure the Echo by following a few simple steps. connects the device to the home WiFi network. Then from the app you can download the so-called Skills, basically applications for Alexa.
What you can do with the Echo Dot for now
In general, home assistants do four types of things, all responding to voice commands: they give information, they act as an alarm clock, timer, home phone and diary, play music and other things to listen to and allow you to turn lights and appliances on and off, if you have lights and appliances connected to WiFi. Echo Dot does all of these things. In addition to some basic functions (including reading aloud the ebooks you have on the Kindle app, if you have it) most of the things it can do anyway depend on the skills you download.
For example, there is that of Sky TG24 which allows you to listen to the latest news shortly (there will soon also be one of the Post that will read the titles and summaries of our homepage). There is also that of the Just Eat home delivery service, with which you can ask Alexa to replicate an order already made in the past or be informed about the status of an order in progress. Another app that can be very useful is that of Trenitalia, with which you can ask Alexa about the trains available on a certain route or where a specific train is located. For now, there aren't many useful Skills (but there are already many futile ones), but it is likely that in the next few months their number will increase and so will the things that Alexa is able to do.
Obviously, the editorial office began to test Alexa's skills by asking her those useless questions that are funny when talking to a voice assistant for the first time (do you remember how much fun you had with Siri, at the beginning?). For example, she was asked to bark and then to make the cry of the crocodile (she doesn't mention the famous Zecchino d'Oro song, she really reproduces it), that of the coyote and that of the pig. Alexa also knows some jokes. When an editor who really likes books asked her to tell one and she replied more or less
“Federigo Tozzi's mother tells a friend of hers:” My son is very good, I could trust him with my eyes closed “”
The fear spread immediately in the editorial office that Alexa knew who she was talking to and had chosen that joke to prove it. We came to the conclusion that it was a coincidence. As for the quality of Alexa's humor, however, it was not a coincidence: let's say that for now it is better that Alexa does not try the way of the stand-up comedy.
Jokes aside, the funny things you can ask Alexa (on the dedicated app the “Easter Eggs” section suggests some) can be good for entertaining friends who come to dinner once or twice, until they too will not have a voice assistant in their own home. In situations of conviviality, the only use of Alexa that the editorial team has imagined is to answer those doubts that none of the diners find an answer to. For example, at a dinner attended by some editors some time ago, the surname of the producer of the 007 films was not remembered: Alexa (like Siri on the other hand) could have answered by avoiding someone smearing the mobile phone screen with the fingers dirty with gravy. The problem in these cases is that depending on how the question is asked, Alexa is able to answer or not. For example, if you ask
“Alexa, who is the producer of the 007 films?”
he replies that he does not know the answer, while if, for example, he is asked
“Alexa, who produced the Skyfall movie?”
will be able to tell you the evocative name of Barbara Broccoli.
An editor who has a “smart” lamp from the Philips Hue system at home (this one, which changes color and if you do not have a voice assistant can be controlled with an app – we point out that it has never cost so little on Amazon) tried to connect the Echo Dot lamp. It wasn't very difficult, just download the Skill Hue. However, the system needs to be refined a bit: as other people also point out in the comments, Alexa is unable to set some lamp colors, such as red. For blue, green and yellow, on the other hand, there are no problems.
As for music, you can listen to it from Amazon Music, Amazon's streaming service, but also from Spotify by connecting Echo to your account; the radio and podcasts, on the other hand, can be heard from TuneIn, already integrated into the Alexa app. A word of caution: to be able to listen to Radio2 you have to ask for “RAI Radio2”, otherwise Alexa broadcast a radio in Spanish, the editorial staff couldn't figure out which one.
Other functions of Echo Dot are to call other people who have an Echo at home (for this it was said that Echo also acts as a home phone) and the so-called “Drop In”: it is an intercom, it is used by those who have several Echo devices and wants to communicate from room to room with family members. The editorial office of the Post is an open space, so we gave up testing it, while phoning an editor's family home we heard loud and clear.
The things that still cannot be done with Echo Dot
The editorial staff of the Post expected that with Alexa you could first of all shop on Amazon, and instead for the moment it is a function not available: if you ask her what is in your cart she replies that she is not yet able to tell. The connection to the Fire Stick, the device with which you can watch on your Amazon Prime Video TV, is also not yet available, and it is not even possible to connect to your account of Audible, Amazon's audiobook streaming service.
Still on the subject of what you hear, an editor at home has a Sonos smart speaker, which has much more powerful speakers than the Echo Dot's. The Sonos system is compatible with Alexa and if you have one you should be able to integrate them into a single “smart home” system and be able to control Sonos via Echo. For now in Italy this connection cannot be made, so the test has been postponed, but by the end of the year it should be possible to do so, according to Amazon.
Two other big shortcomings, which will probably be fixed with some upcoming updates, are the option to make Alexa distinguish different voices and the one (depending on the first one) to prevent children from using certain functions or asking for certain things that are not suitable for them.
Why buy Echo Dot
There are still a lot of things that can't be done with Echo (and as mentioned, Alexa doesn't always prove very awake), but Echo Dot, since it has a low price, can be a good starting point to familiarize yourself with a home assistant especially as the number of available Skills increases. For some, it will probably be strange for a long time to speak with an object that – sometimes – responds, but as often happens with these things it is probably a matter of habit.
Disclaimer: on some of the sites linked in the articles of the Consumerism section, the Post has an affiliation and obtains a small share of revenues, without price changes. But you can also google for the same things.
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