Amazon Echo - Best new tech gadget?

[ChrisCicc]

Very tempting. I noticed however that there is no time frame for Wink and GE Link integration. I need to read the page again since it was confusing if the device includes voice commands or if that is through Kinect on an Xbox.

Hello! We noticed you guys chatting about us so I thought I'd make an account and reply here directly! Wink and GE are top priorities. It will be out very soon. I'm not exaggerating, here is my desk as I type this message:

CastleOS (and the CastleHUB powered by CastleOS) supports voice commands through the Kinect plugged into the CastleHUB or the computer running CastleOS via USB. This summer, we're launching an Xbox app - so it will work both with the Xbox and with CastleOS/CastleHUB. In addition, Android and Android Wear voice control will be out this spring/early summer as well. There's always the non-voice app that works on all mobile devices too.

Our voice command is very simple, you just speak out loud! No attention or "start listening" phrase is needed. Just say "computer lights on" or "house dim the lights to 50%" or any number of other commands. You can change the voice to anything you'd like, and it accepts all English accents.

The Discovery Channel did a segment on our smart home voice control in action:

[video]youtube.com/watch?v=_NzVyJHk5qw[/video]

Finally, we're working with Amazon towards integrating the Echo as well. I'm not sure when it will be, but it's in the works!

Thanks!

-Chris Cicchitelli
CastleOS Founder & CEO

 

[andrewket]

Well, now you've done it. Waved a new hot gadget in front of a gaggle of tech lovers, including me.

Same here. Sadly it looks like the campaign has already ended. Onto the mailing list I go...

 

[tga]

I got my Echo over a month ago. It's still sitting in the (sealed) shipping box, while I try to decide if I want to flip it on ebay or plug it in (returning it is no longer an option).

It's a cool gadget, but the always on microphone tied back to the Amazon mothership kind of creeps me out.

 

[siucity]

I got one a few months ago, and it's nice to play music by telling it to play music. The sound quality is just OK to me, but I can't complain at $99.

gonna get outdated in few yrs by your smartphone + Google Voice

cool gadget, still.

Everything will be outdated in a few years, but I'm not sure what you mean by smartphone and Google Voice? They're not necessarily in the same category as an Echo.

 

[AnOutsider]

Everything will be outdated in a few years, but I'm not sure what you mean by smartphone and Google Voice? They're not necessarily in the same category as an Echo.

Yeah, Google Voice is their calling/SMS product...

 

[strider]

Yeah, tga hinted at it but I am curious how many people are ok with a for-profit corporation having a microphone in your house that is always active and recording every sound in your house 24 hours a day? A corporation that can then sell or give that info to anyone, even the government, without your knowledge or consent? They will know literally everything about you. What if your kids talk about smoking dope one day and then CPS or the cops show up? What if you talk about your finances with your spouse and then you get a letter from the IRS? The same goes for those new Samsung TVs.

 

[NigelM]

Yeah, tga hinted at it but I am curious how many people are ok with a for-profit corporation having a microphone.....<snip>.....A corporation that can then sell or give that info to anyone, even the government, without your knowledge or consent?

You mean like Verizon or AT&T? We have the Echo in our kitchen, guess we'll have to save all the spy stuff for the bedroom.

(Seriously though, if anyone is reading this we have nothing to hide here.....sorry, the spy stuff was a joke.....)

 

[Madartist]

You mean like Verizon or AT&T? We have the Echo in our kitchen, guess we'll have to save all the spy stuff for the bedroom.

(Seriously though, if anyoneis reading this we have nothing to hide here.....sorry, the spy stuff was a joke.....)

I knew it! You work for MI6, right? :wink:

 

[markb1]

Yeah, tga hinted at it but I am curious how many people are ok with a for-profit corporation having a microphone in your house that is always active and recording every sound in your house 24 hours a day? A corporation that can then sell or give that info to anyone, even the government, without your knowledge or consent? They will know literally everything about you. What if your kids talk about smoking dope one day and then CPS or the cops show up? What if you talk about your finances with your spouse and then you get a letter from the IRS? The same goes for those new Samsung TVs.

Well, you have to trust them when they say the they are NOT recording everything. Only after you say the keyword ("alexa") does it start sending recorded sound to Amazon. It's always listening, but it's discarding everything locally until it hears the keyword.

But, yeah, if don't take Amazon at its word, you shouldn't buy this product.

 

[JohnSnowNW]

Yeah, tga hinted at it but I am curious how many people are ok with a for-profit corporation having a microphone in your house that is always active and recording every sound in your house 24 hours a day? A corporation that can then sell or give that info to anyone, even the government, without your knowledge or consent? They will know literally everything about you. What if your kids talk about smoking dope one day and then CPS or the cops show up? What if you talk about your finances with your spouse and then you get a letter from the IRS? The same goes for those new Samsung TVs.

Convenience has its price. Personally, I have no qualms with the way these systems work...and I think people younger than me (20's and under) probably care even less.

The advent of the internet, and cellular communication, has pretty well removed privacy from the equation.

 

[markwj]

P.S. I'd really like to be able to personal the name though. "Hal" seems the obvious choice.....

Oh, I think it would be 'Samantha' for me :wink:

 

[ChrisCicc]

Yeah, tga hinted at it but I am curious how many people are ok with a for-profit corporation having a microphone in your house that is always active and recording every sound in your house 24 hours a day? A corporation that can then sell or give that info to anyone, even the government, without your knowledge or consent? They will know literally everything about you. What if your kids talk about smoking dope one day and then CPS or the cops show up? What if you talk about your finances with your spouse and then you get a letter from the IRS? The same goes for those new Samsung TVs.

This is the million dollar question - literally, the data is worth millions of dollars. There are companies out there that are recording everything. SmartThings, Samsung, Lowe's IRIS, and yes, Amazon Echo.

I don't want to go too far into specifics, but billions of dollars are on the line and you can assume the tech is always listening.

 

[bluenation]

I got one a few months ago, and it's nice to play music by telling it to play music. The sound quality is just OK to me, but I can't complain at $99.



Everything will be outdated in a few years, but I'm not sure what you mean by smartphone and Google Voice? They're not necessarily in the same category as an Echo.

sorry, i meant OK google...or whatever the **** they call it (it's a silly name, tbf)

 

[tga]

Yeah, Google Voice is their calling/SMS product...

I think bluenation meant "Google Now"

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, tga hinted at it but I am curious how many people are ok with a for-profit corporation having a microphone in your house that is always active and recording every sound in your house 24 hours a day? A corporation that can then sell or give that info to anyone, even the government, without your knowledge or consent? They will know literally everything about you. What if your kids talk about smoking dope one day and then CPS or the cops show up? What if you talk about your finances with your spouse and then you get a letter from the IRS? The same goes for those new Samsung TVs.

I caved. I took it out of the box and looked at it. The siren song of a shiny new tech trinket was too much for me to bear. I had to plug it in and play with it. I've already found a couple of easter eggs and updated the wikipedia page.

OK, enough of that. I've reached my attention span limit. Back to 3D self portraits with my Kinect 360.

 

[strider]

You mean like Verizon or AT&T? We have the Echo in our kitchen, guess we'll have to save all the spy stuff for the bedroom.

Well people have theorized that the NSA and/or phone companies can turn on your phone's mic and/or camera (Also don't the latest Samsung phones have a feature where the camera is always on waiting for your to use gestures?) but to my knowledge it's never been proven. So to me the difference between something that is only listening when I am actively using the product vs something that is listening 24/7 is an order of magnitude.

And to dovetail into what ChrisCicc said (and this goes for the "young people" that JohnSnowNW alluded to) what I find so interesting is that people are giving away (or in this case, paying Amazon) their private information for companies to turn around and sell for huge sums of money. But people act like their data has no value and just give it away. Amazon should be paying you to have one of these gadgets in your house, not the other way around. The same can be said for Facebook, Twitter, etc.

 

[ChrisCicc]

But people act like their data has no value and just give it away. Amazon should be paying you to have one of these gadgets in your house, not the other way around. The same can be said for Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Nielsen Ratings' entire business model is based on paying users like us to collect information, which they then resell to clients like networks.

Amazon could potentially put them out of business with better data collected for free.

 

[1208]

Unlike Model S, Echo seems quite happy listening to my English accent. :-D

I knew you were Nigel Mansell :biggrin:

 

[brooklynrab]

Ok, I'm bringing this thread back to life. I use my Echo to control lights, give me stock quotes, etc.
it would be great, if, at breakfast, I could just say, "Alexa, please heat up my tesla". Maybe working with my Remote S app to do some simple voice commands like that? Anyone hear of such a thing?

 

[cgiGuy]

Ok, I'm bringing this thread back to life. I use my Echo to control lights, give me stock quotes, etc.
it would be great, if, at breakfast, I could just say, "Alexa, please heat up my tesla". Maybe working with my Remote S app to do some simple voice commands like that? Anyone hear of such a thing?

Through the default Alexa skills at this time, no. But there are ways to "fake" a Hue bridge and intercept the lighting requests. Once you've intercepted and treated it like a trigger, you can pretty much do anything you want at that point, including sending the necessary commands to turn on the car heater.

I use a program called Indigo (Mac only) that runs all of my home automation. I can create "virtual devices" (i.e., "Tesla AC", "Kitchen Lights") that can be turned on or off. When the virtual device state is changed, it can be set to launch a script.

 

[cgiGuy]

Sorry--had video set to private. Fixed.