We have no idea why skill usage is low. It’s a really good skill. The major complaint seems to be having to use our app name to activate it but we have no control over that.
I use my Alexa's (3 of them around the house so far) many times a day, but the thing is, there are only so many things I want to speak out loud. It's exacerbated by having to go in "blind" - I'm not going to remember the incantations to get a response out of dozens of skills, so they - including the name - need to fall very close to something I'd naturally say.
Overall, I mostly rely on the smart home stuff, basic searches, music, and one extra skill for local travel.
I can't see myself opting to use skills over my phone, tablet or laptop for all that many other things. The above is enough to make me enjoy having them accessible everywhere in the house, so I'll probably augment my existing ones with a few Dot's.
It also doesn't help that there really is a lot of junk skills around. E.g. finding one that reliably provide bus times near me and that has a sufficiently good interface was a pain. There might very well be other skills out there that do a better job, but I simply don't have time to spend going through it. Good curated collections would help a lot.
Even better if I could connect Alexa to a Fire Stick and have it visually display results of a skill search to help me navigate and drill down.
It's very convenient to be wandering around and control music. It quickly becomes more frustrating if you have to go back to the laptop.
Pandora
Jeopardy (which I played often for a while, but then stopped)
Some Bed Time story skill, which is awesome and hilarious and I should know what it is so I can recommend it.
Nest, which never worked because I guess you have to use Heat/Cool mode on your thermostat which is dumb.
I think probably:
1) I installed more skills than the average user on initial setup (expected median: 0)
2) Most users open the app at a similar frequency to me.
3) The primary use of the device for most users is music.
4) Some people don't use them at all after the first week.
As far as development of skills, I know at some point they were offering "Amazon Swag (apparel)" in exchange for uploading your first Skill. Come on people, I've got mouths to feed here!
I have mine on "Heat" mode right now and it works fine. I think the problem is the name of your Nest. Mine was originally "Dining Room" (I only have one thermostat, so that was a dumb name, but recommended by Nest). I changed it to "Home" since I got the Echo, and it works fine.
I installed a couple goofy skills but rarely use them. I did set it up with a custom skill to control my Roku by voice, but I don't think I have used it since I got it working.
Most of my stuff was underutilized, i.e., Nest, Wemo, Harmony Hub. Since I got my Echos, I've accelerated my timeline to put more smart switches throughout the house.
My favorite routine with the dark winter mornings is to use a single voice command to turn on my main floor lights and tell me the temperature outside as I groggily take my dogs downstairs to go outside. The temperature announcement lets me know whether my dogs need their coats on. It was especially useful today, as it was -23C this morning.
1) Can have up to 3 individual switches in a single outlet. 2) Can work with just a single hot wire (no neutral). 3) Can be queried about it's status (on/off) back to the gateway.
There are a bunch of Chinese ones that meet 1 and 2. But I haven't found 3 so far.
I am planning to get some Z-wave light switches for my 3-ways (Zooz seems to make the switches that work the way I want).
1) Can you clarify this question - I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about. By outlet are you referring to a junction box or an electrical outlet (plug)?
2) Wemos require hot, neutral and ground. AFAIK, most smart switches at the very least want a neutral wire.
3) Wemos don't need a gateway (wifi), but they know their status.
If I could do it all over again, I probably would have skipped Wemo and went with Zwave instead.
The neutral wire requirement is really a killer for me, as I'm not going to rewire me entire house. There are some switches that only require the hot wire (they pass a very small load to the light, but not enough to lit up even very efficient leds).
As of the gateway I don't really care the interface. I'm prepared to write code myself or whatever is needed.
Are you sure you don't have a neutral wire in the junction box? In my junction boxes, the neutral wires weren't used for the old school switches but are capped in the back of the junction box.
Regarding the interface, the Wemos are not very reliable because they are wifi. I used to use X10 and they were way more robust than the Wemos. You might want to check X10 if you're going to code yourself. The hardware tends to be a lot cheaper than the newer switches.
She said, basically, "The Washington Ferry skill can probably help you answer that. Should I install it?" I replied "Yes" and she took a moment to load the skill and then also automatically answer my original question.
A minor sidenote: Picking a good appname is vastly more important for Alexa than it is for typical mobile apps. It needs to be something people are not ashamed to say out loud.