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Comment by twistedanimator | Hacker News Reader

I would like to know the ways in which people who already have an Echo use it. I have had one for months now and all I use it for is listening to music while I prepare dinner. Lately, the music has begun to stutter and that irritates me so much that I say "Alexa goodbye" and pull the plug out of the wall.

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I use it daily to check the weather forecast, manage my shopping and todo list, and set timers (mainly when cooking) while I'm just walking around my apartment. I also bought the Philips Hue Lux bulbs for the cool factor ("Alexa, turn off all the lights") - but the jury's still out on them. If I had to actually use their Philips Hue android app to turn the lights on and off I would flip out. Echo actually makes them usable.

Once they open up the SDK, there's lots of things I'd love to add which will make my life easier.

It was a great buy at $99. I would have even liked to buy an additional one for my bedroom. At $179 it's a tougher sell - I would have to think twice about it. I also noticed they're selling the remote control separately for an extra $30.

(Disclosure: I work on competing NLP)

I ended up putting mine in the bedroom. The only commands that I've found weekly+ uses for are:

- Turn the lights on/off

- What time is it

And that's pretty much it. Only the latter works reliably.

I would have definitely have used the home automation more, but the Amazon recommended WeMo switch that works perfectly from the WeMo app only works half the time from Echo.

It's a fun toy though. Guests always get a kick out of "Alexa, tell me a joke" and "Alexa, play some party music", and I still enjoy the occasional futuristic feeling when I e.g. listen to something interesting on NPR in my car and have Echo take over when I get home.

However, as much as I enjoy NLP and early adoption, I really struggle to find practical, non-gimmick uses for it.

I don't have a cell phone or a stereo, so the Echo is really the perfect device for me. I use it for weather, timers, news, fact look-up, math, music, etc.

I really wish it supported something like json, allowing me to get an audio of anything on the web.

Alexa is my primary alarm now. It was also common for a time to ask it what the time was or what the weather was when preparing in the morning (our bedroom is our living room).

It's my cooking timer now. Shouting out "Alexa, set a timer for 9 minutes" when putting chicken on the grill is far simpler than walking all the way to the kitchen and using a food timer.

I use mine regularly for listening to music while making dinner and we all use it to add stuff to the family grocery list.

I like it for $99, but not for double that.

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