I landed my Amazon Echo a couple of weeks back. Not an item which was in my automation landscape. I had couple of other items which were to take its place. But then Alexa started talking to my smartthings and what not!
So long story short, I got my Alexa. And What I loved about it is the way it could understand me and do things quickly. Being hands free, its a very useful assistant!
I could load 250 songs from my collection and Alexa could play any of them without much issue. She understands Mohammed Rafi and Yesudas! I can get a lot of songs from iHeartRadio. And who knows I might even buy the Music subscription and load up all my songs there. Time consuming it is, I might still do it.
I could also listen to Regional news from Manorama online thanks to the skills she has.
My main challenge had been that I cannot set the Location or time zone to India. So I cannot easily set an alarm to wake me up (What?) and I cannot listen to local weather unless I be more specific. I cannot add an activity to my calendar unless I do some math and adjust the time either. I am not sure why these skills cannot be enabled world wide by Alexa team because they must be pretty easy to do. This will help US Customers also to travel with their Alexa! Even if we have uber here in India I am OK not to ask for that until Alexa is available world wide!
I have already packed and kept My smart things until I move into the new house so the Smart things integration is yet to be checked. But I am sure it will work like a charm!
I am eagerly looking for Smappee skills to come up on Alexa! It would be fun to ask Alexa what today's power consumption is or who was the largest consumer of power today etc.
So long story short, I got my Alexa. And What I loved about it is the way it could understand me and do things quickly. Being hands free, its a very useful assistant!
I could load 250 songs from my collection and Alexa could play any of them without much issue. She understands Mohammed Rafi and Yesudas! I can get a lot of songs from iHeartRadio. And who knows I might even buy the Music subscription and load up all my songs there. Time consuming it is, I might still do it.
I could also listen to Regional news from Manorama online thanks to the skills she has.
My main challenge had been that I cannot set the Location or time zone to India. So I cannot easily set an alarm to wake me up (What?) and I cannot listen to local weather unless I be more specific. I cannot add an activity to my calendar unless I do some math and adjust the time either. I am not sure why these skills cannot be enabled world wide by Alexa team because they must be pretty easy to do. This will help US Customers also to travel with their Alexa! Even if we have uber here in India I am OK not to ask for that until Alexa is available world wide!
I have already packed and kept My smart things until I move into the new house so the Smart things integration is yet to be checked. But I am sure it will work like a charm!
I am eagerly looking for Smappee skills to come up on Alexa! It would be fun to ask Alexa what today's power consumption is or who was the largest consumer of power today etc.
