Amazon Echo FAQ

paulbok

degsie wrote: »

Interesting but not quite sure what it has to do with echo.

You must have missed the bit where I said it might be a potential alternative to a Dot? (for me anyhow).

v10

mrcheez wrote: »

Interesting will try some of these.. although I prefer BBC news for news.

How do I avoid it going to RTE for the news?

It won't go to RTE unless you make it do so, you need to pick your flash news content from the settings.

NyOmnishambles

Stoner wrote: »

Location is Dublin.
Language is uk English.
It's set up fine.

If I ask it for RTE radio 1
It repeats
"You would like to listen to rte radio one, correct ?"
I say yes ,

It says it can't find them

TuneIn has issues certainly

My wife likes to listen to Q102 and my stated purpose for buying the echo was to have a decent multifunctional speaker thingy in the kitchen area for her to use to listen to the radio and me to use for music and various things

It couldn't pick up Q102 no matter what way it was requested
Best way I have found of getting it to work for her was to go into Tunein through the Alexa app, find and select Q102 and the Echo will play it just fine
From then on just say Alexa play tunein and it will play the last station listened too which is now always Q102

Bluetoothing Q102 from the phone works obviously but kind of defeats the purpose, plus the signal to the phone drops regularly whereas the echo is rock solid

degsie

paulbok wrote: »

You must have missed the bit where I said it might be a potential alternative to a Dot? (for me anyhow).

Ok, but to my mind the device you linked to is gesture controlled whereas echo is voice activated. I guess there is crossover in terms of automation.

Irish Wolf

v10 wrote: »

I personally find the only way it works well is to set language to US English and location to a UK (I use Northern Irish) address.

With it set this way Spotify works fine without saying 'on spotify' and almost all Irish Tune In stations work just by saying for example 'play station name' or sometimes 'play station name radio' depending on the name.

I use 'Big Sky' skill for weather which lets me set location within the skill so saying 'open big sky' gives me local weather.

And traffic also works perfect as I have 'from' set to my home address and 'to' set to my work address.

I have a mix of WeMo smart plugs, TPLink smart plugs and Philips Hue Bulbs around the place and they all work pretty good too.

I also have RTE news read to me when I ask for news, so I'm happy overall and surprised at some of the issues I read here !

This is interesting, but I've a couple of questions... how did you get "Big Sky" enabled - when I ask it to enable "Big Sky" it tells me it can't find that skill. And how did you get RTE news to show in your "Flash Briefing"?

v10

Irish Wolf wrote: »

This is interesting, but I've a couple of questions... how did you get "Big Sky" enabled - when I ask it to enable "Big Sky" it tells me it can't find that skill. And how did you get RTE news to show in your "Flash Briefing"?

For Big Sky, go to the skills sections of your alexa app (or alexa.amazon.com) and search for big sky under the weather category.

As for the RTE News, you need to create your own skill which isn't that difficult .. have a look HERE

mrcheez

v10 wrote: »

For Big Sky, go to the skills sections of your alexa app (or alexa.amazon.com) and search for big sky under the weather category.

As for the RTE News, you need to create your own skill which isn't that difficult .. have a look HERE

You could probably publish that skill

torrevieja

how do u set it up to play rte news in flash briefing ?

degsie

torrevieja wrote: »

how do u set it up to play rte news in flash briefing ?

Anseo

bk

bush wrote: »

Going to send mine back its just too limited. Ill see how google home turns out and maybe get that instead. How does it work sending back stuff when you used parcel wizard etc?

On amazon, select a return using collect+ service and then use ParcelMotels return service. Collect+ is an option for Parcel Motels return service, it costs €3.50

v10 wrote: »

For Big Sky, go to the skills sections of your alexa app (or alexa.amazon.com) and search for big sky under the weather category.

As for the RTE News, you need to create your own skill which isn't that difficult .. have a look HERE

That sounds like your Echo is setup as a US Echo, rather then a UK one.

UK users use alexa.amazon.co.uk. This would explain why you don't have to say "on Spotify" and why you can find big sky skill, while UK users cant.

torrevieja

degsie wrote: »

Anseo

the Go to Amazon developer website says im not authorised

mrcheez

Anyone know if there's a way to stop Spotify playing live versions of songs?

I wanted to rock out to Evil Eye by Fu Manchu but it keeps picking the crappy live version... boo!

bellucio

bellucio wrote: »

Will check it out tomorrow and come back with my findings, but you may well be right

I had it set up under amazon.com, but the times were all US based. The only way I found to get the correct timezone was set up through amazon.co.uk..

OK...Bit late, but eventually got around to this...
Changed over alexea.amazon.com -

Good:

• Got the custom skill working
• The time was correct.

Bad

• Tune In couldn't/wouldn't connect
• Had to specify "...with spotify" when playing music - even though spotify was the default player

..

General Questions:
Looking to set my own address as the location. Best I can get is Dublin - which isnt ideal considering I'm in Cork :P Can the address be set up correctly ?
How can we develop skills for use over here. I used developer.amazon.com, but cant get the skill working while my echo is set up to .co.uk.
Any advice for good skills to install ?:D

Havent got any smart home devices set up, but will be moving after Christmas so going to get a few things in the new year...

degsie

torrevieja wrote: »

the Go to Amazon developer website says im not authorised

Think you have to set up an Amazon US account first.

bellucio

v10 wrote: »

I personally find the only way it works well is to set language to US English and location to a UK (I use Northern Irish) address.

With it set this way Spotify works fine without saying 'on spotify' and almost all Irish Tune In stations work just by saying for example 'play station name' or sometimes 'play station name radio' depending on the name.

I use 'Big Sky' skill for weather which lets me set location within the skill so saying 'open big sky' gives me local weather.

And traffic also works perfect as I have 'from' set to my home address and 'to' set to my work address.

I have a mix of WeMo smart plugs, TPLink smart plugs and Philips Hue Bulbs around the place and they all work pretty good too.

I also have RTE news read to me when I ask for news, so I'm happy overall and surprised at some of the issues I read here !

Hi V10...
Do you have it set up under amazon.com or amazon.co.uk?

mik_da_man

mik_da_man wrote: »

Did anyone try this?
Is it just a case of switching the echo back to a US account and job done?
Mine was US originally so should be able to switch back...I think...

Just to answer my own question, setting Alexa back to US enables Harmony control - Happy Chappie now

ECO_Mental

bellucio wrote: »

OK...Bit late, but eventually got around to this...
Changed over alexea.amazon.com -

Good:

• Got the custom skill working
• The time was correct.

Bad

• Tune In couldn't/wouldn't connect
• Had to specify "...with spotify" when playing music - even though spotify was the default player

..

General Questions:
Looking to set my own address as the location. Best I can get is Dublin - which isnt ideal considering I'm in Cork :P Can the address be set up correctly ?
How can we develop skills for use over here. I used developer.amazon.com, but cant get the skill working while my echo is set up to .co.uk.
Any advice for good skills to install ?:D

Haven't got any smart home devices set up, but will be moving after Christmas so going to get a few things in the new year...

This answers my question! I love the idea but Amazons lack of support for anything but the UK and the US has me convinced to give this a skip for a while. If Amazon can't get Prime to work in Ireland and that's out a good few years then I won't hold my breath when they will give support for Echo in Ireland.

bellucio

ECO_Mental wrote: »

This answers my question! I love the idea but Amazons lack of support for anything but the UK and the US has me convinced to give this a skip for a while. If Amazon can't get Prime to work in Ireland and that's out a good few years then I won't hold my breath when they will give support for Echo in Ireland.

Don't give us just yet... I'm. Sure better minds than me will have answers to my queries - hence why I'm here 😉

degsie

ECO_Mental wrote: »

This answers my question! I love the idea but Amazons lack of support for anything but the UK and the US has me convinced to give this a skip for a while. If Amazon can't get Prime to work in Ireland and that's out a good few years then I won't hold my breath when they will give support for Echo in Ireland.

While I agree that Ireland is considered a digital backwater by mainly American companies, the growth of AI and the digital assistant marches on. I wouldn't hold up much hope that Google Home or whatever is going to be developed to include the Irish market. The only bright light may be Samsung with the purchase of Viv. That combination will hopefully have a more global approach. Time will tell.

Stoner

degsie wrote:

While I agree that Ireland is considered a digital backwater by mainly American companies, the growth of AI and the digital assistant marches on. I wouldn't hold up much hope that Google Home or whatever is going to be developed to include the Irish market. The only bright light may be Samsung with the purchase of Viv. That combination will hopefully have a more global approach. Time will tell.

Well the Google unit will use Google and not bing so that will help, it might use Google play music with 22000 songs storage rather than Amazon's 250
After that I don't know I'm sure it will be pretty much be the same thing.

Irish Gunner

Well reading through this post and others still unsure if to splash the cash on this or wait for Google Home
Like to hear others inputs or if they are waiting and if so why?

macnug

v10 wrote:

I have a mix of WeMo smart plugs, TPLink smart plugs and Philips Hue Bulbs around the place and they all work pretty good too.

Just got one today, how do you get the app for it? Says not available in my country for me.

degsie

macnug wrote: »

Just got one today, how do you get the app for it? Says not available in my country for me.

Discussed many times in the thread, or just use alexa.amazon.co.uk

Stoner

Irish Gunner wrote:

Well reading through this post and others still unsure if to splash the cash on this or wait for Google Home Like to hear others inputs or if they are waiting and if so why?

Well I'm getting both.
Where do you have accounts ? Spotify Amazon Music. Google Play ?

That might be a deciding factor

mrcheez

For anyone looking for a Bluetooth speaker for their Dot, the UE Boom 2 has dropped to £99 including free delivery on Amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ultimate-Ears-Bluetooth-Waterproof-Shockproof/dp/B0141208EA/

Cheapest it's been in a while

http://uk.camelcamelcamel.com/Ultimate-Ears-Bluetooth-Waterproof-Shockproof-Black-Grey/product/B0141208EA?context=browse


It's a toss up between this and a JBL Charge 3, which hasn't dropped in a while but might over Black Friday/Cyber Monday

Irish Gunner

Stoner wrote: »

Irish Gunner wrote:

Well reading through this post and others still unsure if to splash the cash on this or wait for Google Home Like to hear others inputs or if they are waiting and if so why?

Well I'm getting both.
Where do you have accounts ? Spotify Amazon Music. Google Play ?

That might be a deciding factor

It could be the same for me depending on price. I am in the states early next year so may look at getting Google Home over there if available and I can use over here.
I use Spotify and I want to listen to Internet Radio. I only use Google play for updating apps on android phone and box so I use Google more than I use Amazon.
Can the Echo store the station or is it just a case of saying 8Radio or Camden Radio and it plays them or would I have to add TuneIn Radio app to it and is that easy enough to do?
Cheers

loup

For anyone that has the Echo, whats this like as a standalone speaker to play music through, is the sound good? Has it good bass? Do Amazon have a 2nd generation one in the pipeline?

donegal.

loup wrote: »

For anyone that has the Echo, whats this like as a standalone speaker to play music through, is the sound good? Has it good bass? Do Amazon have a 2nd generation one in the pipeline?

most on here would say its great, i think i'm a lone voice thinking its a bit meh. It has plenty of volume.

compared to my £44 anker speaker its pretty good.

compared to squeezebox boom its desperate.

Basq

^ Haven't heard it but most people say it's average - decent.. but far from mind-blowing!
With proper Sonos integration due next year, I'd say an Echo Dot + Play 1 would be a better purchase.

mrcheez

loup wrote: »

For anyone that has the Echo, whats this like as a standalone speaker to play music through, is the sound good? Has it good bass? Do Amazon have a 2nd generation one in the pipeline?

Most of the complaints have been around the bass, so if that's important to you (it was with me), then Dot plus choice of speaker is better.