Amazon Echo FAQ

jobless wrote: »

for those of you that have the dot.... what way to do use the external speaker?... do you it always have it connected via bluetooth or do you have to pair it each time... ? i can imagine this being a pain

Only pair it once.

Can pair to multiple speakers and it plays out of one at a time. If you have all bluetooth speakers turned on, turning off one redirects the music to the other one, and so on.
(the latest-paired speaker is the one that's selected first, then the 2nd-last to be paired is used when the other is switched off...)

Finally if you turn off all speakers the music plays out of the Dot itself.

The Dot speaker is perfectly fine for better-than-small-radio quality audio. So great for background music etc.

K09 wrote: »

Hi,
I am looking for top quality bluetooth speakers to pair with Dot.

I was looking at Sonos Play 1 but for some reason they don't work with Dot. I don't understand why since they are bluetooth.

Any recommendation for bluetooth speakers to use with Dot?

Thanks!

UE Boom 2s are still going cheap.. must be trying to offload a ton of stock!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bluetooth-Wireless-Speaker-Waterproof-Shockproof/dp/B0141208EA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480632408&sr=8-1&keywords=ue+boom+2

K09 wrote: »

Hi,
I am looking for top quality bluetooth speakers to pair with Dot.

I was looking at Sonos Play 1 but for some reason they don't work with Dot. I don't understand why since they are bluetooth.

Any recommendation for bluetooth speakers to use with Dot?

Thanks!

The Sonos are wifi speakers not Bluetooth, although support is coming Ming for them in the future apparently.

can someone please give the details on how to install the Alexa app in ireland?


can't find it anywhere and feel like i've been combing these threads. can someone point me to it?

RoYoBo wrote: »

The Echo cannot output to a Bluetooth speaker - it 'receives' to its own internal speaker only. The Dot can output audio via Bluetooth or cable. Maybe not a technically correct response, but that's the gist of it.

Thanks RoYoBo, got my hopes up for a second
Would seem a bit strange to have a dot and a speaker together, but at least that's cleared up

givecredit wrote: »

Yes, 2 can play stereo through bluetooth. One Left and One Right.
Alternatively you can connect up to 50 of these simultaneously, all outputting the same audio.

Great. Thank you!

Tom Cruises Left Nut wrote: »

I got the app from apk mirror

Will it auto update or do I need to download updates manually ?

The app is just a wrapper around the web app anyway so you're just accessing the web app through a window in the app, so I doubt there'll be updates to the app itself.

corvus4906 wrote: »

can someone please give the details on how to install the Alexa app in ireland?

can't find it anywhere and feel like i've been combing these threads. can someone point me to it?

Just google for it, try something like 'Amazon Alexa app mirror' or 'Amaxon Alex app APK/IPA'

It's easy to find a mirror for Android anyway. That being said the app is just a container for the web app anyway so you might as well just go to alexa.amazon.co.uk anyway.

mik_da_man wrote: »

I've my address set to Dublin in the echo, but if I ask what's the weather it reports weather in Japan!
Is that happening anyone else?

If I say what's the weather in Dublin it works fine...

I set it to Dublin and now it just says "Cannot find weather for that location'

I only got mine last night (dot) and while the device itself is nice and the sound out of it is actually pretty impressive I have to say the short time with it so far has been a little disappointing, the setup was a joke, I tried using the Android app first and it simply would not work at all, it simply would not connect the dot to the wi-fi, I wasted almost an hour trying before getting out the laptop and doing it on a web browser. The browser worked much better but the experience of the app on the browser (and mobile since its just a wrapper) is horrible. It feels very much like an intern's project at Amazon.

I had to make groups with the same name as my Hue rooms to get it to work too, it didn't recognise the ones I had setup in my Hue account despite the identical names. Asking it for radio stations on TuneIn was extremely poor, I was trying UK stations but the only one it got right was BBC radio 1, out of 9 I tried.

It linked to my bluetooth soundbar very well and I love the way you can ask to to connect and disconnect. All my music is on Google Play Music though so without support for it my music options are limited, I'll probably pick up Spotify for the 3 months offer but when that runs out I don't want to be paying for two music streaming services so we'll see.

Overall very mixed opinion on it to start with but it is early days, it does need a lot of polish but I think 40 quid was worth spending on it.

I too set up my Dot last night. Really straight forward through the iOS app and had no issues connecting to WiFi. Also added a Wemo plug socket that the Alexa app found without issue. In terms of location, I was putting in Naas which it wouldn't accept, even though it appeared in the suggestions. However it would accept the suggested Naas Road, Dublin location so I went with that.

In terms of my music, having been an Amazon customer for so long, I was linked to the US site. I was able to change this to the UK site by using my Revolut Card as the payment card and my own address with a NI postcode. Location I changed to UK. Happily, any CD that I have bought in the past fifteen years showed up in my music library and the Dot would play them. This was regardless of whether they had been purchased off the US or UK sites. I don't have Prime.

Children have enjoyed pestering Alexa with questions since set up.

Does anyone know how you can avail of the £3.99 Amazon Music Unlimited subscription?

Mine is O Connell bridge as well with Dublin 1 but it still says cannot find weather for the location. Does weather work for others with this address?

Figured out the issue I had with the App as well, it looks like the app I downloaded was pointing to alexa.amazon.com rather than alexa.amazon.co.uk.

A new one I downloaded works better, its still just pointing to the website though so using a direct link to alexa.amazon.com works too just as well on mobile.

tallpaul wrote: »

However RTE Gold works perfectly as does Radio Nova. Didn't get to try others as yet.

It keeps playing NoFM when I ask mine to play Radio Nova

danielle_door wrote: »

hi guys, my dot is getting delivered today.

main focus for the Dot is to voice conytrol spotify that is playing through my network onkyo..

dont know if it will work ? any ideas ?

Yes, connect it via Bluetooth (if you can) or audio cable and it'll be fine.

Atomic Pineapple wrote: »

Yes, connect it via Bluetooth (if you can) or audio cable and it'll be fine.

ah i want the echo to just be the voice control not be the audio source.. via bluetooth.

so the path i want to use is

ask the DOT to play a spotify song on my AV reciever.... if i have the amp linked to spotify .. so dot only sends the spotify app the request..

adox wrote: »

Just on the weather guys, if you search for "Big Sky" in the skills section and enable it, the Big Sky "app" will ask you to fill in your home address. Put this in and then it will give you the weather for your exact address.
Instead of saying "Alexa hows the weather" you will have to say "Alexa open big sky" or something similar and it will give you your local forecast. Works a treat once you remember to ask for big sky.

How does it work for future rain forecasts?

e.g. while getting dressed last night I had to plan out the work I'm getting done outdoors so was able to ask "Alexa, will it rain in Dublin this weekend" ... and "Alexa, is there any rain planned in Dublin next week"

Was very satisfied with the responses.

danielle_door wrote: »

ah i want the echo to just be the voice control not be the audio source.. via bluetooth.

so the path i want to use is

ask the DOT to play a spotify song on my AV reciever.... if i have the amp linked to spotify .. so dot only sends the spotify app the request..

It will work as the source and pass it to the AV rec via bluetooth.

You will need to link Spotify to the Dot and then the Dot to your AV rec, then you can tell the dot to connect or disconnect the bluetooth and when connected it will play through the AV rec.

You cannot tell it to play spotify on your AV rec and for the AV rec to do the rest.