Amazon Echo Advice

N

NortonExile

Well-known member
I will be buying one tomorrow but I still can't get my head around why one is £89.99 and another £139.99.

It says the more expensive has a Zigbee hub but I cannot see what the benefits are with this compared to the cheaper model and why it justifies an extra £50.

Can someone explain in simple terms please and if it is worth the extra? Thanks.
 
I think it's a bit like computers you should buy the best that will suit your requirements within your budget.
You don't need a super dooper one if you only use word processing, internet and e'mails.
 
I have 3 around the house (2 x Studio, 1 x Echo) - the sound is much better from the Studio but is more than passable on the Echo.

I just use them like speakers more than anything, but they're good for things like setting a timer when you're cooking or finding out the weather etc.
 
The Zigbee hub allow 3rd party smart bulbs to be used in conjunction with the Philips hue bulbs and negates the need to buy the Philips hue bridge.

So if you are going to instal smart lighting in the future and use Alexa to operate it then the more expesive one is the one to get, I you only intend to use it for music and/or as a companion when your feeling lonely during lockdown then just the cheapest option will do.

Personally i opted for the Google alternative as it works with my heating system.
 
I've got a couple of echo dots and a google home. I paid about £30 each. They're £39.99 at the moment but they have little price wars a couple of times a year. Sound quality is fine on their own and very good when I put them through speakers. I mainly use them for radio, alarms and Spotify. They're great for this and I would definitely recommend both. The extra £50 for the echo plus gets you a better speaker (but you might already have these); another £50 and you can talk to a radiator!
The zigbee VFM depends on whether you'll use it. It doesn't do anything on its own - you need smart devices - lights, heating etc with sensors
 
I have several around the house, almost exclusively used for Spotify and radio but we do use it to for weather/timers and calling room to room occasionally.

The £140 one means you can add smart bulbs etc without buying a “hub” (like you’d have to for a Hive system, for example).

If you’re not going to use it for lights etc you wouldn’t need the built in hub.
 
We have our 2 Sonos one's connected to ours which act like a Echo, but much better quality, we can work our wifi lights and heating with the sonos as well as the few echos we have dotted about the house.
 
I'm also in the sonos connected to a dot camp. well, sort of. I've just set the sonos up as a device.

As others have said though. Using smartbulbs without a hub is a cost saver, the hub is quite expensive but I imagine it'll give you extra functionality. For example if you have the iconnecthue app and coloured light you can turn your front room into a disco.
 
Jonny2773 said:
The Zigbee hub allow 3rd party smart bulbs to be used in conjunction with the Philips hue bulbs and negates the need to buy the Philips hue bridge.

So if you are going to instal smart lighting in the future and use Alexa to operate it then the more expesive one is the one to get, I you only intend to use it for music and/or as a companion when your feeling lonely during lockdown then just the cheapest option will do.

Personally i opted for the Google alternative as it works with my heating system.
Click to expand...
Thank you
 
Whichever one you get, after lockdown is over and you have anyone round you are not keen on, get them to ask Alexa “what Is one hundred in Welsh”
 
We have a couple in the house and my eldest daughter has one in her room. I can't think of anything that we have used it for apart from Spotify. For me it is just a very expensive Bluetooth speaker. I did get it to read my youngest a story once, but then felt guilty for being so lazy.
 
It's much more than that. You just need to work out if you have a use case. I use it for smart home and controlling the sonos.
 
Fluffycarpet said:
We have a couple in the house and my eldest daughter has one in her room. I can't think of anything that we have used it for apart from Spotify. For me it is just a very expensive Bluetooth speaker. I did get it to read my youngest a story once, but then felt guilty for being so lazy.
Click to expand...

I sort of agree with this, although it's not just a bluetooth speaker, it can replace a bluetooth speaker as you can use it to play music without connecting it to your phone.

So for example I no longer own a radio as I use my Alexas' as a radio, and can just say "alexa play 6 music" or "alexa play BBC Radio London" - that's my use case, along with having it as a alarm / timer.
 
If you were just going to do a phillips lighting, you can get the hubs online for £20 on FB marketplace. It will work better than having it as a hub. But if you just want a few bulbs or have other zigbee devices, then a hub enabled device will be able to do that.

We have an alexa device in every room. We have multiple Sonos speakers in various rooms, we have hue lighting in every bulb fitting and in the garden. We have Nest heating (as well as smoke alarms and cameras). We also have various devices like PS4, TV, receiver etc. We use a harmony hub remote and alexa to make all this hang together. For example if I say alexa turn on the TV, it will turn on the TV, receiver, switch inputs on the receiver, set the TV to Tuner &, depending on the time, set the Hue lights to our default settings (or do nothing if it's not past a certain sliding time in line with sunset times). Likewise when switching things over, it will power off the other devices. It will control TV volume, pause the TV, all that kind of thing. Emergency lighting is activated when the smoke alarms are triggered and the boiler is turned off. We have routines for the lights we enable when we are away. We have groups of lights so we can turn off all the upstairs lights when going downstairs, or we have a night routine where it will turn everything off except low level lighting in the hall, stairs and bedroom, which will turn off after a few minutes. You can use motion sensors etc and we are probably going to put some of those on our driveway for when we get home as its quite long and could use some lighting. We have light switches in our house, but we haven't used them for the last 2 years. Took the girlfriend about 2 weeks to get used to it and she is a massive technophobe. she has one wifi switch in her dressing room so she can cycle between various light settings for makeup etc but other than that, everything is voice.

Some useful things for Alexa;

  • Cooking - you can set layered and named timers. If you get one of the dot echos with an LCD timer on it, this can also be useful for countdowns. I do a lot of cooking and its useful having 4-5 different named timers going with how long is left before the next activity.
  • Reminders - use this a lot to remind me at a specific date & time
  • Amazon alerts - when something is getting delivered today you will get a notification
  • Intercom - alexa devices can be used as an intercom by saying "drop into <room name>"
  • Announcements - you can use it as a PA system to play a message in all rooms. I use this when food is ready or when ive shouted up and gotten no response.
  • messaging mates - either voice messages, drop in, transcribed messages etc.
  • Basic questions - if you need to calculate anything quickly, or ask it a question, it is able to answer a surprisingly decent range of questions, likewise converting things into other currencies or weights or liquid amounts, again useful during cooking where there are US and UK measurements.
  • Other than music, it will also play audio books from audible.
  • Loads of gimmicky stuff for kids like jokes or daft things you can ask it but we dont really use that much
To be honest for music I find the quality ok but fairly poor compared to things like Sonos or a hifi, except on the larger ones, and for that money I'd rather have a Sonos. All the dots we have picked up on black fridays for £20 or less, or gotten free through promotions. They handle all the voice queries in each room, and just control the other audio stuff for playback
 
TheFair86 said:
If you were just going to do a phillips lighting, you can get the hubs online for £20 on FB marketplace. It will work better than having it as a hub. But if you just want a few bulbs or have other zigbee devices, then a hub enabled device will be able to do that.

We have an alexa device in every room. We have multiple Sonos speakers in various rooms, we have hue lighting in every bulb fitting and in the garden. We have Nest heating (as well as smoke alarms and cameras). We also have various devices like PS4, TV, receiver etc. We use a harmony hub remote and alexa to make all this hang together. For example if I say alexa turn on the TV, it will turn on the TV, receiver, switch inputs on the receiver, set the TV to Tuner &, depending on the time, set the Hue lights to our default settings (or do nothing if it's not past a certain sliding time in line with sunset times). Likewise when switching things over, it will power off the other devices. It will control TV volume, pause the TV, all that kind of thing. Emergency lighting is activated when the smoke alarms are triggered and the boiler is turned off. We have routines for the lights we enable when we are away. We have groups of lights so we can turn off all the upstairs lights when going downstairs, or we have a night routine where it will turn everything off except low level lighting in the hall, stairs and bedroom, which will turn off after a few minutes. You can use motion sensors etc and we are probably going to put some of those on our driveway for when we get home as its quite long and could use some lighting. We have light switches in our house, but we haven't used them for the last 2 years. Took the girlfriend about 2 weeks to get used to it and she is a massive technophobe. she has one wifi switch in her dressing room so she can cycle between various light settings for makeup etc but other than that, everything is voice.

Some useful things for Alexa;

  • Cooking - you can set layered and named timers. If you get one of the dot echos with an LCD timer on it, this can also be useful for countdowns. I do a lot of cooking and its useful having 4-5 different named timers going with how long is left before the next activity.
  • Reminders - use this a lot to remind me at a specific date & time
  • Amazon alerts - when something is getting delivered today you will get a notification
  • Intercom - alexa devices can be used as an intercom by saying "drop into <room name>"
  • Announcements - you can use it as a PA system to play a message in all rooms. I use this when food is ready or when ive shouted up and gotten no response.
  • messaging mates - either voice messages, drop in, transcribed messages etc.
  • Basic questions - if you need to calculate anything quickly, or ask it a question, it is able to answer a surprisingly decent range of questions, likewise converting things into other currencies or weights or liquid amounts, again useful during cooking where there are US and UK measurements.
  • Other than music, it will also play audio books from audible.
  • Loads of gimmicky stuff for kids like jokes or daft things you can ask it but we dont really use that much
To be honest for music I find the quality ok but fairly poor compared to things like Sonos or a hifi, except on the larger ones, and for that money I'd rather have a Sonos. All the dots we have picked up on black fridays for £20 or less, or gotten free through promotions. They handle all the voice queries in each room, and just control the other audio stuff for playback
Click to expand...
When you say message mates, is that just dictating a phone txt message through Alexa, or can I do voice messages through Alexa?
 
Fluffycarpet said:
When you say message mates, is that just dictating a phone txt message through Alexa, or can I do voice messages through Alexa?
Click to expand...

What else can you do with Alexa calling?
Send a voice message
Voice messages are sort of like voicemails. To send a voice message with the Alexa app, select the Communicate icon. You can pick an existing conversation or tap the Message icon at the top of the Communicate screen. Then tap the blue microphone button at the bottom of the screen to send a new voice message. It will be sent to your friend's Alexa app and Echo device.


We don’t use this personally but that’s what internet says
 
TheFair86 said:
If you were just going to do a phillips lighting, you can get the hubs online for £20 on FB marketplace. It will work better than having it as a hub. But if you just want a few bulbs or have other zigbee devices, then a hub enabled device will be able to do that.

We have an alexa device in every room. We have multiple Sonos speakers in various rooms, we have hue lighting in every bulb fitting and in the garden. We have Nest heating (as well as smoke alarms and cameras). We also have various devices like PS4, TV, receiver etc. We use a harmony hub remote and alexa to make all this hang together. For example if I say alexa turn on the TV, it will turn on the TV, receiver, switch inputs on the receiver, set the TV to Tuner &, depending on the time, set the Hue lights to our default settings (or do nothing if it's not past a certain sliding time in line with sunset times). Likewise when switching things over, it will power off the other devices. It will control TV volume, pause the TV, all that kind of thing. Emergency lighting is activated when the smoke alarms are triggered and the boiler is turned off. We have routines for the lights we enable when we are away. We have groups of lights so we can turn off all the upstairs lights when going downstairs, or we have a night routine where it will turn everything off except low level lighting in the hall, stairs and bedroom, which will turn off after a few minutes. You can use motion sensors etc and we are probably going to put some of those on our driveway for when we get home as its quite long and could use some lighting. We have light switches in our house, but we haven't used them for the last 2 years. Took the girlfriend about 2 weeks to get used to it and she is a massive technophobe. she has one wifi switch in her dressing room so she can cycle between various light settings for makeup etc but other than that, everything is voice.

Some useful things for Alexa;

  • Cooking - you can set layered and named timers. If you get one of the dot echos with an LCD timer on it, this can also be useful for countdowns. I do a lot of cooking and its useful having 4-5 different named timers going with how long is left before the next activity.
  • Reminders - use this a lot to remind me at a specific date & time
  • Amazon alerts - when something is getting delivered today you will get a notification
  • Intercom - alexa devices can be used as an intercom by saying "drop into <room name>"
  • Announcements - you can use it as a PA system to play a message in all rooms. I use this when food is ready or when ive shouted up and gotten no response.
  • messaging mates - either voice messages, drop in, transcribed messages etc.
  • Basic questions - if you need to calculate anything quickly, or ask it a question, it is able to answer a surprisingly decent range of questions, likewise converting things into other currencies or weights or liquid amounts, again useful during cooking where there are US and UK measurements.
  • Other than music, it will also play audio books from audible.
  • Loads of gimmicky stuff for kids like jokes or daft things you can ask it but we dont really use that much
To be honest for music I find the quality ok but fairly poor compared to things like Sonos or a hifi, except on the larger ones, and for that money I'd rather have a Sonos. All the dots we have picked up on black fridays for £20 or less, or gotten free through promotions. They handle all the voice queries in each room, and just control the other audio stuff for playback
Click to expand...

Good post and tips, I appreciate the time it took you to write this. Cheers.
 
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