Amazon Echo: Which Alexa Smart Speaker is Right for You?

Photographer:  Amazon


Amazon pioneered the concept of a smart speaker, an audio device with a voice-activated digital assistant that can do everything from play music (from Amazon Music or Spotify, Pandora, and certain other services if you’re a subscriber), to recite the day’s news, deliver weather and traffic updates, and—perhaps most importantly—control virtually every element of your smart home.

More recently, Amazon made it possible to make outgoing calls from an Echo to any phone number in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. All you need to do is ask Alexa to call the name of your contact. You can also use Echos as an in-home intercom and make video calls (provided the person on the other end of the line has the Alexa app on their phone or a video-enabled Echo in their house).

TechHive:  Amazon Echo: Which Alexa smart speaker is right for you?


The interesting thing to the Rockhouse about these Alexa houses is we don't find them interesting at all yet they seem to enjoy great popularity.  Therefore, the Rockhouse gets curious since maybe this means there's something we're missing and we have not really seen the reason yet.

At the center of the system, it's an odd-looking device with a speaker.  That doesn't seem like much of a way to present music relative to the way most of this busload of freaks has done it anywhere through life, tho.  The preference of freaks has usually been for the level of equipment needed for aficionados, otherwise known as music snobs, and a single speaker wouldn't be acceptable even now.

The Rockhouse purpose isn't to slash the device since there's ongoing interest in finding the goodness in one to explain its popularity.


Zen Yogi:  the audio aspect doesn't sound so compelling and the author of the article wasn't so enamored of it yet has great enthusiasm for it so what else does it do?

The biggest general pitch is it performs as the hub for control and management of intelligent home devices, all of which are controlled by voice command.

At the most elemental level of that we may ask Alexa to turn on a light.  Doing that doesn't require such high intelligence but maybe we can ask her to turn on the lights in the living room to do all of them and that would be more impressive.

Something more elaborate is when your smart monitoring camera over your front door alerts you with voice via Alexa of the person's presence.  If the camera has face recognition capability then it can even tell you via Alexa of the visitor's name.  Face recognition inspires a great deal of agita just now but we will leave any controversy out of it for the review.

If Alexa were to ask me from that if I want to open the door for this person then I'll be impressed and more so if some type of companion intelligent device could perform the physical opening of the door.

Here's a technological sidenote:  the best of the modern monitoring cameras for this type of home surveillance is presented in another article.  See  TechHive: Best home security camera: Keep an eye on the home front


For better understanding of the value to any interface to intelligent home devices, we need a good view of the things they do.  One example from TechHive is about a vacuuming robo.  (TechHive:  Neato Robotics adds more smarts to its vacuum cleaners)

If I can tell the Neato robo to vacuum the living room then that's a useful function and we will set aside any tactical matters about its independent ability to deliver itself from some other location in your pad.  This intelligent robo serves a straight-up utility purpose and, even better, it's something I don't want to do.

Zen Yogi:  it's still not exactly tickling your tummy, tho, is it?

I'm not sure I want anything tickling my tummy, Yogi, but, no, it doesn't.


There's intelligence in modern home windows since the glass can darken or lighten itself based usually on electrical stimulation.  An interface to an intelligent hub would mean possibly I could say, "Alexa, back off with the darkening in the parlor just now ... for whatever reason."  That capability would be good and even better if I can tell it, "Alexa, keep it that way for two hours or until two o'clock etc."


Mates, I'm running into the same thing I've encountered previously in checking out Alexa.  The smart devices don't seem so wildly intelligent.

Powering up my devices for the Rockhouse music studio is an intelligent operation since it's vital they're powered up in a precise sequence or some of them can easily be damaged by it.  At this time it's not likely realistic to ask of my assistant, "Alexa, power up the studio."

Zen Yogi:  so you don't believe it will happen then?

That's not true, Yogi, since I do believe it will happen and the question remains of when.