My Amazon Echo Household

I started with the Amazon Echo when it first came out in June of 2015. I was one of the early adopters and as with any new tech there is always glitches and bugs to work out. But now a little over a year since its release I think it’s a fair time to write about the Amazon Echo and its use in our household.

The one thing I noticed about the Amazon Echo is friends and users place the Echo where it serves them the best. My wife and I placed ours in the kitchen, for us it was where the Echo got the most use and made the most sense. Our kitchen and laundry room are right next to each other so we placed the Echo right off laundry room in the kitchen on corner cabinet out of way of water and other things which could damage the device.

The first thing we noticed is how often while doing laundry we listened to Spotify, Pandora and Tunein Radio. Something that we never did before and enjoyed as a feature and way to make doing the laundry more enjoyable. I myself being an avid reader started using Audible a lot more in the house rather than just in the car and getting threw more books something Audible has benefited from financially.

I started using the Amazon Echo quite a bit while getting my morning coffee asking Alexa questions like

“Alexa what’s the weather like today?”

“Alexa what’s in the news?”

“Alexa what’s my commute like?”

I found myself enjoying the convenience of not having to pull my phone out of my pocket in my morning during the rush to get out the door.

My wife began to enjoy the timer while cooking and the simplicity of “Alexa add (insert item name) to the list.” Then being able to open the Alexa app on her phone and see what we need from the grocery store.

My daughter started using Alexa for fun stuff like asking questions on topics she was curious about and having Alexa tell her jokes. Not to mention playing music when she is doing her chores.

My wife and I both found ourselves using Alexa for Alexa day on Amazon and checking order status by saying “Alexa where is my stuff?” I do notice that when shopping with Alexa having an Amazon Prime account does make things much easier.

Alexa can learn skills we have used several of them already skills like checking stock market, exercise and Bingo has been fun to use as a family.

One place we did think of would be useful was having the Amazon Echo in our bathroom. We decided to buy an Amazon Dot and hook it up to a speaker giving us voice controlled music in the upstairs part of our house and made adding toiletries we needed to the shopping list convenient. Since our house is two floors this allowed us the ability to have Amazon Dot upstairs to control the light switches which are upstairs and downstairs.

We personally use the Amazon Echo and the Amazon Dot every day. It’s been a great addition to our home and works very well I can’t think of any real cons to the product it’s worked great for use and it’s one of those devices you just say “How did I live without this thing?” Great addition to any home.