Alexa turned 5!

[HA_fanatic (Bob)]

Amazon Echo

If Amazon is smart, they should realize how much potential an “always on” device with voice interface like Echo has in terms of home automation and control. It already has WiFi and Bluetooth. Just stick another radio in it (Z-Wave and Zigbee) and a couple of sensors and there you have it - your ultimate home automation controller.

Amazon Echo

Looks neat:

Amazon Echo might just have Murdered The Ubi

Just saw this on Amazon’s home page: They have an Ubi competitor that will basically just eat the Ubi’s lunch in the way that iPods did to earlier MP3 players. It does everything Ubi does and is $200 ($100 for Prime Members). The hardware is Way better looking - especially for music. Plus it ties into Amazon services like your Music cloud. Oh yeah and you can stream music to it like a Sonos. Anybody want to buy my Ubi? I gotta unload this thing while there’s still a market left. [image]

[HA_fanatic (Bob)]

“If Amazon doesn’t improve its tech over the next five years, then Google, Apple, and plenty of others have shown they’re eager to step into Alexa’s shoes.” LOL

The same thoughts from 5 years ago still linger, while Alexa managed to stay one step ahead…

After five years of Amazon’s Alexa, why isn’t it better?

[DParker (Dan P Parker)]

I don’t know that I’ve ever read anything published by The Verge that wasn’t utterly clueless twaddle.