1-Day Deal: Amazon Echo and Tap 15% off – TODAY ONLY

April 19, 2016 by M.B. Grant Leave a Comment

thank_you_amazon_banner In honor of being recognized as the #1 most reputable company in the US, Amazon is gracing us (customers in the United States) with a 1-day 15% discount on its voice-activated speaker and home automation hub, the Amazon Echo (see our Echo review here), and its portable Amazon Tap Bluetooth speaker (see our Tap review here).

(There is no discount on the Echo Dot.)

If you’re still on the fence about which one you want, go with the the Echo. The voice-activated convenience gives Echo an edge over the Tap, the Tap’s speaker isn’t that great anyway.

Get ’em while supplies last!

Amazon Echo ~~$179~~ $153.71
Amazon Tap portable speaker ~~$129~~ $111

They don’t do this often – I got my Echo on discount back in October 2015 and this is the first I’ve seen of a Tap getting discounted.

How to use a Bose SoundLink Mini as a sound bar for your TV

April 15, 2016 by M.B. Grant 29 Comments

If you’ve bought a new TV recently (after years and years with an old TV) you might have been horrified to find that modern TVs come with terrible built-in audio. I’m guessing there’s some kind of industry-wide assumption that you’ve got killer audio equipment to hook that fancy new TV up to, but if you don’t, you might be looking for a way to re-purpose a Bluetooth (or similar) speaker you already own as a speaker for your television. Hey, at least you’ll use something you already own instead of running out and buying a full-fledged sound bar (possibly with separate subwoofer to find space for in your possibly tiny living room).

Anyway, I had a Bose SoundLink Mini not quite laying around but not doing much of anything while I was watching TV, so I gave it a second job with the addition of an RCA Y-cable. The cable has a 3.5mm audio plug on one end and two (white and red) bigger plugs on the other end.

I use a ridiculously cheap Y-cable, but if you’re feeling fancy they actually do make a gold-plated version that still costs less than a sandwich in most cities. (Just make sure your cable is long enough.)

Full list of things you’d need to get a setup like mine:

Bose SoundLink Mini speaker (but any speaker with AUX in should work)
6′ stereo 3.5mm to RCA cable like this
a TV with available RCA audio out ports (this is my exact 55″ Vizio 4k TV, it is spectacular and I love it)

Simple guide to using your Bluetooth speaker as a sound bar for your TV

Step 1: Find a good place for your speaker and its charge cradle

I put my Bose Mini right in front of my Vizio television. My TV is elevated on little feet, so there’s a bit of space below the screen for my SoundLink to sit. If your TV isn’t elevated, you might have to get creative. Try to keep it centered in relation to the TV, though, for best results.

Get it set up with electricity, either on a cradle or directly plugged into the speaker. (I don’t run mine off battery when I’m using it as a TV sound bar.)

Step 2: Connect it to your TV using the RCA Y-cable

My 2015-vintage Vizio TV has a couple of RCA ports on the back. Plug the red/white RCA ends into those ports.

Plug the 3.5mm into the side of the SoundLink Mini.

Step 3: Turn the SoundLink Mini on and set it to AUX mode.

Pretty easy.

Step 4: Turn your TV’s own audio to zero so you don’t get sound out of the TV speakers

Your TV will probably output sound out of both its own speakers and the external speaker you just hooked up. Just turn your TV’s own volume down to 0. Your TV might be fancy enough to know that it’s outputting to an external speaker and not produce the overlap, but in any case, this fix has worked for the two televisions I’ve used this Mini with now.

Step 5: Enjoy!

There’s only one major drawback to this setup, and that’s that you probably don’t have a remote for your speaker. This hasn’t bothered me too much, since my apartment is small and the speaker isn’t that far away and I tend to adjust volume pretty rarely, but it’s a thing to keep in mind.

I’ve done this exact setup with two TVs now (a 2013-era Sharp and a 2015-era Vizio) and it’s pretty awesome not having had to waste money on a dedicated sound bar when my other speakers are just sitting around doing nothing while I’m watching TV.

Amazon Tap vs. Bose SoundLink Color speaker

April 13, 2016 by M.B. Grant 2 Comments

Apparently, I have a Bluetooth speaker fetish. Over the last several years I’ve accumulated: a Bose SoundLink Color, a Bose SoundLink Mini (1st gen), a Bose SoundLink III, and (most recently) an Amazon Tap. Oh, and an Amazon Echo too, if that counts.

I also have a lot of opinions about how a speaker should sound, so let’s get started.

Launched March 2016, the Amazon Tap is Amazon’s first foray into the Bluetooth speaker market.

The Bose Color is a couple years old now, but despite being Bose’s most inexpensive speaker it’s still out-performing significantly pricier speakers.

Amazon Tap vs. Bose SoundLink Color

Audio (bass, clarity, overall quality): Bose SoundLink Color, hands down.

Bose Color has much richer bass and audio quality. It does one thing and it does it well.

The Color can get very, very loud. I’ve never even pushed it up to its limits, that’s how loud it gets. I thought my eardrums might burst.

Some reports measure it around 90 db without any sound distortion, which is probably louder than you’ll use it around your house unless you like to DJ for parties or use it outdoors. My family uses it outdoors near our pool (not close enough to get wet – it’s not water resistant) and it’s plenty loud, even without being at max volume.

Bose = strongest, loudest, clearest, bass-iest audio.

If there’s anywhere the Tap has the Bose Color beat on audio quality it’s the directional output. Color seems to output sound in a direct line from its front, and there’s a noticeable drop-off in quality and volume if you are to the left/right of the unit. The Tap outputs its audio in 360 degrees, so it doesn’t matter if you’re “behind” it or to the side of it – the sound is the same.

The tradeoff, of course, is the quality of that sound. The Tap just isn’t as rich sounding, especially on bass-heavy songs.

Portability: Amazon Tap

The Tap is smaller and lighter than the Bose Color (by about half a pound) and just seems to fit nicer in bags I’ve carried it around in. As another bonus, it projects its audio 360 degrees, so if you lay it down (like I’ve done inside my bicycle bag) you don’t have to worry about “facing” it a certain way to hear it.

The Tap also has a nice charging base that the Color does not. To charge the Color, you just plug it in to a wall adapter, but that plug in / unplug step hinders its “grab it and go” portability just a teeny bit, and that little bit of friction doesn’t exist for the Tap (just lift it off the base).

You can get a “sling” for your Amazon Tap, but it covers up the charging connection on the bottom (boo, hiss) but it does let you clip the Tap onto your bag (not that it won’t feel like a 1-pound brick swinging around…).

Battery life: Tie

The Bose has about 8 hours of battery life, the Tap about 10.

Battery charging: Amazon Tap

The Tap gets an edge on all things battery-related thanks to its convenient base. Just rest the Tap on top of the base (orientation doesn’t even matter!) and it’ll charge. You can use it while it charges. (You can use the Color while it charges, too). To charge the Color, you have to find the other end of its micro USB cable and plug it into the speaker hardware. Not a huge hardship, but I’ve rooted around under my desk enough times for the fallen end of the Color’s cable to take note of this convenience.

Closeup of the Tap’s base and charging cradle.

Price: Tie

You can usually find either of them for about $129.

“Personal assistant” features: Amazon Tap

This is where the Tap shines. Tap’s integration with Alexa, Amazon’s voice-controlled “personal assistant” service (it’s free, even if you don’t have Prime) is pretty powerful once you learn your way around. I use Alexa to turn my Philips Hue lights on/off every day, control devices that are hooked up through my WeMo plugs, access playlists that I set up on Amazon Prime Music (“free” if you have Prime)

Connectivity and ease of pairing: Amazon Tap

I’ve had far fewer long waits / unexplained failures to pair with my Amazon Tap than I have with any of my Bose speakers. I regularly switch up which device is paired with my speakers (an iPhone, an Android phone, and a MacBook Pro laptop) and I just seem to go through more connection failures with the Bose speakers than I have so far with the Tap.

It’s also worth pointing out that the Tap has WiFi capabilities as well and can directly stream music over services like Prime Music, Spotify, Pandora, TuneIn, and iHeartRadio via WiFi, but the Bose Color only receives your music over Bluetooth (not that you can’t stream those services over Bluetooth via your Bluetooth enabled device, it’s just another step to be aware of).

Physical styling: Tie

Bose Color comes in a bunch of colors, many of which are pretty fun. The plastic case doesn’t feel overly rugged, but given that it’s a $129 speaker you are probably going to want to at least try to put it somewhere safe. The top of the Color speaker features an array of control buttons embedded in a single rubbery control panel. The inclusion of physical buttons is a nice addition, allowing for easy on-device control of the song selection and volume.

The Tap only comes in black, but it’s very nice looking up close (the speaker fabric in particular has a good texture to it). Like the Color, the Tap has a nice rubbery top with an array of control buttons with the same buttons for volume and song selection.

Bose Color comes in any color you want, as long as that color is blue, teal, red, black, or white. I feel like a baby pink one would’ve sold like hotcakes, but Bose didn’t consult me on color choices. 😉

Both speakers have the same drawback: they can both be tipped over with relative ease. Neither is particularly squat or bottom-heavy, so if you have small children or cats (or are just prone to flailing about), you’ll need to watch out for tipping. I’ve tipped both my Color and my Tap over flat on their sides, though, and no harm has come of it.

The bottom line

Assuming you don’t want to spend more than $129…

… for the bestest audio you can get, go with the Bose Color. It’s a great speaker and you’ll get years out of it.

… for streaming over WiFi and giving voice commands to Alexa (and you’re okay with the tradeoff on audio quality) go with the Tap.

Wait, what’s your price range?

If you’ve got a bit more than $129 burning a hole in your pocket, and you want rich, high quality audio (and booming bass) delivered to your ears via Bluetooth then you can go straight to the higher end of the Bose SoundLink series of speakers.

Yes, you will pay more than you would for a Tap or a Color, but the price difference is worth it. There is a noticeable step up from the SoundLink Color to the SoundLink Mini to the SoundLink III. Get the one at the top of your price range – you won’t regret it.

banner_up_a_notch

The SoundLink line is sturdy, loud, and the rechargeable batteries last a long time on a single charge. These speakers that shouldn’t get left behind (technologically speaking) for several years to come. When Bose refreshed their product line and updated the Mini from the 1st gen to the 2nd gen, they barely changed a thing.

The SoundLink Mini is great for placing on your desk or in your kitchen as you work and for $100 more, the SoundLink III can fill the room with crisp audio and make you think you’re listening to a 3-speaker setup, complete with subwoofer. (And if you can tolerate the NFL branding, you can sometimes find the NFL-themed SoundLink III for just a few more dollars than the price of a Mini… depending on the season and how the teams are doing). I use my SoundLink Mini primarily as a TV sound bar these days, and it’s indistinguishable from more expensive sound bars I considered. Heck, the SoundLink Mini is even just as portable, if not moreso, than the Tap or the Color.

Of the four Bluetooth speakers in my rotation, the SoundLink III and the SoundLink Mini are still the two dedicated speakers getting the most use in my home.

Silver Ticket STR-169120 Projector Screen Assembly and Installation Steps

April 12, 2016 by M.B. Grant 1 Comment

Last weekend’s project: mounting our new Silver Ticket projector screen!

The booklet and videos make it look easier than it is and some steps are left out. Here’s what I learned in the hours it took me to set up my home’s new Silver Ticket 120″ projector screen.

The screen itself is amazing, by the way – I highly recommend it, and it’s definitely worth the setup time especially if you were previously using a white wall as your screen like I was – it’s a huge upgrade!

You should have:

Two people
Good drill (I love and recommend my DEWALT drill) with a variety of drill bits
Stud finder (here’s my Zircon MultiScanner that I love)
Bubble level
Measuring tape
Rubber mallet (or if you’re brave, a normal hammer)
Several large towels or blankets to go between your floor and the screen as you unfurl it and affix it to the frame (unless you have super pristine carpet, I guess)
About 3-4 hours

You should also watch this video before proceeding, it’s only 4 minutes long (shorter if you watch it on 1.5x!) and gives a good overview of the installation, start to finish.

Unboxing the Silver Ticket screen parts

You’ll find several cardboard boxes containing the frame pieces, an instruction booklet, a bundle of thin white plastic sticks (tension rods), a box of misc. hardware, and a box with the screen rolled up inside it.

Inside those cardboard boxes are the black velvet frame pieces that’ll make up the border of your Silver Ticket projector screen. Put the rolled up screen somewhere safe and away from children, dogs, cats, etc – you won’t need it until you’re almost done putting this thing together.

Included hardware

Here’s the hardware they give you. Note that there are two kinds of short screws: 16 of them have rounded heads and 8 of them have flat heads. This will be important later and the printed instructions do not tell you which is which!

Here’s all the parts along with the nicknames my partner and I gave them as we assembled the screen, which I will refer back to in the instructions to follow.

Unfortunately, the instruction booklet does not name these pieces.

Fortunately, I was able to assemble and install my screen without adding any hardware that wasn’t originally included.

Silver Ticket screen assembly

Step 1: Connect the straight-edge pieces

Here’s a diagram of how the velvet border pieces fit together. (The seams are not at all noticeable in real life, they’re just exaggerated here for this diagram.)

There are six velvet pieces total: two short pieces with straight edges and two pieces with pointy edges. The two straight metal brackets with holes are used to hold the straight pieces together, and the L-shaped metal brackets with holes are for holding the corners together.

The first step is to connect the long straight pieces that make up the top and bottom edges of the frame. Slide in the straight metal connector piece into the flat-edged end of one half of the top/bottom of the frame, and then slide on the opposite half of the frame.

Here’s mine halfway done (with the wrong screw in place):

Use the flat-head screws for the middle joints (the rounded screws are for the corner joints). The included instruction booklet doesn’t really make it clear which screws to use here. You should use the flat-head screws for the straight pieces.

I foolishly used the round-headed screws for the straight joining pieces. That is bad! Don’t do as I did.

silver_ticket_short_pieces_together_wrong

Don’t use the “round” headed screws for this step!

Here’s the diagram that should’ve been in the manual, showing which screws go where:

What if the holes don’t line up?

On mine, the holes on the frame pieces didn’t line up with the holes in the brackets (and apparently neither did some others, judging by the occasional negative Amazon reviews on this screen).

Misaligned holes look like this, and it’s not a matter of mixing and matching pieces differently (or at least it wasn’t for me) nor does it mean you have to push the pieces together harder (we tried).

I ended up using my drill to widen the holes by chiseling them along the edges. Probably not the best use of my nice drill bits but it got the job done.

Hold that sucker down and drill, baby, drill…

(Not shown: use a vacuum to get all the little metal bits vacuumed up before you move on)

My corner pieces in particular were pretty poorly aligned. Here’s an “after” showing off our handiwork:

The misaligned holes were the only frustrating part of the screen assembly process and it added an hour or so to the setup time. While this screen is well-reviewed on Amazon, it seems most of the (relatively few) negative reviews come from this misaligned hole problem.

Silver Ticket should definitely look into why this is affecting people, as not everyone’s going to have the ability (or desire) to just bore bigger holes into their frame pieces and the screen is awesome otherwise.

Anyway, just screw the long straight top/bottom pieces of the frame together. Don’t do the corners until you’ve added the plastic pegs (screen hooks).

This is what you should leave this step with: the top and bottom edges of the frame held together with the “flat” head screws.

Step 2: Slide in the plastic pegs

Each metal frame piece has a sticker telling you how many little plastic screen hooks to slide onto each frame. Don’t worry about aligning them, just get the right number on. The round nub points up.

Your peg baggie will probably have a ton left over when you’re done.

Once the plastic pegs are in, you can screw the corner pieces together using the L-shaped corner brackets.

Step 3: Slide in the “snowman” brackets

You’ve got four of these metal “snowman” brackets that are designed to slide into the tracks on the back sides of each of the velvet frame pieces. The “head” of the snowman should point towards the ceiling – this is where the screw on the wall will rest when the frame is hanging.

Step 4: Connect the corners

Remember to use the 16 “round” headed screws for the four corners.

Once it’s all together, you should have a fully contiguous frame with the correct quantity of plastic pegs in each track.

Step 5: Screw the mounting screws into your wall

You’ll need:

two studs (use the stud finder to get the center of each of them)
that are 48-60″ apart
and reasonably in the center of your screen
don’t drill into metal or electrical wires (turn off your breaker if you’re concerned)

Remember, the “snowman” brackets can slide left/right in their tracks, so you can still center your screen even if your studs aren’t equidistant from your screen’s intended center.

The instructions provided aren’t terrible for helping with placement, but they won’t help you with screwing into studs. Screwing into studs generally requires more pressure and care than screwing into plain old drywall, but for this screen you definitely want to screw into studs for the extra stability (or maybe use some toggle bolts if it has to be drywall).

For my installation, I first drilled a pilot hole into the drywall and stud. The drill bit I chose for making the pilot holes was as wide as the “valleys” on the provided screws.

For more help with drilling into studs, this question and answer thread helped us a lot when we were having trouble.

We just did the top two screws and then we moved on to testing it out.

Step 6: Hang it up and see if it’s level!

Hang your frame on your top two screws and see how you did. This is why you shouldn’t do all four before testing it: if you’ve messed up and it’s not level, you only have to re-do one screw, not three.

We were quite lucky and the frame came out level on the first try. Glad we measured repeatedly before drilling.

Step 7: Do the bottom two mounting screws

You can now use the placement of the bottom two “snowman” brackets to determine where to put the last two screws. Go ahead and take the frame down and put those last two screws into the wall.

Step 8: Unroll the screen

This part’s easy, just roll it out white-side down. Try to align it as close to its final location as possible during this step.

Here’s a video of what NOT to do when stretching out the screen.

Step 9: Feed in the tension rods

You have six of these thin plastic tension rods. Two of them have rubber caps on both ends; four of them have rubber caps on just one end.

silver_ticket_two_rod_types

The “dual cap” rods belong on the left/right sides of your frame (the shorter sides). You can feed these in rubber-cap-first.

The other four have one plastic end and one capped end. The capped ends belong on the corners of the frame, meaning they go in plastic-end first and are harder to feed through.

We found it helpful to have one person feed the rod and one use a small tool to widen the vinyl tunnel the rod was going through.

When it’s done, you’ll have two capped tips in every corner of the frame.

Step 10: Pull the screen edges over each peg

I started in the center of each side of the frame, doing opposite sides in pairs.

In this pic, you can see I pinned the center of each edge first. I then worked my way out from the centers, doing one side then its opposite side. The corners were the last parts to get hooked onto their pegs. This process was easy and didn’t require as much force as some of the tutorial videos seemed to suggest.

With the screen stretched and held in place by the pegs, there is just one major step left…

Step 11: Install the center support bar

This part was easier than I expected. Have your helper hold one end of the support bar in place at the center of the screen. On your end, pop the screen off two pegs (or just never hook them in the first place) and lock the support bar into the frame track.

Don’t worry, the screen sitting on top of the pegs looks worse than it really is…

The bar will now be at an angle and tough to slide into place without a rubber mallet or hammer of some type. Carefully pound it (from the side) along the track until it is centered and straight. (This is why you used the flat screws here, so the support bar can pass over them.)

Take your time – don’t hit the screen!

Ta-dah! Your support bar is done once it’s square with the rest of the frame. Put the screen back on the pegs.

Step 12: Put that bad boy on the wall

Marvel at your accomplishment – looks great!

That’s it! Silver Ticket projector screens are definitely awesome and worth the setup effort, even if you have to manually widen some holes on the frame.

Hue Pro app (aka “best Hue app ever”) now available on iOS!

April 6, 2016 by M.B. Grant 2 Comments

Get the most out of your $60 lightbulbs with this 99 cent app!

Hue Pro – the go-to Philips Hue app on Android for over a year now – just arrived on Apple’s iOS! Philips Hue / iPhone users, rejoice!

Hue Pro is awesome. This little 99 cent app from a third party developer is everything the official Philips Hue app should have been. It’s been the Android Hue app of choice for well over a year, but there was no good equivalent on iOS. Some apps could do a few things well, but none seemed to have complete mastery over the Philips Hue ecosystem the way Hue Pro did.

Here’s what’s great about Hue Pro:

Easy to make presets
Color-picker goodness for each individual bulb
Create and manage groups of bulbs with ease
Rename lights
Cool extras like like lava lamp (lava lamp just makes bulbs gradually shift hue for an ever-changing lighting effect)
Geofencing
Schedules

Make presets with ease! First thing you see in Hue Pro is a list of all your presets. This makes it super easy to instantly change the color of your bulbs. Add your own preset by tapping the + in the upper right corner. Modify each bulb to your liking and save.

Color picker! Instead of selecting a photo and picking colors out of it to create your Hue light palette (it’s as terrible as it sounds) you can just pick colors out of a color picker. It’s so easy in Hue Pro! Pick a lightbulb, pick a color, save, repeat.

Good preset palettes. Hue Pro comes with some excellent color palette presets, and it’s easy to add your own (click the + button). My favorite presets are Blue Rain and Love Shack, but most of ’em are pretty nice. At the bottom is one of my own presets.

Manage all your bulbs. See how there are three colored boxes next to each preset name? Each one represents a bulb attached to this location’s Hue hub. (In other words, I’m in my apartment where I have 3 Hue bulbs.) Over at my house, I’ve got 7.

This screenshot is from the Android version of Hue Pro.

You might notice that some presets don’t even include all the bulbs. That’s because you can toggle the “HS” slider to keep some bulbs off when using a particular preset. Below, I’ve made a preset that only lights the desk lamp.

Great menu design. Over in the hotdog menu (tap the 3 parallel bars in the upper left) you’ll find quick links to the various sections of the Hue Pro app: your presets, bulbs, schedules, settings, and more. Clean and simple – awesome!

The settings page offers tons of tweaks and ways to manage your Hue lights. Hue Pro does more than just change bulb colors: you can adjust your bridge settings, manage geofencing, make backups of your settings, and more.

I’m so happy to see this app land on iOS – great job, Prismatic LLC – what a happy surprise for this iOS user who was wishing for a better Hue app!

Review: Amazon Tap unboxing and hands-on review

April 3, 2016 by M.B. Grant 4 Comments

Last updated: 4/3/2016

Our Amazon Tap rating:

I’m still super in love with my Amazon Echo, so I pre-ordered an Amazon Tap when it was announced and eagerly awaited its March 31st arrival. I was hoping for a slimmer, lighter, less-expensive alternative to my Bose Mini SoundLink and while the Tap lags behind my Bose in terms of audio quality, I found many other reasons to love the Tap over the past several days.

Read on for my hands-on Amazon Tap review!

Amazon Tap speaker is smaller than Echo and portable (up to 9 hours on battery charge)

Amazon Tap review: the Tap at a glance

Tap is basically a smaller, portable Echo with some notable tradeoffs. Its primary function is to be a portable Bluetooth speaker, but it’s greatest weakness is its bass quality. It’s not bad audio, per se, and oddly enough – it seems to have gotten better after using it for several days – but it’s definitely not the room-filling bass you’d get with a Bose Color Mini or a Bose Mini SoundLink (two similarly priced Bluetooth speakers that I already own and use around my home).

The big Tap advantage, of course, are that you get access to all that Alexa has to offer in this speaker (provided you have it on a WiFi network – no Alexa at the beach). It used to be that you had to hit the microphone button to wake up Alexa, but Amazon updated the software to allow Alexa to be “always listening” on a Tap.

You can ask Alexa to announce the weather, ask her to play one of your Amazon Music playlists, ask her adjust your home’s temperature (if you have a smart thermostat that is Alexa compatible such as the Ecobee3), or turn your lights off (like I do every day with my Alexa-integrated Phillips Hue).

There’s more: the Tap holds about 9 hours of battery life, which is competitive with other Bluetooth speakers in its price range. It’s also one of the more portable Bluetooth speakers I’ve ever owned, weighing about 1 pound and with no hard edges and no particular “facing direction”.

» See current Tap stock and prices on Amazon.com

How is Amazon Tap different from the Amazon Echo?

Tap runs on an internal battery charge (up to 9 hours), whereas Echo must always be plugged in to a power source
Tap has a 3.5mm audio in jack – note this is not for headphones, it’s for audio input
Tap is smaller than Echo – the Tap is maybe 65% of the size of an Echo
Tap can be tap activated or voice activated – you can decide whether the Alexa in your Tap is “always listening” or only listens when you press the microphone button. The other on-unit buttons let you skip songs, change volume, turn it on/off. This is true even when the Tap is docked.
Tap is supposedly a slightly, but not significantly, better speaker than Echo (both are 360 degree omnidirectional speakers, though) but I think the bass is lacking
Tap costs less than an Echo

What do Amazon Tap and Amazon Echo have in common?

Both Tap and Echo have access to Alexa, Amazon’s voice-controlled “smart hub” system. You can issue all the same Alexa commands to Tap as you can to Echo (just press the mic button first).
Both are 360 degree omnidirectional speakers
Both support streaming/playing music to the device over Bluetooth and WiFi

Amazon Echo and Amazon Tap side by side – notice the Tap is smaller and has more on-unit controls.

What is Amazon’s Echo Dot for?

It’s a voice activated “control center” that you hook up (via Bluetooth or the included aux cable) to another speaker set, such as a Tap, a Bose system, a Sonos system, or your choice. (I don’t own an Echo Dot). Echo Dot has its own little speaker inside, but the idea is to take the brains of the Echo and transplant them onto whatever (presumably awesome) speaker system you happen to already own.

Think of Echo Dot as Amazon’s way of saying, “You don’t like our speakers? Fine, you can hook this Echo Dot up to your own speakers – and still enjoy our voice-activated Alexa stuff”. It’s the best of both worlds.

As of this writing, the Echo Dot can only be ordered by people who already own an Echo, but you can still check out its features and specs via that link.

How does the Tap audio quality compare to other Bluetooth speakers?

The Tap’s audio quality is about what you’d get from a $120-ish Bluetooth speaker. It lags behind similarly priced speakers from Bose. It’s strength is in the Alexa integration – if you only care about audio quality, get a Dot and hook it up to a better speaker.

Weirdly enough, I thought the Tap sounded borderline terrible right out of the box, but after a weekend of heavy use, I swear it sounds much better. My partner insists this is because it’s gone through the speaker break-in period, which I’d never heard of before but it makes sense and the Internet agrees it’s a thing and the Tap really does sound better after many hours of use.

I also don’t think I just got Stockholmed into accepting it – when I compare side-by-side with my Bose Mini SoundLink after a weekend of use, the difference between them is still noticeable (the Bose sends waves of bass through my desk) but the Tap isn’t THAT far behind – not as much as it was when I first unboxed it.

If audio quality is everything to you, though, then look at the speakers Bose makes. I can personally recommend the Bose SoundLink Color (slightly less expensive than the Tap) and the Bose Mini SoundLink (slightly pricier than the Tap).

The Bose SoundLink Color in particular has a much fuller audio range than the Tap, comparable battery life, and identical on-unit controls. (However, it’s worth mentioning that the SoundLink Color is 50% (half a pound) heavier and slightly larger than the Tap).

Bluetooth Connectivity

The Tap really stands out at connecting over Bluetooth quickly and painlessly.

The best thing? You can wake up the Tap speaker over Bluetooth without first having to press a button on the Tap to turn it on. This means you don’t have to get out of bed to fire up the Tap, just connect to it from your phone. (As if my Echo wasn’t already contributing to a massive amount of laziness around here.) This works whether the Tap is on its base or not.

This ease of connectivity merits mention because of the many struggles I’ve had in the past with getting my family’s various iPhones and my partner’s LG to sync with various Bluetooth devices, including my Subaru Forester, his (incredible sounding) Bose SoundLink III and my own (beloved) Bose Mini SoundLink.

Bluetooth can be janky and annoying to get connected, so when the Tap just quickly accepted my phone (and my partner’s phone) it was like wow.

Amazon Tap unboxing

Just like its Echo ancestor the Amazon Tap arrives in a beautifully packed box. The narrow box to the right of the speaker unit contains the charge cable, wall adapter, charge base, and a small instruction booklet.

Inside the box

Amazon Tap speaker hardware
charging cradle
USB cable for charging via cradle or Tap unit
wall-outlet adapter so you can charge from a traditional electric socket

Tap’s charge base

Something I noticed right away with the Tap is how perfectly it docks with its cradle. With similar Bluetooth speakers, I’ve encountered occasional ambiguity over whether the speaker was actually docked or not.

Not so with Tap – it’s pretty much impossible to set it on the base in a way that makes it look properly docked without it actually being docked.

You can also get extra bases and charge cables on Amazon.com

Top of Tap unit (audio controls)

Play/Pause
Volume up/down
Previous song / next song
Microphone (wake Alexa up)
Row of 5 LED lights indicate when Alexa is listening

Back of Tap unit (pairing and power)

On the back of the unit, from top to bottom:

power button
3.5mm audio jack (so you can take audio input from another source, such as a tablet or TV)
a Mini USB charge port (use as an alternative to the charging dock base)
pairing button that is used to enter Bluetooth pairing mode or to help it get on your WiFi network.

The narrow port above the pairing button is the Micro USB port. You can charge the Tap via its cradle or plug it into the charge cable directly. Not having the bring the cradle with for charging makes the Tap even more portable.

If you already have an Echo

Think of Tap like a second generation Echo instead of an addition to an existing family. Echo and Tap do not communicate with each other.

I know, I was bummed about this too, and there’s a chance that it might change with a firmware update in the future. I mean, why not? Why not have the option to have the Tap listen for Alexa commands as long as it’s plugged in or on its base? I could see some potential for conflict if they both use the same wake word, but this problem doesn’t seem insurmountable.

Taking Amazon Tap along for a ride

My Tap is surprisingly well-traveled for having only been in my possession for a few days. Already, it has watched over several games of pool down in my apartment’s rec room and ridden along for many miles on a muddy bike trail.

Below, I stuffed the Tap speaker into my bike bag, turned up the volume, and became the only party bike on the trail Saturday morning. If you’re heading out with a group of people this summer, be it for a picnic, a trip to the beach, a party at someone’s backyard pool, a ride on the bike trail – you might get a kick out of having the Tap along to play some music for your group. My partner and I definitely did.

What could Tap do better?

It’s a competent entry into the low-end Bluetooth speaker market, so my wishlist is pretty short on this one:

Better bass – I am all about that bass, and even after the break-in period, the Tap isn’t quite where similarly priced offerings from Bose are on bass levels.

(I used to have an item here for “let it be always listening like the normal Echo” but Amazon added that, so this list got shorter!)

The bottom line

It’s a solid speaker with a lot of nice extras thanks to Alexa integration. If you already have an Echo and want to keep doing things you do with the Echo, you can keep doing them with a Tap.

Mostly, it’s about tradeoffs: with a comparably priced Bose, you’ll get richer bass but you won’t get access to Alexa features and I think the Bose physical designs are somewhat less portable than the Tap.

» Check out the Amazon Tap on Amazon.com

Amazon Echo remote is coming back May 1st, 2016!

March 13, 2016 by M.B. Grant Leave a Comment

The Amazon Echo remote is coming back in May! Woohoo!

Gravy train’s ending, eBay resellers

The Echo remote is awesome, especially if you use your Echo for playing music. It’s much easier to press up/down next song/previous song or pause on a remote than it is to speak the verbal command equivalent.

The little magnetic holder makes it easy to keep it on your bed frame or desk or wherever it sticks. It’s also great for trolling people (run into the bathroom with it, whisper “Simon says, ‘You are a poopy head'” into it and Alexa will repeat it for whomever is sitting near the Echo). Okay, more seriously, it’s great for issuing commands quietly without having to yell across the room.

Clearly everyone else thought they were awesome, too, because Amazon ran out around the holiday season last year and never restocked (I checked constantly). In the meantime, people sold them on eBay for $100-$200. I now have a second Echo in my weekend place, and wow, do I wish I had a second remote to go with it – but I don’t $200 wish-I-had-a-second one.

I actually considered eBaying mine while the selling was good, but I didn’t want to live without mine for an unknown amount of time (forever?!) while Amazon got its remote factory back up and running. That’s how good the remote is! My remote gets a ton of use, and when its batteries died and it took me a week to replace them, I actually stopped using my Echo for music because it was such a hassle to interact with the music player using voice alone.

The remote doesn’t seem to have changed at all from its 2015 version. It’s a good little device the way it is, but many of us wish you could pair multiple remotes with a single Echo. Given the “over the air” updateability of the Echo, though, perhaps this could change someday without having to upgrade hardware.

So there’s the big news for this weekend: Echo remotes are coming back in May! That’s less than 2 months. You’ve made it this long without one, you can make it another 6 weeks. But given how popular they were before, and how much people were willing to pay for them on eBay once Amazon’s remote production went on hiatus, I’d strongly suggest preordering yours right now.

How we’ve missed you, Echo remote <3

Buying a mattress online: Yes, you can totally buy a great bed on Amazon!

February 6, 2016 by M.B. Grant 4 Comments

We closed on the weekend place – yay! We need a bed there – now!

Unfortunately, buying a mattress the old fashioned way is – how to put this nicely? – not fun. The store is far, price doesn’t really correlate with comfort, mattresses are expensive, salespeople generally rub me the wrong way, and I hate waiting on a delivery window… especially in a new home that is otherwise empty.

I had this crazy idea: could I just buy a bed on Amazon, get it delivered to my city apartment, stuff it into my car, and haul it over to my house on my own time?

The answer is simple: YES!

Meet my bed from the Internet:

The comfy mattress

There are several companies competing for your online mattress moolah these days. The key players right now are Tuft and Needle and Casper, but they were a bit spendier than I had hoped to go for this weekend getaway home, and reviews on both seem to think they’re firm and I’m not a firm mattress person. So I looked at cheaper offerings – and I mean a lot cheaper – and settled on the well-reviewed Signature Sleep Contour.

For $250 I was expecting something a half step above a cardboard box from IKEA bookshelf but the reviews were so good I couldn’t resist. Also, shipping was free (thanks, Prime) and returning within 30 days would be free (plus none of that store credit instead of refund that you find at most mattress stores).

I rolled the dice and ordered it.

Manufacturer’s photo showing the Signature Sleep mattress in all its glory. The mattress is reversible (top and bottom are indistinguishable).

Unboxing

Getting the mattress out of its cardboard sarcophagus was the most difficult part of its setup. The cardboard box it ships in is thick and tough as nails, and we had limited cutting tools at the new place. We managed to saw it open eventually.

Once out of the box, it’s just a vacuum packed mattress inside a huge plastic bag, rolled up into a tight cylinder. Roll it out flat, cut the bag, and fwooosh – it fills up and takes its final form in a few seconds.

My new mattress, sans plastic vacuum wrapper.

What it feels like

Firmness is super subjective, so take my analysis with a grain of salt.

I would call this a firm-ish mattress. I’ve certainly slept on firmer. If firm-to-soft were a horizontal spectrum, this one would be be slightly to the left of the middle. If you’re worried about it being too firm (as I was, I prefer a soft mattress), you can (and should) add a plush mattress pillow-top pad to give it some more squish. It makes a huge difference. My waist is narrower than my hips and shoulders, so I tend to prefer a softer bed for complete support.

I think its odorless and I’m usually the first to notice a smell, no matter how subtle. If it has an odor, it was quickly stifled by the mattress pad, protector, and sheets I wrapped the bed in.

Sharing the bed

I haven’t observed any of my usual “sharing a bed” gripes with this mattress when laying on it with another person. No rolling towards the middle and I couldn’t feel normal nighttime movements from the other person.

Initial skepticisms

I’m super picky about what I sleep on. I don’t do air mattresses, sofas, floors, cots, roll out beds, most hotel beds feel like thin crap to me, etc.

All previous mattresses I’ve purchased came into my life via a trip to the mattress store. That’s just How It Was Done In Those Days and I thought if I was going to spend 8+ hours a day on the thing, I ought to lay on it for ten minutes first.

That’s why buying a mattress online was the thing I struggled with the most in this whole buy-my-bed-online adventure. Interestingly, Sleep Like the Dead found that online mattress shoppers actually experience less dissatisfaction with their online mattress purchase than in-store mattress shoppers do.

Ultimately, the ability to return the mattress is what won me over. Also the fact the house needs a guest bed someday, too, so this one could get demoted if it didn’t work out. So far, though, I am quite happy with my Signature Sleep mattress. Like, I’m actually excited to go back to my weekend house so I can sleep on it again!

Pros

Inexpensive as far as mattresses go
You can return the mattress if you don’t like it.
Ease of delivery – with Prime it’ll come in 2 days and you don’t have to be present to receive it
In its shipping box, the mattress is much easier to transport than a typical mattress (until you unbox it, then it becomes normal mattress sized and doesn’t roll or flatten again).
I slept great on it!

Cons

I didn’t get to lay on the mattress before buying it, so I wasted a lot of brain space worrying about how it would feel and debating this purchase
The mattress in its box weighs about 80 pounds. You may need a helper to get it into a car, and it’s pretty long so it’s not going to fit into your ordinary sedan. I was able to haul mine in a 2013 Subaru Forester with the back seats laid flat.
There’s a thick braided cord around the border of the mattress, which I don’t notice because of my 3″ thick Lucid brand plush mattress topper (see further down in this article for a review), but you might notice it if you don’t add a topper.

The plushy mattress pad

To make my bed softer and cuddlier, I added a ~$99 Lucid 3″ high bed topper.

I now own two of these wonders: the first one is at my apartment. These toppers are super plush, survive the washing machine intact, and don’t seem to lose much height or plushiness over time.

Lucid mattress topper: look how plush this thing is! It gets squished down with the sheets and mattress protector on but the softness holds up.

Pillows

I bought mine in person at my local Fred Meyer (big box store here in the Pacific Northwest) a while ago: a couple of Coleman brand standard size pillows (which I can’t find online for the life of me). I like fat, heavy pillows.

My boyfriend loves his Coop Home Goods memory foam pillow. I am not a fan of memory foam for sleeping. It feels too gooshy and smells a little funny for the first few weeks, but it’s a different-feeling blend of firmness and squishiness that might be right for you if you dislike the feel of common store-bought pillows. I do like this pillow for sitting up in bed, though.

The Coop home goods memory foam pillow is moldable and supportive.

The storage-friendly frame

For the bed frame (“box spring” included), I snagged another Handy Living queen size bed frame & box spring from Amazon.

Handy Living queen size bedframe is a box spring and bed frame in one. The storage underneath this thing is crazy, especially if you’re used to not being able to put much under your traditional bed frame.

Apparently box springs aren’t necessary anymore, which was news to me when I bought my first copy of this bed frame in October 2015. I was skeptical of the whole “no box spring” thing but I was quickly won over by the built-in springs and the cavernous amounts of under-bed storage this thing offers.

I have this same frame under my apartment’s mattress (a mattress that originally came with a box spring) and I can’t tell the difference. Chuck the box spring and get one of these!

bedframe_assembled

Setup

It’s heavy when it’s still in its box, but easy to assemble: about 20-30 minutes and you’ll definitely want two people and a rubber mallet. It is easy to slide around on the floor for positioning once built.

Storage

The under bed storage is incredible and one of the biggest reasons to buy this bed frame. At 18″ high, big plastic storage bins fit perfectly underneath. There are no diagonal supports under this bed frame like this cheaper (and popular) bed frame by Sleep Master. Those diagonal supports will cut into storage space, so if you want to really cram a lot of stuff underneath go up a price bracket and get the Handy Living bed frame instead. It’s worth the additional $100. (Also, the Sleep Master squeaks, I learned while sleeping at a friend’s place.)

Durability & usability

After 4 months of daily use (for a variety of activities, not all of which are sleeping), I have yet to hear a squeak out of it. It doesn’t wobble and the bed doesn’t slide off of it after I hooked the mattress cover over the corners of the bed frame. It doesn’t have those painful little feet that stick out for your toes to jam against as you make the bed. Ordinary length bed skirts fit perfectly so no one has to see all the junk you stuffed under the bed.

Pros

Tons of storage underneath your bed!
Works with an ordinary bed skirt
Easy setup
Cylindrical recessed legs don’t hurt your feet if you happen to kick/step on them like some older-style bed frame feet do
Doesn’t squeak or wobble

Cons

None really, it’s fantastic. I’ve never had to take it apart, though, so there could be some surprises there.
No headboard attachment – I don’t care for a headboard, but maybe you do

Mattress protector

I kept this one simple and grabbed Amazon’s best selling mattress protector, the SafeRest Premium Hypoallergenic waterproof mattress protector.

Wrap it up in a mattress protector and keep out fluids, mites, dust, and bacteria.

It fit great and looks great – and for ~$30, it’s perfect.

Sheets

I fitted my bed with a new set of Fieldcrest sheets from Target. I’ve been in love with Fieldcrest for over a decade and I like touching the sheets in the store before I buy them.

If I had to buy my sheets online, I would go over to Target.com and buy either the damask set or one of their higher thread count sheets, or I’d get this highly rated ~$70 650 thread count Egyptian cotton blend sheet set on Amazon.

A highly-rated 650 thread count sheet set on Amazon.com

Be careful buying sheets on Amazon, though: a lot of their sheet inventory seems to be misleadingly marked with numbers implying thread count or words implying fabric blends that aren’t true to the product. I wouldn’t pay $25 for a set of queen sheets and expect good quality – the $60-$90 price range has treated me well.

The bottom line

This is hands-down the way to buy a mattress and put a bed together. I’m super happy with my bed from the Internet and I’m glad I skipped all the mattress store hassles.

Here it is in all its glory:

My favorite (and most useful) Amazon Echo commands

December 25, 2015 by M.B. Grant Leave a Comment

As my Amazon Echo turns 3 months old, certain commands have bubbled up to the surface and become routine parts of my day. These are my favorites Echo commands (and what they do).

“Alexa, turn the lights on” / “Alexa, turn the lights off”
Alexa turns my Philips Hue lights on and off by request – see my Hue review here.

“Alexa, start a timer for 30 minutes”
Useful for numerous things including, but not limited to: cooking, laundry, hair dyeing, calling Mom in X minutes, and time-boxing tasks.

“Alexa, how much time left on the timer?”
Particularly useful since there’s no clock displayed.

“Alexa, play playlist Sleepy Time”
I listen to this playlist as I fall asleep every night. I had to first create and populate the playlist in Amazon Music, but it after I set it up it was instantly available for my Amazon Echo to find by name and play from.

“Alexa, set a sleep timer for 45 minutes”
Alexa turns off the music when the sleep timer expires. The sleep timer doesn’t ring any alarms, as long as you’re careful to not accidentally set a normal timer instead (like I did once. Once.)

“Alexa, what time is it?”
Sounds silly since I’m usually facing a phone or a computer, but in the middle of the night I’ve used this as the laziest timepiece ever.

“Alexa, trigger bedtime lights”
Activates an IFTTT recipe I created that turns my three Hue lamps to a purple hex code #5353c6 (it’s easy to hook up IFTTT to Echo, go here and follow the steps)

“Alexa, trigger find my phone”
Activates another IFTTT recipe I created that calls my phone.

Of course, there’s tons more you can do with an Echo (see my more detailed review here), these are just the phrases I tend to use over and over.

Review: Amazon Echo is the smart robot friend you always wanted

December 7, 2015 by M.B. Grant 6 Comments

Last updated: 12/07/2015

Our Amazon Echo rating:

Amazon Echo at a glance

amazon_echo_review_main_hardware_and_remote

It’s voice activated! It plays music on demand! It lets me control my Hue lights without touching anything!

It hardly needs an introduction, the way Amazon’s been advertising it. Amazon Echo is an interactive voice-controlled hub that can do a lot of things, like look up information, play music, and control other home automation systems you might have. It’s always doing more, too, because Amazon rolls out regular updates.

Here are the things I mostly use it for (but there are way, way more things it can do than this).

Control connected home automation technologies, including Philips Hue smart lights and WeMo smart switches
Play music from your Amazon Music library
Set a timer (alert you when time is up), or sleep timer (stop playing music in X minutes)
Manage your (cloud-based) to-do list and shopping list
Request audible traffic and weather reports
Enable Skills, which are sort of like “apps” for Alexa (they give it even more specialized capabilities)
IFTTT support adds even MORE stuff Echo can do: see popular IFTT Echo recipes here

This 30 second clip by Amazon shows it in action.

(PS: The Glitch Mob puts on the best live show I’ve seen in years. Good choice of music, Amazon!)

Pros

It understands me better than I expected, despite my usual struggles with voice-interactive technology. There’s even a “Voice Training” section in the app for fine-tuning its ability to understand you.
Pretty good music player: the sound is better than I expected, and the convenience of controlling it by voice means I use it for routine playlists pretty much every day (“Alexa, play playlist Sleepy Time”)
Unobtrusive design: the Echo looks nice, has a small footprint, ships with a long power cord, and the adapter isn’t huge (it doesn’t block the outlet next to it on the receptacle)
Easy setup: plug it in and it finds your network. Setup time start to finish is only a few minutes, and if it’s too loud or too quiet during setup, just twist the ring on top
Optional remote (sold separately) has proven more useful than I expected, allowing me to issue commands quietly from anywhere in my apartment
Amazon frequently patches in more capabilities, so there’s some hope that the hardware won’t be out of date in a month
Voice control over Hue lights! “Alexa, turn the lights to 20%” and “Alexa, turn the lights on” are now words I say daily
Voice control over devices plugged into a WeMo smart outlet! “Alexa, turn the fan off”
Bluetooth pairing: pair your phone to Echo over Bluetooth so you can play music, including Spotify, from your phone

Cons

Limited capabilities with home automation systems: once you want to go beyond on/off, there isn’t as much you can do. IFTTT support?
Amazon Prime Music is limited in its offerings: your mileage may vary, but I couldn’t find a lot of the songs I went looking for in here. And when I did, they were often arbitrarily “free” to stream as a Prime user or only available if I purchased them, and there didn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to which songs were which
Starting playlists by voice is awesome, but it’ll take some time to set them up as playlists in Amazon Music if you aren’t already using the program for your music sorting
Not as good a speaker as similarly-priced offerings from Bose: my Bose Mini definitely sounds better, with richer bass being the most noticeable difference. However, the Echo ends up being my default music player by merit of being able to start it by voice
Must be plugged in to operate: you can’t charge it up and take it somewhere else for a little while like you can with Bose Mini
You have to call it “Alexa” or “Amazon” and for some reason, it just irks me that I can’t rename it
Doesn’t work with Spotify or iTunes (yet?): alas, that’s where I get my music from (and in the case of iTunes, I’m pretty entrenched with 10 years worth of playlists and music purchases). You can pair with your phone over Bluetooth to get access to these services, but it’s not built-in to Echo.

Hands-on Amazon Echo review

TL;DR: It’s great! If you love tech toys you’ll love it. I you can find it on one of Amazon’s occasional promotions for $149 grab it, it’s worth it.

» Check current Amazon Echo stock and price on Amazon.com «

I’ve had my Echo for nearly two months now and I’m still discovering new tricks and learning new routines to use with it. This isn’t a piece of technology you set up once and forget – Amazon is keeps adding new abilities to the Echo, and to get the most of it you’ll want to stay current on what it can do. You won’t learn (and make habit of) everything it can do in an afternoon.

The blue ring lights up in response to you saying, “Alexa…” to indicate the device heard you.

What’s gone well

Ease of use

It’s just easy to use, simple as that. The setup was fast and controlling it with my voice is a snap.

Judging by many of the earlier reviews of the Echo online, it has an enthusiastic following among people with disabilities and/or limited mobility and I can see why. The Echo has significantly reduced how often I have to flick switches and fumble around in the dark for a light switch or my phone. I don’t have to walk across a room or lean over a table or perform any potentially tricky maneuvers to operate light switches, and I never have to walk around in the dark.

Voice activation

I was initially hesitant to bring home an Amazon Echo because I’ve had a not-insignificant amount of trouble with voice-navigated stuff in the past. I’ve struggled with phone menus, Siri, and speech to text to the point that my attitude towards all things voice-activated is closer to, “Ehh, f— it” than anything else at this point in my life.

The only thing that convinced me I would be able to reliably interact with an Echo was trying out a friend’s Echo. (I do try to enunciate when I speak to my Echo.)

For anyone wanting more info on my “accent”: I grew up west of Chicago (as did my parents) and my upbringing was in English. I am female, but no one’s accused me of having a high-pitched voice. My friends here in Seattle tell me I have a slight accent. Alexa understands me about 80% of the time, and (if Alexa’s history is any indication) the most common misunderstandings are song titles, which are (often) outside normal speaking patterns anyway.

So, yeah, I’m impressed on this front. I don’t know how reliable it is with other accents, but I’ve been surprised at its accuracy with mine.

Philips Hue integration

Hands-free control of my Philips Hue lights (link to my review) was probably the biggest reason I got an Echo.

I wanted to walk in the door and say, “Alexa, turn the lights on” and boy howdy, is it great. (I do the same when leaving). I also love crawling into bed and saying, “Alexa, dim the lights” and then, when I’m ready to fall asleep, say, “Alexa, turn the lights off”. It’s such a pampered, lazy thing to admit to liking, but I grew up with Star Trek and I love this stuff. 🙂

Setup was easy: just say, “Alexa, discover my devices” and hit the button on the Hue bridge. It was easy to group my lightbulbs into a single group (named “lights”) via the Alexa app.

Audio capabilities better than expected, but not Bose quality

Traditionally, I did (or do) most of my idle music listening through my portable Bose Mini speaker, and the Amazon Echo is definitely not as good a speaker. The weaker bass is the most noticeable difference.

However, as soon as I set up a couple playlists on Amazon Music I found myself using my Amazon Echo for music more than I thought I would. “Alexa, play Sleepy Time playlist” is so easy, and I can follow that up with a sleep timer, “Alexa, set a sleep timer for 45 minutes” so that it shuts off sometime after I fall asleep.

I find myself starting and stopping music all the time, and it’s definitely more convnient than opening my app, turning on the Bose, and selecting the playlist I want.

Easy to mute it

Just press the mic button on top of the device.

I found this out when I got a phone call while my Echo was busy DJing. I had to mute the Echo quickly and without saying, “Alexa, stop” into my phone call.

Shhh, Alexa. Glad I could shush you without having to issue a vocal command.

The Alexa app is great

The “Alexa” companion app (available on iOS and Android) is polished and fully featured. Nearly everything you can do over voice you can do or access through the app.

You can use the app to:

manage Echo settings
group devices (like Hue bulbs) and name those groups
pair over Bluetooth
get tutorials / tips on things you can ask Alexa to do
view, cancel, pause in-progress timers
give feedback on Echo and the app

The app also keeps a history of every command you’ve given it. In this history, you can mark whether a command was properly understood by Alexa. Presumably, Amazon will collect all this data, swizzle it around in a big data vat, and use it to further improve Alexa’s voice recognition.

Optional Echo remote is useful

The optional Echo remote is also very useful, allowing you to issue commands quietly and from places the Echo wouldn’t normally be able to hear you. Just hold the mic button and speak into it (you don’t even have to use the wake word). You can also use the remote buttons to raise and lower the volume, pause the currently playing song, and navigate backwards and forwards in a playlist. The remote comes with a magnetic mount, so you can keep it tucked away somewhere convenient.

The Amazon Echo remote is sold separately, but was worth the extra cost. I keep mine near my bed.

The only downside to the remote is you can only have one per Echo (but maybe Amazon will change that someday).

What’s the bottom of the Echo look like?

It’s flat, rubbery, and has a cut-away for the power cable. The bottom makes a nice grip on most surfaces, but it has a tendency to collect lint.

What hasn’t gone well

Just a few things…

The first Echo I got was damaged (but Amazon made it right)

My first Echo arrived dented! Boo, hiss. This unit also seemed to have problems identifying what direction my voice was coming from.

On the bright side, Amazon shipped me a replacement within a day of requesting a return.

However, Amazon shipped me a new one immediately (with 1-day shipping!) before I even sent back my first one. The seamless transition from my dented Echo to my replacement Echo was great and went a long way to easing my annoyance.

First Echo I got was set to deafening volume by default

The setup voice was LOUD. Sorry, neighbors. 🙁

When I first unboxed my Echo I didn’t know I could twist the top ring on the hardware to lower the volume. I ended up trying to wrap towels around it to survive the setup process and lower the volume the only way I knew how with, “Alexa, turn it down”. I don’t know why Amazon even lets an Echo use the max volume during setup.

In the grand scheme of things this isn’t a huge flaw, but it made a very poor first impression. My neighbors would have been right to bust down my door and throw the Echo through the nearest window.

Amazon Prime Music is somewhat limited in selection, takes setup to switch over from another service/program

There are a lot of good things to say about Amazon Prime Music. I like the already-created playlists (so you don’t have to scramble to assemble a Christmas playlist one hour before your party), no ads, unlimited song skips, and no apparent restrictions on when you can play what. Sweet! If you already have Prime, you have Prime music, so that’s nice, too.

But when it came time to find my music, things got a bit trickier. Maybe I have more eclectic taste than I realized, but I struggled to name songs that Echo would a) recognize and b) play in full (not 30 second preview). When it does find a song I know, it’s like, aw yiss! because the audio is pretty good and controlling it through voice alone is sweet. (Carbon Based Lifeforms, if you’re reading this… add more of your awesome music to Amazon Prime!)

I had to put in a bit of work upfront to download Amazon Music application onto my PC, upload songs I’ve already paid for because I bought them on iTunes (thank goodness these could be uploaded without DRM grief or I’d be pretty mad), and build them into new Amazon Music-based playlists. Once I did that setup work, though, I could then tell my Echo to play those playlists by name, which is super awesome and works great once it’s all set up.

But then I found Prime Playlists Recommends for Me… Go to Amazon Prime Music in your browser and Amazon will recommend playlists based on songs you’ve purchased in the past! I haven’t bought much music off Amazon, to be honest, but these are pretty good playlists so I wish the Echo had made more of an effort to surface them for me. I only discovered them while doing research for this article. 😉

For random songs, though, it can be fun to see who can name the most ridiculous song to see if Echo will play it. (It has the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” in full… just putting it out there.)

Buying albums over Echo doesn’t work for me for not-obvious reasons

I can’t get “Buy this album” to work on my Echo at all. I can preview an album, but there’s something wrong with my Amazon billing info (which works for everything else I buy on Amazon and has One-Click shopping enabled), but neither Alexa nor Amazon’s billing interface can tell me what the problem is.

At this point I’ve sunk enough time into trying to decipher the root cause and I’ve given up on making purchases through Echo for now, which is too bad because I think Amazon was hoping I would buy a lot of things through my Echo.

I wish I could rename it

Mostly because I’m vain and want to personalize it. But also: I might be the only person on Earth who regularly Skype-chats with another Echo owner, and it does start to get old after I turn off my friend’s lights on accident through video chat (haha).

To get that last star…

Almost there…

I rate my Amazon Echo 4/5 and to get that last star, I’d want to see at least a few of the following wishlist items added either to the software or a new generation of the hardware:

More sophisticated control over my home automation systems. I’d like to say “Alexa, I’m leaving” (or some equivalent) and have her do a number of things at once: stop playing music, turn Hue lights to off, and turn my WeMo device off.
Integration with Spotify and iTunes, since those are the music services / programs I’m already significantly bought into and I’d love to control them with the same voice commands I use with the Amazon Music playlists
Better bass in the speaker: not quite a Bose Mini replacement, but oh so close
Bigger selection in Amazon Prime Music: it’s not even close to Spotify’s and the randomness to which songs can be streamed and which have to be bought is irritating
A rechargeable battery: Maybe I’m just getting greedy now, but I love the portability of my Bose Mini (I bring it everywhere)

More Amazon Echo reviews, questions & answers

Amazon Echo Review: Top Questions Answered! (15 min YouTube video)
LoveMyEcho.com (dedicated fan site)
Gizmodo Echo review
The best Amazon Echo review, in which a grumpy writer tells us how much he loves his Alexa (amazon.com)

The bottom line

The Echo is awesome, and I think we’re only at the beginning in terms of what this device will someday be capable of. Don’t let my bad experiences with a dent and not finding my eclectic weirdo music in Amazon Prime get you down, it’s absolutely worth its price. It’s a ton of fun to play around with in the first few weeks, and the usefulness only improves as you learn more commands for it and add supported home automation systems.

If you have Hue lights, WeMo switches, or any of the other numerous systems Echo intergrates with, you’ll love controlling everything by voice. If you love doing anything with music in the background, you’ll love the ease of starting up a playlist by voice. If you have mobility limitations or an awkward home layout, you might find the Echo plus a few smart home devices makes routine tasks a lot easier.

I suspect I’ve still got more to discover about my Amazon Echo, and I’m looking forward to it.

Should you get it? If you’ve got Prime and a love for current technology, I say go for it, especially if you catch it on discount (Amazon occasionally drops the price to $150).

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