Technology Review: Amazon Echo

Dear Readers,

I have decided to review Amazon Echo in the hopes of providing information to those wondering about its usability to those with speech as well is physical disabilities. For those unfamiliar with the technology, Echo (a.k.a. Alexa) is Amazon's own voice recognition service that allows people to listen to music, make lists and control their home simply by using their voice. I received Alexa as one of my Christmas gifts and after just two weeks using it- I LOVE IT!

Here are just some of my favorite functions:

1. Access to the radio- Since I am unable to use the radio in a traditional sense (through the tuning  of a dial, I love that the technology allows me to turn on the radio to  listen to my favorite stations by voice. I  simply say listen to 97.1  FM to hear that channel. This is especially convenient when I want to listen to the radio from from bed at night.
2. Sleep Timer-  This makes listening to the radio even more convenient because I can set a duration of time and it will automatically shut itself off
3. Access to Audible- Up until this point, I have been listening to my  audiobooks using Siri on my iPhone; that has worked, but Amazon Echo is better because of its speaker sound and volume.
4. Ability to change volume setting by voice- Alexa allows  users to adjust speaker volume settings simply by saying "increase" or "decrease". Additionally, you can change the volume setting by saying "volume" followed by a number ranging from 1-10. (1 being the lowest volume setting; 10 being the highest)
5. Connection to Pandora, IHeartRadio, Amazon Prime, podcast libraries, and Bluetooth
    a) Pandora- With a Pandora account, users can select certain music genre to play and use the "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" command to improve your personal station.
    b) IHeartRadio-similarly, this channel allows users to personalize music based on different genre, music artists etc.. The station also gives you access to live radio stations such as KLove, Wash 97.1 FM
   c) Amazon Prime-Echo obviously has access to Amazon Prime own music library; unfortunately, this means you have to have a membership.. I believe it's Amazon's way of competing with applications such as iTunes etc.. The membership is $99/year and provides access to videos, Kindle books and selected Amazon music. On the flipside, you can still get access to music you may have bought through Amazon, simply say "play music" or specify the specific album or song you wish to be played.
  d) Podcast libraries- Alexa also has access hundreds of podcast users can listen to, simply saying the podcast name you are looking for.
  e) Bluetooth access- Hooking  Amazon Echo via Bluetooth allows users to access music they have on their phone. The one negative is that you can't simply play music by specifying a title, it will automatically search for music on Amazon Prime. Users must select their music by clicking on their phone. However once this is done, they can change songs on the album or artist simply by saying "next" or "previous".

6. Quick Training- This feature allows users to train Alexa to respond quicker to their voice by going through more training of specific commands that Amazon Echo frequently hears. The more you train, the better it gets..
7. The Amazon Echo website and phone application- This website is especially helpful because it allows me to access and change settings and stations by voice through the computer if the technology is having a particularly hard time understanding me. The Apple application provides remote access when users are not close by to the device

Common Commands

Here is a list of commands I use:

1. "Alexa"- By default, this is command that wakes up the device; it lets Amazon Echo know you want it to do something..
2. "Listen to.." or "Play."- this command starts specified music or applications linked to the technology.
3. "Increase" or "Decrease"- As explained earlier in this post, this command adjusts the volume setting to a specified preference.
4. "Start", "Stop", "Resume"- These voice  functions play or stop stations or apps in use on the device.
5. "Sleep Timer"- this command sets a duration of time to stop the current application or music from playing.

As you see, there's a lot the technology can do, it is continually being updated to include more applications and commands