On Wednesday night, I activated my Amazon Echo for the first time. And my apartment will never be the same.
For those unfamiliar, Amazon's Echo is a tall black cylindrical WiFi speaker that can sit anywhere in your home and answer questions, set timers, play music, keep you up to date with sports and the news, and much more.
All you have to do is address the speaker — it responds to "Alexa" or "Amazon" — and ask for what you want. Echo does the rest.
Activation was quick and easy. I just plugged the cylinder into a socket, connected it to WiFi, and I was ready to go.
Once it was set up, Amazon provided a great tutorial on the questions you can ask the Echo — actually letting you test these features instead of just barraging you with a full list and expecting you to experiment with them on your own time. I streamed some songs from Prime Music, asked about the weather, and listened to news stories from a local radio station.
After the tutorial ended, I wondered how much I would actually use this thing.
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But as my girlfriend and I cooked dinner last night, we used it to set timers and alarms. After dinner, we asked the Echo to add grocery items to our shopping list.
This morning, instead of checking my phone for the time or the weather, I simply asked the Echo. And it even translated Fahrenheit to Celsius, since my Canadian girlfriend still doesn't understand the US temperature scale. (Even Siri can't do temperature conversion, for some reason.)
It's fun to personalize the Echo, too. I linked my Amazon account so I can restock on things I bought or buy things from my shopping history. I also chose my favorite sports teams so if I ever aske Echo about sports news, it'll only be stuff that matters to me.
But the most appealing aspect of the Echo is that it feels futuristic. Thanks to its seven different microphones with far-field voice recognition, it can hear me from anywhere in my apartment, even when music's playing. And with its 360º omni-directional audio grille, I can hear it, too, whenever it's talking back.
A few things the Echo can't do just yet: It can't remove items from a grocery list, and it can't find you food recipes online and read them to you. There's probably a litany of other things it can't do. But to me, these shortcomings don't mar the overall experience of owning this device.
Even if you don't use Siri, Google Now, or Cortana all too much, I urge you to give the Amazon Echo a try. It feels like Amazon nailed how virtual assistants are meant to work: anywhere in your home, with minimal input and effort on your part. Even though iPhone 6S owners can activate Siri by just saying "Hey Siri," the phone doesn't always hear me and Siri often misunderstands my request. Siri even interrupts me sometimes if I don't talk fast enough or if I don't wait for the audio cue to start speaking. In my brief interaction with the Echo, I've experienced none of these problems. If Apple wants to improve Siri, it should start looking at the Echo for inspiration.
Overall, I'm very impressed with Amazon's offering. The hardware is slick and minimalist, and the free companion app is easy to use in case you feel like adjusting your alarms, lists or settings. It feels like the ultimate version of Siri, or what Siri could have been if Apple made standalone hardware for the service. I'm really excited to keep playing with the Echo, and I'm looking forward to seeing how Amazon improves this device moving forward.
