Amazon Echo Speaker

Meet the new Siri in a can, a voice-controlled speaker that can answer all your questions! Over the last couple of years Amazon has brought out most gadgets – e-readers, smartphones and set-top boxes like the Fire phone and Fire TV, the Amazon Echo is completely different though.

If you think about it, it’s a little bit creepy; it’s a Pringle-shaped speaker that has complete voice control! You can ask it for anything; a recipe, weather update, a to-do list, set an alarm or even a news update, you won’t have to pick up your smartphone or press a button, pretty soon even your microwave will be keeping track of your every move.

So the device is like a hyped up Siri or Google Now for your whole house, but is another voice-controlled gadget a good thing? Yes, it can do cool things like add bread and milk to your shopping list or play any Rock n Roll track for you by simply saying the “wake word” (Alexa), but still anyone who is comfortable with the idea of an always on, WiFi enable black cylinder that listens to everything they say will probably be the first victim in the cyber-war of the future when technology takes over the world.

Okay so the Amazon Echo isn't that bad, it obviously has some great key features that can make your everyday life so much easier like:
Easy setup
You can connect to your home network with a simple setup, guided by the free app on Fire OS and Android plus desktop and iOS browsers.
Fast WiFi
Echo is always ready to respond, because it is always on and connected to your WiFi.
Bluetooth-enabled
You can stream your favourite music on services like Spotify and iTunes from your phone or tablet.
Ask anything
Just say the “wake word” Alexa and you can do multiple things:
- News, weather and information
- Music
- Alarms, timers and lists
- Questions and answers

Echo is always getting smarter, its brain is in the cloud running on Amazon web services so it’s always learning and adding over time. The more you use Echo, the more it will adapt to your speech patterns, vocabulary and personal preferences – reminds me of when disaster strikes in I,Robot.

If you think about it the only appliances that won’t track you is your dishwasher and toaster and I’m sure soon enough you’ll have a toaster that can talk to you and make sure your bread is perfectly toasted according to you. 

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Written By: Christine Romans
CopyWriter at The Computer Guyz Cape Town