Alexa? Questions...

Please, how many of you have Alexa? My cousins are badgering us to get it. They listen to music, podcasts etc. I cannot see the point. What does it cost? Are there really any proper benefits?
Convince me or not please.

 

My ol;d boss had one in his office and when you were talking to him she would butt in.

I hate any technology that thinks it knows what is best for me.

But maybe once you get used to it its not bad.

Can you tell her to do the washing up?
If not I'm not bothering.

 

@Logan You have this don't you.

We would not have it.

 

I genuinely cannot stand the thought of it - I would feel so invaded! That's probably not much help though

 

The Amazon Alexa Eavesdropping Nightmare Came True

Plus there have been loads of lawsuits brought by people who didn’t understand what they were letting themselves in for.

 

We have an Alexa. You can set up shopping lists on it and then I suppose it could be triggered by a conversation you have to add something to but it doesn’t create lists itself.

We use ours for playing music, we don’t have a CD or record player. As said you need a music streaming service if you don’t want adverts. You will need to pay for the Alexa and any additional listening hubs you have around the house, if you want to be able to use them all independently. We just have our Alexa in the living room.

I use my iPad for listening to the radio as I can take that with me wherever I want. If you listen via BBC Sounds (other radio stations are available) it’s great as even listening ‘live’ I can pause it whenever I’m interrupted. It’s proved quite illuminating. OH claims never to disturb me when I’m listening to my Archers omnibus but then had the decency to look bashful when I pointed out to him once that having started ‘live’, I’d finished 25 minutes behind the schedule due to his non-existent interruptions

 

I wouldn't have one myself but I know someone who is chair/house bound who uses one and finds it very useful.
No idea on costs.

 

I have an Alexa, apart from the initial cost as long as you have wi-fi it works
fine.

 

You can go on the app and check what recordings of any conversations it has made. We did a couple of times out of curiosity, it was only ever the odd couple of words and generally seemed to be when it thinks it’s heard it’s command word i.e. Alexa (or whatever you have changed it too). You can choose whether Amazon keeps/has access to the recordings (they say these are for training the device to recognise/understand your voice and commands better) or not

If you have smart devices you can link these into Alexa e.g. heating/lighting/tv controls etc. It would make a big difference to your everyday life and independence if you had who restricted/limited mobility

 

I don't allow any device in the flat that has got the technology to listen to what I tell all day.
It might be my East German background that I'm more sensitive to that.