Amazon Dot - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: FrankBuss
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 17, 2017, 09:28:59 pm
content: I bought a Dot, same as an Echo, but cheaper and not as good speakers, but you can connect external speakers with Bluetooth or phone jacks. It understands German, too, and I really like it in combination with my Amazon Prime account. Nearly any music so far I requested was understood correctly and found in the library, and I can set timers, alarm clock, add items on a shopping list and todo list, control lights (e.g. the Philips Hue system, which I tested) etc. But unfortunately it can't do this:

author: akos_nemeth
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2017, 11:17:10 pm
content: Quote from: FrankBuss on February 17, 2017, 09:28:59 pmAlexa has a pleasant voice, butshe has a chip on her shoulderBy the way this reminds me of the movie "Her"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/Ákos

author: FrankBuss
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 17, 2017, 11:30:18 pm
content: I watched "Her", it was sooo boring and sentimental. I liked Ex_Machina a lot more:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0470752/

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2017, 11:31:54 pm
content: We have an Echo that was received as a gift. It's an amusing toy although personally I hate talking to machines and I don't even know why. I find that more often than not if I ask it a question it will just say it doesn't have an answer, suggest that I go try the Bing search it added to my account (I could more easily have searched myself using a real search engine), or tell me the definition of one of the words in my question. Sometimes instead of telling me an answer at all it will play a sample of music. For the most part I find it to be a gimmick of very limited utility, though it is convenient as a kitchen timer. I can have my hands covered in grease or batter and tell it to set a timer for x number of minutes and it will do that pretty reliably. I also use it for streaming radio and podcasts. It was a good deal for free but I would not have paid the $200 retail price.

author: FrankBuss
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 17, 2017, 11:36:50 pm
content: You are right, the capabilities are very limited, but the speech recognition is pretty good and it does the implemented tasks very well. And they are improving it all the time. I wouldn't buy an Echo, too expensive, but the Dot for EUR 60 is fine as a kitchen timer and radio/music player.

author: mhwlng
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2017, 08:05:57 am
content: I use an amazon dot withha-bridge. (A java application running on an old model Raspberry Pi.)This allows you to control any kind of device, by making the dot think your device is a Philips hue light. (So only on/off/dim commands work with ha-bridge.)e.g. I can switch on / off the TV or the multi-media PC. (By emulating 4 buttons on 2 different infrared remote controls.)I also set up different names for the same device. (e.g. 'PC' and 'Media Center' or 'TV' and 'Television')

author: Fred27
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 18, 2017, 10:51:28 am
content: If you're interested in hooking up to Echo/Hue, I recently dug around in one of the bulbs and found some useful PWM and on/off outputs.https://0xfred.wordpress.com/2017/02/14/philips-hue-control-anything-hack/

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2017, 08:43:49 pm
content: Seems like it would be easier to code something from scratch rather than hack up an expensive bulb to do something a $3 microcontroller can do.

author: RGB255_0_0
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2017, 09:05:26 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on February 18, 2017, 08:43:49 pmYep. I have a few Neopixels around connected to ESP8266s and assigned static IPs. With some colour wheel interface to control them.As for the Amazon IOT gadgets. They are great if you don't have kids (and perhaps pets) and do not have speakers on your TV or computer or have it set to manually activate. There have been numerous cases to know I'm not being facetiousYet I'm still tempted to get one

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2017, 09:07:49 pm
content: Quote from: RGB255_0_0 on February 18, 2017, 09:05:26 pmYep. I have a few Neopixels around connected to ESP8266s and assigned static IPs. With some colour wheel interface to control them.Hey that sounds fun, I have some Neopixel clones, and some ESP8266's, do you have the details for that project? I wouldn't mind playing around with it.

author: RGB255_0_0
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 18, 2017, 09:16:21 pm
content: https://github.com/jmbussat/WS2812_ESP8266

author: Fred27
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 18, 2017, 10:30:39 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on February 18, 2017, 08:43:49 pmThe reason I left the Hue board intact and hacked into it is so that it continues to work well with the rest of the Hue system.Otherwise you'd need a ZigBee compatible microcontroller like a CC2560, to code against the ZLL standard and use the ZigBee master key without permission. (Probably already heading for the £15 cost of a bulb.) Even then Philips have a track record of screwing with interoperability with other manufacturers products.

author: FrankBuss
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 18, 2017, 11:23:25 pm
content: Another way is to impersonate one of the IoT devices with a ESP8266. This project does this:https://medium.com/@monkeytypewritr/amazon-echo-esp8266-iot-a42076daafa5Now all you need is a $2 ESP8266 and a solid state relais to switch your lamps from an Echo or Dot, instead of the >$100 Hue system.And then there is this project, a full open source home automation system:http://fhem.de