I think it's a neat gadget. However I am just worried about who might be listening in all of the time. Lol

I got one to test it out thinking of my parents (I did get them one, but they pooh poohed it and won't bother learning how convenient it is). I is just a gadget, but it's constantly improving. You can turn off the microphone (though I'm sure a hacker could turn it back on), but I keep mine in the kitchen and I don't care who listens in there. :) There's a lot that it can do that are kind of scary. You can purchase things with a sentence, for instance. I don't know the details, because that doesn't interest me. There must be some kind of security check, maybe a voice print. I also don't want an integrated smart house system, because I don't want to deal with it when it fails, so I don't have lights or heat or anything hooked up to it. Besides, without having to walk over to the light switch or thermostat, considering we don't have to strike a flame with a flint and steel or lay a fire, how much more couch potato can we get? It might be useful to have the Echo control lights in a bedroom, or entryway, and all of it for someone with limited mobility.

I love it in the kitchen for asking it the time or date, and especially for putting things on shopping lists. I've asked it a bunch of general knowledge search questions which it's very bad at, but it's getting better. The shopping list is my big use. Elbows deep in messing cooking, I can tell it to put something on the list. Or even just in the middle of something, it's much nicer than dropping it and running to a pad and pen. The list then shows up on the Alexa app on your smartphone or tablet. Instead of remembering my shopping list, I work at remembering to charge my phone, which is a good safety consideration anyway. You can also see your lists on the Amazon website. There's also a to-do list. The voice recognition is very good. Sometimes, it'll think it hears a command on the TV, like when there's a character named Alexis, or if it hears its name in a commercial, but that's rare. Even with the TV on, it usually understands my shopping list items. Recently, it couldn't figure out "mints", though.

I don't know how well it does with accents.

A feature I wanted for my mother was the reading. It will read your Kindle books to you, as well as playing Audible.com books. It'll mark the place so you can go back and forth between devices. I have to get her in a good mood to learn how to use it, though.

The speaker is about what you'd expect for that kind of device. It's better than a phone, or backpack speaker, but that's not saying much. I also think it's probably playing MP3s rather than full file music, which makes it sound even flatter. I was baking the other day, however, and wanted some music, but my hands were messy and I didn't have much longer until cleanup anyway, making washing up to go turn on the stereo unappealing, so I told the Echo to play something and it was fine for the couple of songs until I was done. I won't play MP3's even in the car, however. I did a test with all the compression formats, and they lose too much color. I'm not so picky I have to have vinyl or something, but I'm still pretty picky about audio. If you're used to MP3's and earbuds, however, I don't think you'll have any problem with the Echo speaker. Most of the popular music you've bought from Amazon, at least for the last few years, should be in your music library, and there's a lot that you can add for free if you have Prime.

There's a lot of other stuff you can do/get with Echo, and more being added daily, but that's mostly in the just a gadget category. Games and whatnot. It's the voice command/playback/home automation that make it special. Not revolutionary, but it comes in a nice little easy to use package.

plllog, do you mean that the gadget will make any kindle book into an "audible" book. If so, that sounds like a nifty piece of technology. Tell me more.

This might be helpful.

http://www.cheatsheet.com/gear-style/amazons-echo-what-it-can-and-cant-do-for-you.html/?a=viewall

Um... No. Not quite. But yes. Some Kindles have this feature built in, where the machine will read to you--text to speech. That's what happens with the Echo. It does a remarkably good job for a machine generated voice, but you have to listen closely because the intonation patterns are a bit funky. It does a good job on a separation intonation for dialog, but runs little words together on downwards intonations, and some pronunciations are a bit funky. It's also a soprano voice and might be hard for people with hearing loss to listen to. Think about it like having your GPS read you a story. :) I don't really use it--I'd rather listen to music and never got into things like books on tape--so I don't know if this happens every time, but when you ask it to read a book from your kindle, a message plays that says you can get actor read books on Audible.com (which is part of Amazon). That would be like books on tape. :) OTOH, yes, it'll read you books from your Kindle library, including obscure ones that no one would ever pay an actor to record. That's probably only Kindle books from Amazon. It's possible that it could read something else off your Kindle, but I doubt it does. Probably it just has the list from your account settings, where your progress and bookmarks are stored, and reads its own file of the book for the text to speech.

BTW--important for people with an Alexa in the family--you can choose it's name (known as a "wake word"). The other options are "Amazon" and "Echo". I do wonder whose kid is named "Alexa" that that is the name of the voice command module. Apple's and Microsoft's are made up names (though someone, somewhere probably has those, too).

You can ask it for anything you might find on a search service like Yahoo, including a news rundown, sports scores, movie listings and times, etc., and there are a bunch of third party "skills" (like apps) which could be useful. For instance, three give the California surf reports, earthquake info, and Powerball results. There are skills for realtime status of commuter trains and buses in certain cities. Also, joke tellers, tutoring quizes for kids, Uber, games, and a lot of fluff and dross.

It has built-in access for your subscription internet radio on Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio and TuneIn.

Poking around in the settings, I found where you make up a four digit pin for ordering. But if you're doing it voice command, your kids are going to know your number. :)

BTW, there's also a fairly new device called "Dot". I can't tell if it's a slave to Echo (I think it is), but you can only buy it through the Echo. It's like a mini-Echo and I think it's for use in multiple rooms. Some people have bought multiple Echos for the purpose, but that overlaps some functionality. You can plug Dot into your stereo for good speakers. :)

Coming out this month is a cylinder, like Echo, called Tap. It's portable (rechargeable), so you can take your Echo with you. I think it requires wi-fi, however--as does the Echo--so you'd have to be near a hotspot or somewhere with guest wi-fi, if you don't have a hotspot plan on your phone.

We were early adopters of the Echo. As mentioned, the functionality is continuously improving because they are using an Agile development environment so that there's a constant stream of feedback and updates. Also, applications, such as games or news subscriptions can be added to your Echo's repertoire. My 7 year old neighbor loves to play a game called Akinator. You think of a real person or a fictional character and the Echo asks Y/N questions until it can guess. I think there's a mobile device version too.

We use it a lot for timers while we are cooking. I don't use the shopping list app, but I did order something with it for the first time the other day.

We often listen to music. It has play lists, which was great when we had a lot of company over the holidays.

We are planning a trip and yesterday, as we were planning the itinerary, it was nice to be able to ask the distance between or the drive time between two cities.

We also use it for weather and if I'm forgetting the time zone between here and a foreign city, it is nice to ask, "What time is it in Shanghai?" Sometimes while watching TV or the news, I pause to ask a fact. Echo will even tell you a joke.

In the end, it is a gadget, but one we use every single day. I got it at an introductory price, which felt fair, given the limited capabilities of the early days. It was easy to set up. If someone is listening (but I know they are not!) they must be bored out of their minds.

One funny thing - it is by the TV and every once in a while it thinks it hears "Alexia" and it responds to the TV.

Great feedback. Thank you all so much.

HOW did we ever live without this? LOL (Not knocking it. Jus' sayin'.)

Yep. Can you imagine when the first telephones went in? There were only a few people you could call, and wouldn't it be more polite to send a messenger boy around with a note, anyway?