Amazon Echo version 2 (Alexa)
I just purchased an Amazon Echo (2nd generation) charcoal colored.
SOUND
As portable speakers go, the sound is Ok, but not remarkable. It does sound a little more powerful than my daughter's Sony speaker (although that one is battery powered). It fills a mid sized room fairly well, but not powerful enough for partying or playing your favorite music and max volume to really make you jump.
I really liked the extra plug in for external speakers. It cancels the use of it's internal speaker and you can use it with a better quality HI Fi Sound system in case you want better sound.
BATTERY
This device doesn't include any battery, so it requires a reboot every time you have to move it from one room to the next. Probably means Amazon wants you to have a device in every room. But still a an included battery is a necessary thing these days.
AI
The intelligence of the AI is somewhat good, but useless if offline. When the device can't reach the internet it has NO ability to recognize your voice. You would think that Amazon engineers should have designed some minimal offline intelligence to help diagnose the internet connection.
PRIVACY - NETWORK COMMUNIATIONS
It took me a while to set the proper openings in my firewall for the thing to work properly. It was a bit of hit and miss and debugging unti I got everything right.
Here is a list of all the connection the device opens up with servers outside.
So, I am perfectly Ok with Echo communiating with Amazon, Open DNS, maybe even Google. But what the hell is it doing having an open communication with my ISP's server (Highlighted in yelllow)??? This is not cool Amazon!!!!
This device already has plenty of privacy concerns out there for continuously listening to your home conversation and even making mistakes of messaging those conversations to third parties (see BBC.com report on conversation sent out ). Granted these flukes must be very few but still it doesn't help if the device is having open conversations with unwanted destinations.
Amazon should clearly publish what servers the device is to connect with to function properly.
As for me I will be banning those unwanted connections and see if the device still works. I don't want my ISP to have ANY communication with a device that has an open microhpone in my house.
But what about those people that don't have the knowledge / skills to block this kind of behavior... they are the mercy of the device communiation with any body without any responsibility being held by Amazon. At least if the connection is exclusively with Amazon... then Amazon is liable for whatever they do with the information.
SOUND
As portable speakers go, the sound is Ok, but not remarkable. It does sound a little more powerful than my daughter's Sony speaker (although that one is battery powered). It fills a mid sized room fairly well, but not powerful enough for partying or playing your favorite music and max volume to really make you jump.
I really liked the extra plug in for external speakers. It cancels the use of it's internal speaker and you can use it with a better quality HI Fi Sound system in case you want better sound.
BATTERY
This device doesn't include any battery, so it requires a reboot every time you have to move it from one room to the next. Probably means Amazon wants you to have a device in every room. But still a an included battery is a necessary thing these days.
AI
The intelligence of the AI is somewhat good, but useless if offline. When the device can't reach the internet it has NO ability to recognize your voice. You would think that Amazon engineers should have designed some minimal offline intelligence to help diagnose the internet connection.
PRIVACY - NETWORK COMMUNIATIONS
It took me a while to set the proper openings in my firewall for the thing to work properly. It was a bit of hit and miss and debugging unti I got everything right.
Here is a list of all the connection the device opens up with servers outside.
So, I am perfectly Ok with Echo communiating with Amazon, Open DNS, maybe even Google. But what the hell is it doing having an open communication with my ISP's server (Highlighted in yelllow)??? This is not cool Amazon!!!!
This device already has plenty of privacy concerns out there for continuously listening to your home conversation and even making mistakes of messaging those conversations to third parties (see BBC.com report on conversation sent out ). Granted these flukes must be very few but still it doesn't help if the device is having open conversations with unwanted destinations.
Amazon should clearly publish what servers the device is to connect with to function properly.
As for me I will be banning those unwanted connections and see if the device still works. I don't want my ISP to have ANY communication with a device that has an open microhpone in my house.
But what about those people that don't have the knowledge / skills to block this kind of behavior... they are the mercy of the device communiation with any body without any responsibility being held by Amazon. At least if the connection is exclusively with Amazon... then Amazon is liable for whatever they do with the information.
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