Is the AED spying on people? @discobot fortune
Don’t count on it
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. — Frederick Douglass
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It listens to everything you say and every sound in the house.
But so does Siri and Google.
Not when they aren’t turned on or you don’t have them.
That echo thingy had to be on all the time and it is collecting info on everybody in that environment.
Besides , when did people start defending spying by corporations and governments ?
When did that become, normal?
Why not have a digital assistant that doesn’t collect info on you and send it to persons unknown?
@H5N1 how did you resolve your wifi connection problems with your Echo Dot? I am having similar problems with the ones I bought for me and my brother (we use different networks, but have the same wifi connection problem).
Did you discover any ways other than the Alexa App to connect your Echo Dot to your Wifi? Please share any helpful links you came across
OK, I got mine set up here in Taipei - no problem. Here is what I did: I used my Kindle Fire to set it up – smooth as silk.
At first, I tried using my Android phone (LG G5), like I tried over the weekend when I was at my parents’ place in Manila. I figured the problem was the crappy internet at their house (the modem/router was provided by the phone company, and I have had all kinds of issues with their broadband service). But my brother had similar WiFi connection issues trying to hook up his own Echo Dot to his home WiFi, which is a different provider and he lives in a different part of the city from my folks and uses a different set of modems and routers.
While I was struggling trying to set it up here in Taipei, I remembered that I had added the Alexa App to my Kindle Fire tablet (after reading this thread, but before I got my own Echo Dot). When I “fired it up” the Alexa App on the tablet, it essentially went through the first 2 or 3 set up steps without me even touching it – it sensed the Echo Dot, reconnected to my home WiFi (which it already was accessing), and then connected the Echo Dot to my WiFi while I watched. Previously, I had fruitlessly tried that same sequence over and over manually in a crazy loop.
My brother has an old Kindle Fire, too. I messaged him with my advice. Hopefully, he will have a similar good experience and successfully connect his Echo Dot to his WiFi. I had originally bought both his and my Echo Dot (partly so we could contact each other that way with free calling in the future), so both devices were pre-registered on my Amazon ID. I deregistered his this evening and hopefully, he will be up and running soon.
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I’ll certainly be picking up a couple Echo Spot’s when we move in the new year. Looks promising.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/27/16374254/amazon-event-2017-news-recap-echo-spot-fire-tv-hardware
Would like to buy the Echo Spot as well. Has anyone got it working in Taiwan?
My echo dot works and they’ve updated the app so you can input Taiwan addresses.
Thanks! Any features missing in Taiwan?
Yes. Got a pair last week and put one with my mother in law. Very cool to watch my kid and her connect on it – works well. So I asked another colleague to bring over another one (got it yesterday!) and will set that up in my mom’s place in Manila next week.
The angle of the camera is a bit funny so I haven’t quite figured it where get to position it so when you are talking on it you can be easily seen. If it’s on a dining table, it seems to be pointing a bit high – so you’re better off standing up than sitting. If it’s in a bed side table, again it seems it’s best if you are standing looking down at it it else you aren’t in the shot. I wouldn’t consider it a major problem
Not sure about voice ordering on Amazon, but you can’t order an Uber or a pizza.
Now that I was able to put in Taiwan addresses, it does tell me my commute time in the morning and the local weather. Though, the pronunciations of Chinese words sounds weird since Alexa can’t yet speak Mandarin. They updated to Japanese, hopefully Mandarin will be soon.
I order an Uber car via Echo all the time. The hitch is that it can only send the car to your Uber registered home address (mine is in Taipei). Also you cannot specify a destination, but that’s not a problem – I enter it in via the Uber as I head downstairs.
It wouldn’t seem to be a great limitation that Uber on Echo only send the ride to your Uber home address, after all, most of it Echos are at home. But I have Echos at my mom’s place in Manila and my mother-in-law’s in Zhonghe - and they are all linked to my Amazon account - so I can’t use them to order Uber rides since they would only send the cars to my home address in Beitou.
You have to say something like: Alexa, all Uber to send me a car
In Taipei, the default is UberX but you can specify UberBlack (and presumably UberTaxi now) in your voice command.
What I like about it is it tells me if surge pricing is in effect, and if it is, you have to repeat the surge ratio to confirm you agree to it. In the current Uber app, they removed mention of the ratio in favor of the ride cost estimate. Depending on my urgency, I prefer to decide whether to take a car based on the ratio vs an estimate that is likely to change if I want to go my own route.
I recently added my exact home address in Facebook in order to have it recognized by Uber (took my weeks to figure that out). However, when I used Alexa to order new a car, my Uber ride went looking for me 3 blocks away. So that’s buggy - the correct address is being listed in the app, but GPS sends them even further away. So there are still kinks. But that kink is with Uber, not the Alexa connection.
Ordering a car is effortless when I’m going it by voice, even if I need to add info (like destination) later
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That’s great to know! Was it just recently you started being able to do that?
I actually have only had my Echo for a little over two weeks. When I first was setting it up, Taiwan wasn’t available as one of the countries to input the home address. It was about a week or so ago that I happened to be looking at the app settings and noticed Taiwan was now available so I could actually input my home address. Before that, it wouldn’t even give me the local weather. I would have to say, “What’s the weather in Taipei City?” And that’s because Alexa wouldn’t recognize Zhongli, let alone Dayuan.
Now, she gives me the local weather and even tells me my estimated commute time to work per the current traffic.
Honestly, I never tried to use the Echo for an Uber and just assumed (I know, I know…Ass U Me) per Uber’s whole “grey” area of operation in Taiwan. Maybe it can actually order pizza in Taiwan! Too bad I don’t eat Dominoes.
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What I don’t understand is setting my home address in my Amazon account/Echo. It still says Westlake and when I ask Alexa where she is, she is X more from downtown Seattle. Consequently, I head to specify “in Taiwan” when I ask for the weather.
Is it simply setting my primary Amazon address to Taipei? I think I’ve done that already
I just set the location under “Devices” in the settings of the Alexa app. Pretty sure my Amazon account location is still in the US of A.
Now, I just ask her, “What’s the weather?” and she tells me the local weather. However, she says something like that sounds like “nangang village” instead of Dayuan. So to check, I asked her how far it is to TPE and she had the distance correct.
Just now, I checked the app to see about my location settings and noticed new buttons on the bottom! Apparently, they are always updating this thing.
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Yes, the app is constantly updated by Amazon.
I had an Alexa tower in the US (don’t remember name of product) that was ok, but I grew tired of the syntax required to get a response. You have to ask questions in a certain way, one that’s not always intuitive to me as a native English speaker. I didn’t bring it to Taiwan.
Does anybody use Google Home? With Google Assistant I can follow up a question with another, and Assistant ‘knows’ we are having a conversation and so keeps track of my previous question. That implies a forgiving user syntax, and is very convenient. When I left the US, Alexa still could not track a conversation (but again, constant updating by Amazon).
Anybody know if Google Home is similar to Assistant this way?
Edited to add: ugh. My question is specific to using English. This may not be how many here use their devices. Apologize up front for that.
I got a Google home and now contemplating getting a Google home mini for the living room or kitchen. Yes, follow up questions are awesome. No need to keep repeating myself.
All the above issues that Goose and YGZ have had with the home address, I haven’t had with my Google home. I get the weather in Taipei and my commute to work with no major issues when I tell Google home “Tell me about my day”.
However, I do not believe weather is split down into districts yet. Google home always responds with “The weather in Taipei…”
So far, I’m only using it as a Bluetooth speaker for Spotify and weather. I feel like I have yet to use it to it’s full potential…
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