So far, English (and now Japanese) is the only language you can choose for Echo (Alexa). They just did an update to add Japanese, along with Canadian, Indian, and British English. Basically, the other English languages available just adjust the accent of Alexa, as far as I can tell.
That would be nice!
No issues now that I can set my home address.
I just tell Alexa to “play some music” and she responds with “resuming Spotify”.
I was curious about the Google Home as well, but had the opportunity to buy an Echo Dot for NT$1000. Had to give it a shot at that price!
I moved Alexa around for a while. For a while it was in my bedroom. While the speaker isn’t bad, I didn’t really use it for music. It was great for background noise, though. More than adequate.
So “Alexa, play sounds of the ocean” would (if memory serves) return a snippet of a nature sounds album that would stop after 10 minutes, no follow up comment from Alexa. “Alexa, play ocean sounds” would (if settings supported it) be followed by sounds of waves crashing that would go on all night - what I wanted. I could ask a third way (don’t remember), and Alexa would ask me if I wanted to purchase an album?
I felt like I had to use Google to figure out how to ask a question, which is just silly.
There are a few albums in Amazon music and skills in Echo for ambient sounds. The one I use most reminds me that it will loop for one hour unless I specify a longer time, so it could run the whole night if I wanted to.
What I like is you can set an alarm to play a Spotify playlist as the alarm sound. I have a Spotify playlist of lively music for my kid just to help wake him up in the morning
my problem is that i can’t link it to my spotify acct. I have premium, but i can’t get the app due to being in Taiwan and it’s only going through some shitty internet radio station
Used to have to tell Alexa to specifically play something “on Spotify.” Now, you can go into settings in the Alexa app on your phone. Under Alexa Preferences, go to Music & Media.
I haven’t had any trouble linking my Spotify account to my Amazon account and use it through my Echo. Maybe you should look deeper into this - I have regularly used Spotify via my Echos mostly without trouble in Taiwan, China, and the Philippines for the past 4 years.
Or access is simply expanding. I have just noticed that a couple years ago, it was posted above that you needed a Premium TuneIn account to access radio streams. Last night, my Echo Show displayed a tip that suggested I say “Play WNYC”. Instead, I said out loud, “Alexa, play 1010 WINS Radio” and was tickled it worked! Ditto for WCBS, WFAN, and Bloomberg Radio. I noticed these stations were invoked using either the iHeartRadio or Radio.com skill, neither of which I explicitly installed in my account (I guess they are there now)
Btw, I also tried to set alarms to these New York radio stations, “Alexa, wake me up to WFAN at 6am” but of the 4 New York stations I mentioned above, only Bloomberg radio worked. Alexa ditched WFAN for ESPN Radio and WCBS and 1010WINS were exchanged for other stations that I didn’t recognize. My point, though, is that I mostly expect this to change and be fixed eventually.
