Let the Show begin!

OK, so I decided to dive into Amazon's 'Alexa' ecosphere by purchasing a refurbished Echo Show back in September of 2018.

Amazon had just reduced the price of the refurbished model. Little did I know that a week later they would introduce the second generation. I was a little disappointed, but hey, I got a good deal on the refurbished model at nearly half price of the second generation model.

There were multiple reasons for wanting the Show, but the main reason was that I was going to launch my own business, part of which is to support 'smart home' devices and I wanted to learn more about Alexa's capabilities. Also, I was positioning myself for future Amazon Prime viewing as part our home's 'Entertainment Cost Reduction' initiative (a.k.a Cord Cutting).

Setup in our kitchen was relatively easy. Basically you have to connect the Show with your Amazon account which then gives you access to all things Amazon. You can also connect it to your Spotify and Pandora music streaming accounts. I subscribe to the 'free' level of Pandora and asked Alexa to play one of my stations. Cool, but something I could easily do with the Pandora app on my phone.

One of the neat features of Alexa (Show) is 'Flash Briefing'. Flash briefing delivers news and content from popular providers. This is a great feature to use as you are fixing your morning coffee, eating breakfast, packing lunches and getting ready for the day. My wife and I like to DVR monologues from popular late night talk shows and watch them the next evening. Some of these monologues are accessible through 'Flash Briefing'. Jimmy Fallon's is one of them. However, the video feed is annoyingly choppy and constantly buffering. I suspect it is a problem with the 'Flash Briefing' technology and/or the feed from NBC because Trevor Noah's monologue from the Daily Show is voice only resulting in a more enjoyable experience. The Daily Show gets it right. It's a briefing, who needs video when you are occupied with trying to get out the door before rush hour traffic builds? Granted, much of Jimmy Fallon's talent lies in his facial expression and body language, so having only sound would be a drawback for Jimmy's monologues.

Since then I've implemented a workaround and I'll have more on the Echo Show's video capability in a future blog post.

One feature that my wife often uses is the ability to call up a recipe while she is cooking. In the past (for various reasons) she would go to the computer, search for a recipe, print it off and carry it to the kitchen. Now she simply asks Alexa for a recipe and scrolls through the options, looking for a recipe that matches the ingredients that she has on hand. She could have just as easily done this on a smart phone, tablet, or laptop, but there is not enough time to discuss all the reasons these are not convenient.

There are many things, of course, that Alexa Show does, that can be accomplished on a phone, or a tablet. So why use the Show? That's a good question and I'll expand on that in future blog posts.

That's all for now, thanks for reading.

Phil