Alexa, are you a good Christmas present?

[Tal]

Anyone got one of these?

What do you use them for, what comes as standard and what costs you extra?

Is it a good use of money or an expensive novelty gift that will be in a box come April?

Figuring Blonde will be a more honest appraisal than I can get elsewhere.

[Graham C]

I quite like mine.   I only have the dot but have a bluetooth speaker to listen to music through.  It's good for playing music, I use Spotify but obviously it does Amazon Music too. It won't link to Apple Music, only Amazon Music and Spotify.

I have a lamp that I get turned on and off which might sound strange as it's not hard to press a button but when you're walking to the kitchen with full hands and forget, it's handy just to ask for it to be turned off.    Our lamp is via a smart plug which it then controls so you could plug in anything to it and have it turned on and off whenever you desire.  We have the electric blanket plugged in one too, for the Mrs of course.  

It's good for timers being sent, we use this quite a bit.

It has what are called Skills which are basically it's apps.  Most are silly but there's a few good ones including Arsene Wenger Quotes.

If you have smart heating it would be good for that.  You can also link it to your phone and make calls but I've not set this up yet, it's a new feature.   The new machines have a smart hub built in which you need to set schedules for lighting and heating etc apparently.

I quite like it and have considered getting another for upstairs but haven't yet.  Can easily live without it but it's fun and a bit useful if you like gadgets.

[POWWWWWWWW]

I got one for Christmas last year and have added a few of the dots to most rooms in the house. Use it purely to play music on and the occasional alarm. Feels like the kind of thing that everyone will have in their house in maybe 5 years time when they can do a lot more stuff but for now they are pretty limited. That being said I use mine every day and so def got my monies worth. Saw a google version advertised the other day so I’d prob check that out as well as I’d sway towards google for anything like this.

[hector62]

I am staying at my brothers house and he has one in the kitchen. I really like it and use the timer facility for cooking, and play lots of music on it. I haven't explored any other aps but I reckon I will do in the future