Finally, I’ve gotten what I desperately need and truly deserve — a personal assistant at home. Sure, she doesn’t do windows (or dishes, or laundry, etc.) but I see great promise in our family’s relationship with Alexa — the “personality” behind Amazon’s Echo device. It feels a little odd to call a device “her,” but it feels even stranger not to, as she — like Apple’s Siri — is clearly worthy of a personal pronoun.
For my birthday, I bought myself an Amazon Echo, after hearing some of my colleagues wax rhapsodic about their experiences with the device. Another deciding factor: the company recently added an integration with SmartThings, my home automation/IoT hub — which means I could (theoretically) control my “things” via voice control.
[Read more…] about A Week In Amazon’s Internet Of Things (IoT) – Alexa/Echo & Dash Buttons
What did I do? I bought a Prime Membership as a gift and sent it to myself. Only problem is that Amazon is wise to that. If you are already a member and get Prime as a gift, the new subscription isn’t added on to the one you already have. Instead, it gets converted to an Amazon Gift Card of the same value.