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The newest member of the Kindle family: Oasis arrived today
Earlier this month when Amazon announced that they were releasing a new addition to the Kindle lineup current owners were worried rather than excited. Never before have I seen a group of owners so rapidly insisting that their devices were perfect the way they were.
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The Echo blends in on the counter top in the heart of Fatboyheaven, but it fills the room with sound
For a couple of weeks I've been using the new Echo from Amazon, training it in different rooms of the house and finally settling on the kitchen as its home in our house.
While it looks like just another Bluetooth speaker the technology behind this little cylinder is Amazon's next bid to change our lives, and unlike the Fire Phone this one has the potential to shake things up.
When you see it in the plain black box, you really have no idea what you are in for when you start using Echo.
Once you plug the Echo in you go through a process with either your Kindle Fire or iPhone to configure it to connect via your wifi network. Once it is on the Internet it is really just ready to work.
You can fine tune its ability to recognize your voice commands by going through training sessions, but it worked amazingly well right out of the box. As the software improves more features will be added, including the ability to interact with more content services and the ability to change the keyword used to wake it for commands.
For now you are limited to iHeartRadio, Prime Music, and Tune In Radio for audio. I would think the Amazon owned Audible will be next to be supported (and I hope so, as audio books are what I listen to most while doing chores around the house).
When they are available to everyone I would encourage anyone who has bought into the Amazon ecosystem to snatch one up. Echo is going to be the center of the home soon.
I've spent most of the week with the new FireTV Stick from Amazon, and have set it up both on TVs and computer monitors during my time with it. All I have to say is Roku, Google, and Apple better watch out!
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Amazon delivered my FireTV today, and I just have had a chance to hook it up and run through the welcome before watching a show I left off watching on my ROKU a few minutes ago.
The first thing you will notice when you inbox the unit is how basic it looks. Much like the other network streaming boxes on the market there is not much to connect. Since I am on a wireless network and not hooking up to surround sound on this TV it was two cables, power and HDMI.
Once connected to the wireless network the FireTV wanted to update it's software, which took 3 minutes and then the system restarted. Boot up was amazingly quick. It shows the benefits of the quad-core 1.7GHz processor right away.
Playback is smooth and quick, and the voice search which seemed to be just a gimmick actually works very well. The system just like all other Amazon electronic products shipped linked to my account, so there was no need to sign in to Amazon for access to Amazon instant video and Prime video content.
I'll have more after I try more apps and the interaction with the Fire HDX tablet as a second screen.
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