I have been using one for a few months. It's still a novelty at this point, but it's a neat device. The voice recognition is great and it works from very far away. I can change songs or adjust volume from 20 feet away with no problems. If nothing else, it works very well as a music player and Bluetooth headset.
The instant answers, unit conversions, etc. are convenient in the kitchen, although they could improve on this front. Alexa doesn't always understand the question and seems to screw up sports scores and schedules pretty frequently. It seems about as good as Siri but not as good as Cortana. I have never used Google Now so I can't compare to that.
Amazon pushes out frequent updates and integrations with third parties - Audible, Pandora, IFTTT and some home automation systems just to name a few. They definitely seem committed to Alexa.
Overall, I like Alexa. I wouldn't say it has changed my life or anything and I'm not sure how much I would miss it if I didn't have it, but I'm glad I do if you know what I mean. It is definitely still an early adopter device. It will be exciting to see where it goes as they add more features. I already feel like I'm in a sci-fi movie from as recent as the late 90's where I talk to the house computer. Neat stuff.
The instant answers, unit conversions, etc. are convenient in the kitchen, although they could improve on this front. Alexa doesn't always understand the question and seems to screw up sports scores and schedules pretty frequently. It seems about as good as Siri but not as good as Cortana. I have never used Google Now so I can't compare to that.
Amazon pushes out frequent updates and integrations with third parties - Audible, Pandora, IFTTT and some home automation systems just to name a few. They definitely seem committed to Alexa.
Overall, I like Alexa. I wouldn't say it has changed my life or anything and I'm not sure how much I would miss it if I didn't have it, but I'm glad I do if you know what I mean. It is definitely still an early adopter device. It will be exciting to see where it goes as they add more features. I already feel like I'm in a sci-fi movie from as recent as the late 90's where I talk to the house computer. Neat stuff.