1. Seminars@Hadley Presents: Meet Amazon Echo and Alexa
Date: Wednesday, April 5, 2017
Presenters: Vivian Seki
Patrick Sturdivant

2. What are Echo, Dot, Tap and Alexa?
The Amazon Echo family: Echo, Tap and Dot are three wireless wifi devices controlled entirely by speaking to access information and entertainment over the Internet.

3. The Echo is a cylindrical speaker that's roughly the size of a wine bottle. The Echo has a powerful speaker so the sound quality is the best of all three devices. The Echo requires connection to a power source.

4. The Echo Tap is the rechargeable slightly smaller version of the Echo
The Echo Tap is the rechargeable slightly smaller version of the Echo. The Tap is slightly shorter than the Echo, but still has a very good speaker. The nice thing about the Tap is that it is rechargeable so that you can move it to any part of your home and as long as it has access to wifi connection it can go with you anywhere.

5. The Echo Dot uses the same technology as Echo and Tap, but is smaller and shaped like a puck with a less powerful speaker. It also requires a power source to operate.

6. All three devices function the same way
All three devices function the same way. They must link to the internet over Wi-Fi. All three are voice activated and voice controlled.

7. Alexa
All three Amazon Echo family devices are controlled entirely by speaking to its virtual assistant Alexa. The Alexa app must be installed on your smartphone or tablet (iOS or Android) to get started. These devices must be connected to Wi-Fi via the Alexa app. You will initially need to set up your location and your preferences so that Alexa can answer your questions appropriately. If you don’t have home wifi, you can pair your Echo to your smartphone via personal hotspot.

8. You wake up the Echo devices by saying "Alexa", and give a command, such as "Set a timer for 10 minutes." There are also physical controls on the devices - a button that can also wake it up, a mute button that cuts out the microphone, and volume controls - up and down buttons on all three, and rings you can turn on top of both the Echo and Dot.
If you don't like using "Alexa“ as the wake word, you can change it to "Amazon", "Echo" or "Computer" by selecting the Devices section of the Settings and changing the "wake word".
Alexa can respond to many questions and requests without any additional setup, such as:
"Alexa, what time is it?”
“Alexa, what is the weather today?"
"Alexa, set an alarm for 7am tomorrow."
"Alexa, play songs from the ‘80’s”
"Alexa, tell me a joke"
"Alexa, tell me the news"
"Alexa, add milk to the shopping list"

9. AUDIOBOOKS MUSIC Music
The settings, allow you to set your preferred music streaming service. Alexa supports Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, TuneIn or Amazon Prime Music, which is for Prime members or you can purchase a version of Prime Music for just the Echo.
Once logged in, you can play music just by saying phrases like "Alexa, play music by David Bowie" or "Alexa, play my morning playlist".
Audiobooks
If you have an Audible account, it can play Audible audiobooks, and it can link to your Amazon account to read your Kindle books.
Whenever Echo is playing music or books, you can shut it off by saying "Alexa, stop" and can adjust the volume with "volume up", "volume down" or "volume 5 (any number from one to 10).
MUSIC

10. NEWS
News
You can ask Alexa for a quick news update by going to the Flash Briefing section of Settings. Saying "Alexa, what's the news" or "Alexa, what's my flash briefing” will activate an audio bulletin from your choice of providers. There are now over a dozen options that you can enable including NPR, BBC, CNN. You can also get the latest scores and figures for your favorite sports team in the Sports Update part of settings.

11. SKILLS
Adding Skills
Many of Alexa's most useful functions - setting timers, alarms, playing music and so on - are already part of Alexa without any setup. But you can add "skills" to augment its abilities. Think of skills in the same way as apps for your smartphone that you can download - they add a specific new function. Alexa now boasts over 10,000 skills.
You can search skills by categories and enable via the Alexa app. For example, you can search for the Uber skill and enable it, then you say "Alexa, ask Uber to order me a car."
Here are some skills you might find useful:
Wiki Brains: If you say "Alexa, ask Wiki Brains to tell me about" and then say a subject, it will read the first lines of the relevant Wikipedia article
Recipes: Need a recipe? Ask Alexa to find a recipe on Allrecipes skill.
Trains: Need to know when the next train is arriving at your station? Download the Alexa app specific to the train system in your area. Since I’m in the Chicago area for example, I added Chicago trains and CTA Tracker skills. You can ask “Alexa, ask Chicago Trains when is the next northbound train to Chicago.”
There are a few entertaining game-type skills too such as Word Master and Beat the Intro.

12. PURCHASES and PRIVACY Purchases
You can already build a shopping list to remember what you need. But, if you have an Amazon Prime account, you can ask Alexa to price a specific product from the Amazon store, and if you want it, you can ask Alexa to purchase it. It will be billed to the credit card registered to your Amazon Prime account and shipped to the address registered on the account. You can also ask for Alexa Deals and you will find out from Alexa what are the deals of the day if you order using your Amazon Echo family devices.
Privacy
Because the Echo device microphone is always on and awaiting a command, anyone can activate it by saying Alexa. You may want to mute it when there are other people in your home or if you will be away from home for an extended period of time. You can also change the wake word. You can also add a default pin number to authorize any purchases.

13. SMARTHOME
Smarthome
If you have internet-connected thermostats, lights, locks or power plugs, Alexa is a simple way to control them versus pulling out your phone to switch them on or off. To control devices such as Hive, Nest or Philips Hue from the Echo, there's a Smart Home section of the Alexa app menu that lets you set it up. If you do that, you can say things like "Alexa, set the heating to 72 degrees." But one of the most useful things about smart home controls is you can group different things together. If you have five internet lightbulbs for example, you can create a group called "lights" in the Smart Home section of the app. That way, you turn them all off or on by saying "Alexa, turn off or on the lights."

14. ENTERTAINMENT Entertainment
If you want to know what movies are playing, Alexa can tell you what movies are playing nearby, movie information, and show times for theaters close to you. You can also ask about movie reviews, ratings, actors, etc.
Alexa has a number of games that can be added in skills. There are trivia games such as Jeopardy, Where in the world and Beat the Intro; and word games such as Word Master, Word Chain, and Hangman.

15. NEAR FUTURE APPLICATIONS
Automakers such as Ford, Volkswagen, BMW and Hyundai announced this year that they will integrate Alexa into their onboard computer so that you can use Alexa in your car. Starting up, locking and unlocking are just a few of the useful features.