I took the new Amazon Echo Buds 2 out for a day to test the audio, the ANC, and the battery. From a cafe in Iowa, to a place serving a type of pizza I’ve never had, to two flights back to NYC, come see how these $120 earbuds hold up on a long travel day. Thanks for watching!
Amazon Echo Buds 2 Real-World Test (Audio Test, Battery Test, & Vlog) Read More »
We no longer live in a time wherein order to have a security system at home, you have to call the likes of ADT, Brinks, or some other giant security conglomerate to come and install expensive cameras, alarms, etc. and then charge you a ridiculous monthly fee to “monitor” your home for you. Instead, there are a ton of smart home devices that can easily be used to create a smart home security system that will not only do the same thing for less money and no monthly fee, but also have a ton of other benefits that you can
How to Make a DIY Smart Home Security System (No Monthly Fees!) Read More »
This morning, Amazon made Alexa Blueprints available. Alexa Blueprints is a website-based way of creating your own custom Alexa skills with custom questions and responses. From simple things like asking a specific question and having a pre-programmed answer repeated back to you, to templates (aka blueprints, get it?) that allow you to tell bedtime stories, play trivia games, help a houseguest find the remote or other items, etc. Each of these are super easy to make and are fill-in-the-blank templates for the most part. Now, because of this, they’re obviously not that advanced, but I could see how they could
Amazon Just Launched a Way to Make Custom Alexa Skills (& It’s Super Easy to Use) Read More »
Amazon finally allows you to have a more human-like conversation with Alexa. What I mean by that, is they’ve allowed you to give multiple commands in a row without having to say, “Alexa” Every. Single. Time. So for this tip and trick Tuesday, I wanted to show you this new feature and why it saves so much time. The feature is called Follow-Up Mode and you can enable it in the Alexa app for each specific Echo device. This video was sponsored by Blinkist. They make an awesome app for Android and iOS that converts the most popular non-fiction books
How to Give Alexa Multiple Commands Without Saying Alexa Every Time (Video) Read More »
Voice assistants are pretty convenient. You can ask them the weather when you get up in the morning, have them set timers, even put them into infinite loops for your own entertainment, but despite these things, they definitely have a limited number of commands you can issue. Now, short of developing an app using the voice assistant APIs, there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to add your own custom actions and triggers to Google Home, Echo, etc. Thankfully though, IFTTT exists. IFTTT (If This Then That) is a popular program that allows you to create triggers and actions
How to Create Custom Commands for Google Home or Amazon Echo (Video) Read More »
Amazon just added a new feature this week to Alexa: the ability to send text messages from an Android phone. You’ve been able to send messages from one Echo to another or to a phone using the Alexa app, but now you can send them as an actual SMS and have it show in your normal Android messaging app. Here’s how to send text messages using your Echo. How to Setup SMS on Your Amazon Echo Open the Alexa app on your Android phone. Tap on the Conversations icon at the bottom (looks like a speech bubble). Tap on the
How to Send a Text Message From Your Amazon Echo Read More »
Whenever you say the wake word for either Alexa or Google Home, the devices don’t just listen to what you’re saying after, they record it and upload it to the cloud in order to do their magic. Personally, I don’t have too much of an issue with this myself, but I do get the concern from people about all this data being stored and somehow being used against them in the future. So, if you happen to be one of those with the odd predicament of being concerned about this but also willing to use the Alexa and Home, here’s
How to Remove Your Voice History from Google Assistant and Alexa Read More »
I first used drop in on the Amazon Echo Show when I was having a party and had to run out while people were still there to get some things we needed. When I got to the grocery store, I decided to test it out and see how everyone in the party reacted. I opened the Alexa app on my phone and dropped into the Echo Show in my kitchen, instantly opening up a video call with some of my friends who visibly jumped at the abrupt sight of my face holding a few limes in my hands. “Is this all we
How to Use Drop In on the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, & Echo Show Read More »
There’s always been this rivalry between the Amazon and Google’s respective voice assistant devices. And it makes sense: both do similar things, answer questions, are meant to live in similar spots in your house, etc. Now though, Amazon recently launched their latest device in their Echo series of voice assistants, the Echo Show, and it’s essentially an Amazon Echo with a screen so it can now show you things instead of just telling them to you. Now, the Google Home doesn’t have a screen, but they do have Chromecast in their arsenal and Google Home can cast some things you
Can the Google Home w/ a Chromecast Keep Up w/ the Echo Show? (Video) Read More »
In case you missed it, Amazon announced yesterday it planned to buy the popular grocery chain Whole Foods for a cool $13.7 billion and what seemed like a surprise move by the eCommerce giant. So the big question on everyone’s mind is wondering how that helps Amazon in any way. Amazon is an online marketplace for selling (mainly) non-perishable goods through their own clever distribution chain and prices lower than most brick and mortar stores can achieve. With a model like that, why would you ever want to have physical locations and all that added cost? Doesn’t that feel like
Amazon Buys Whole Foods for $13.7 Billion (And What Everyone is Saying About It) Read More »
Welp, that rumor I told you to take with a grain of salt last week? Think it’s safe to say the salt wasn’t necessary. Amazon unveiled their new Amazon Echo Show this week and that leaked image was pretty much spot on (although the better renderings make it definitely look sleeker than the leaked image did). The newest member of the Echo family now has the ability to show you videos and images in addition to speaking to you and responding to your voice. The video on the product’s page is actually pretty compelling for how the device could be
Amazon Makes the New Echo Show Official: An Echo w/ a Screen Read More »
So take this with a grain of salt as most leaks and rumors, but Mashable just posted a photo they found in a tweet of what is supposedly the next Amazon Echo with a full touchscreen. Exclusive: This is Amazon’s new Echo with a built-in touchscreen https://t.co/MSKgWni50S pic.twitter.com/YJewy8dSfE — AFTVnews (@AFTVnews) May 5, 2017 And, I have to agree with Mashable: it’s not the best looking device. There have been previous reports, namely from the Wall Street Journal, saying that Amazon is working on a 7″ touchscreen version Echo with better speakers, but in that report they mention it looking
Amazon Touchscreen Echo Images Leaked? Read More »
If there’s an easy trend to pick out of CES this year, it’s that Alexa is everywhere. From cars to audio equipment, to phones and robots, Amazon’s virtual assistant is now chatting to you from every conceivable product category. So many products were announced here but let’s see if we can name them all, shall we? List of All the Alexa-Enabled Products at CES Lenovo Smart Assistant Speaker, lenovo’s newest smart capable speaker will use Alexa Lg’s latest fridge the Instaview SmartFridge will allow you to use Alexa for commands but also allow you to order food as well. Along
Every Device With Alexa Built In Announced at CES (Video) Read More »
Kodi, formerly known as XBMC, is a free and open source media center for playing videos, music, podcasts, photos, games, etc. on any number of devices. Beyond just playing back your own media over your wifi network though, it allows you to also grab content from third-party plugins to watch TV and movies from all over the web. Now though, for those with a FireTV stick, there’s a way to load Kodi and its content sources directly on your TV as a native app. In this video, I’m going to show you what Kodi is exactly and how to install
What is Kodi? (& How to Install Kodi on the Amazon Fire TV) (Video) Read More »
So you may not know this but the Play Store isn’t the only major hub where you can get apps from. Amazon has one, too. And, uniquely enough, Amazon has some interesting differentiators to set it apart from the Play Store as well. How to Install the Amazon Appstore So because the Play Store doesn’t allow other app stores, you have to go about getting the Amazon Appstore a little differently. First up, we need to allow apps from outside the Play Store to be installed on the phone. Head to Settings > Security > and then tap Allow Unknown Sources
Video: How to Get the Amazon Appstore on Your Android Device (Allied Content) Read More »
