Alexa Plus

I've read in the past that most echo dots and some of the older regular echos should gain access to Alexa plus, but no clue when that will happen. It's a real shame that Amazon is prioritizing their devices with screens.

It's not limited. Will be on all but the first gen devices.

Saying that, it's vapourware. No one has got it, even the big tech reviewers. AI is a buzz term which is good for boosting stock, especially with such a tantalising demo as Amazon put on however, until it is in people's homes, it's not real. Just look at the hot water Apple got itself in with its own AI attempt.

TLDR: It'll be on amazon devices without screens, be prepared to wait.

I thought it was gunna launch on screens first and then will go to most other devices? At least that's from what I read.

Who knows. It's not even launched on screens yet. I have heard conflicting reports and, considering it's already a month overdue, I'm not holding much stock in what they've said.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very excited about it, it could be cool. I do think it was a rather scavenger move by amazon though after apple's stumble with AI... At least, I think that was the timeline. Apple fails, look what we can do, rushed out. It wasn't even an open demonstration.

Amazon, with its reach, really has a huge chance to mop up here. I was in the prime app the other day and saw all the subscriptions they have in there. If they could get BBC and Nw TV, the version of sky which shows HBO on there too, it would be its own walled garden with a far grater reach and scope than apple, especially in the knowing what you want to buy before you do. Who knows.

Sorry, I got off track.

Like with any of this AI hype, I'm not going to hold my breath that it will be released in the next few months, let alone being released on the specific devices they have said.

Have it on my second generation device, and echo dot. The one that looks like a baseball. Is OK nothing to write home about it. Miss the old alexa voice.

Did do not like her, want my old lady back.

I finally got access to Alexa Plus a little over a week ago. It ended up being a bit of a saga, but the details aren't important. Anyway, I think it's phenomenal. Admittedly, my needs are fairly simple: I just have my morning alarm and a few daily reminders. The new voices sound great to me. They are much clearer and easier to hear. There are 8 new voices: 4 feminine and 4 masculine. I have 6 echo dots in my apartment: 3 second generation dots which are all hooked up to pairs of Bose Media Mates speakers, and 3 5th generation dots because of their built-in temperature sensers. My 3 second generation dots all have the wake word Alexa and are using feminine voice 3, and my 3 fifth generation dots have the wake word of Ziggy and are using masculine voice 2. Of course, there are a few quirks here and there, but I often experienced frustration with the original Alexa, so things really haven't changed. The few skills I use are working fine for the most part, although Puzzle of the Day, which has always been a bit quirky in my experience, does seem a bit flakier than it already was. It's a bummer that I had to wait 4 months to get early access, but now that I finally have it, I'd say that at least for my specific situation, it was well worth the wait.

one thing I was thinking about is how the new voices are at reading kindle books? I know with legacy alexa, or whatever they call it, you can ask it to pick up your current book, however, the audio quality isn't great. I'm hoping this is one of the improvements with alexa plus. Kindle seems a great use of more advanced TTS.

I'm really hoping this will change sooner rather than later, but at the moment, Alexa Plus can't read Kindle books aloud. It's the only thing I tried that didn't work, bu t since Alexa Plus is still very much in the early access/beta I am really hoping this will change at some point. The voices I'm using would both sound great reading Kindle books. It might even be enough to trick my brain into thinking I'm listening to human narration.

Oh. I just want to point out that Alexa plus isn’t even released in the UK yet. I am so ashamed with Amazon about how they market their new AI, and they even said that it will be rolling out two of the countries overtime, and five months later they still haven’t released it to the UK. I want AI on my Amazon echo show 10. And no I do not want to use those skills that have in the AI capabilities with an API, application programming interface, which is essentially a thing where it communicates to a piece of software to get information, Such as those AI things on the App Store like character AI, because that has to use ChatGPT for responses. So Amazon, please give us Alexa plus.

I think all these companies are simply riding the hype. As they are all US companies it makes sense, to please investors etc, that it rolls out there first. Hopefully, when it does get here, a lot of the bugs have been ironed out.