Best-Selling Product on Amazon This Holiday Season: Echo Dot

DooKey

[H]F Junkie
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The Echo Dot was the best-selling ITEM on Amazon this holiday season. I wouldn't have doubted that the Dot was going to be the best-selling Alexa enabled device, but it blows my mind that it outsold every product on Amazon. I have a couple of them and enjoy them for playing music, however, I don't have them all around my house. How many of you [H] folks took the plunge for a Dot this season? Check out this PR from Amazon regarding sales.

Along with the Echo Dot, the Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote was another top-selling Amazon device and one of the best-selling products across all of Amazon. This holiday season, customers bought more than twice as many Amazon Fire TV Sticks than they did during last year’s holiday season. Compared to last year’s holiday season, Amazon sold “millions more” Amazon devices during this year’s holiday season.
 
Consumers... eh, what the hell do they know. :D
 
Coool.
Bought an Echo Rev 1 on Prime day for 79 bucks.
Bought 2 Dots over the holidays, plugged one into my whole house sound, the Dot provides the stream and all three are linked so commands can come from any one of them.
Slick and fucking cheap.
 
There is no way in hell I would ever own/buy it, or any product like it.
Yeah, as the tech currently stands, I have no desire. I'm sure there are some interesting uses I haven't seen. But every person I have seen using it-----its basically a really expensive way to have "wireless" volume, light switches, and very general channel switching for audio entertainment. I will walk across the room and use my ten fingers, save the money.
 
Funny how times a' change...

HeyWiretap.jpg
 
Yeah, as the tech currently stands, I have no desire. I'm sure there are some interesting uses I haven't seen. But every person I have seen using it-----its basically a really expensive way to have "wireless" volume, light switches, and very general channel switching for audio entertainment. I will walk across the room and use my ten fingers, save the money.

This form of economics better fits the instant gratification model than the log term model. If people would take all these "cheap things" they buy throughout the year and put that money into investment vehicles (either your education, finance, debt reduction) the impact would be much more profound. But....meh.
 
Montu I'm a little surprised you have a couple of these, I got the impression your focus on info sec would make you say "no way". So do you feel the invasion is minimal, or just not more than what is already happening thus not a real problem?

I think these things are fascinating, but they also make me feel like I should start drafting tin hat designs.
 
Montu I'm a little surprised you have a couple of these, I got the impression your focus on info sec would make you say "no way". So do you feel the invasion is minimal, or just not more than what is already happening thus not a real problem?

I think these things are fascinating, but they also make me feel like I should start drafting tin hat designs.


I only put them in places I consider "safe". One is in my computer room and the other in the workshop outside. I use them for playing music and don't have private discussions in those rooms. I feel I minimize the negatives that way.
 
I only put them in places I consider "safe". One is in my computer room and the other in the workshop outside. I use them for playing music and don't have private discussions in those rooms. I feel I minimize the negatives that way.

If it makes you feel any better.

Not sure how true this is but sounds knowledgable.
 
Yeah, as the tech currently stands, I have no desire. I'm sure there are some interesting uses I haven't seen. But every person I have seen using it-----its basically a really expensive way to have "wireless" volume, light switches, and very general channel switching for audio entertainment. I will walk across the room and use my ten fingers, save the money.

I use it to yell at alexa to buy toilet paper, shampoo or dog food so I don't forget. Also great for converting measurements in the kitchen or just having guests play whatever music they want when I am having a party and our dirty hands are covered in BBQ. Great to ask how the traffic or weather is before heading out. Yeah all these things can be done physically but fuck that, FUTURE!
 
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The tin foil hats are strong in this thread. My only rebuttal is that I hope you realize unless you're taking the battery out of your phone at home it has the same spying capability from the government and corporations as well that these devices have.

That being said, I love using my amazon echo.
 
This form of economics better fits the instant gratification model than the log term model. If people would take all these "cheap things" they buy throughout the year and put that money into investment vehicles (either your education, finance, debt reduction) the impact would be much more profound. But....meh.
Not that I don't agree that we should consume less and enjoy what we have more, but those investments you speak of would not be very good investments if consumers did not consume!
 
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I cook a lot, and usually I drag my cellphone to the kitchen to fire up some Pandora.

I'm extremely tempted to get an Echo just for this purpose. I understand and respect some people's concerns regarding privacy, but they're not my concerns.
 
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Meh, I wanted a fire stick... grabbed the bundle with the echo dot, was only $20 more. A fun toy, but by no means do I need it.

Seems like pretty soon everyone's going to be in a google camp, apple camp, or amazon camp.
 
It is not recording everything and uploading it. As the reddit post points out, it listens for the keyword to do anything. It would easily be proven by now if it were recording everything, which can be done by anyone that knows how to view network statistics on their connection. I can see that it's only passing traffic when the key word has been used.
 
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The tin foil hats are strong in this thread. My only rebuttal is that I hope you realize unless you're taking the battery out of your phone at home it has the same spying capability from the government and corporations as well that these devices have.

That being said, I love using my amazon echo.

Why do you think I have a dumb flip phone? You are right though. Cell phones are more intrusive than these home applicances are,....sort of. The home appliance is always listening (may not always be recording, but do you know what the trigger words are?), where the cell phones do record intermittently. Then again, the phones also take pictures as well.

Yes, my tin foil hat is firmly secured.
 
We got an echo dot for Christmas from a sister-n-law

I told my wife it's a 24/7 spy device. She said, "I don't care. It's funny!"

I'm personally about to go flip phone. If it wasn't for GPS Maps and web email I would have ditched it long ago for something cheaper.
 
Picked up a eco gen 2 for my wife. She loves it , I also have prime music. Nice to be able to have a song pop in your head you haven't heard in forever and just say it and it plays. She wants a dot now for the bedroom to use to set alarms. She works at the hospital and is super paranoid about over sleeping so this will help her relax. My thing is even if it's listening to me , which is don't believe it is. Who cares able what I say in my house. I don't have anything to hide. Son also loves it , he is big into science and can ask it whatever he want's . He is only 8 so he can't really search for it on google.
 
The tin foil hats are strong in this thread. My only rebuttal is that I hope you realize unless you're taking the battery out of your phone at home it has the same spying capability from the government and corporations as well that these devices have.

That being said, I love using my amazon echo.
While I agree with you i'd rather not riddle my house with more listening devices. 2 cell phones is bad enough. I'm not into adding another listening device because its makes everything more convenient. That's just my opinion, Ill avoid the Alexa / home / (whatever Apple has) train and continue without it.
 
I cook a lot, and usually I drag my cellphone to the kitchen to fire up some Pandora.

I'm extremely tempted to get an Echo just for this purpose. I understand and respect some people's concerns regarding privacy, but they're not my concerns.

This is exactly why I got it. And after finding out just how useful this thing is, and verifying that traffic only happens AFTER the keyword, I went ahead and got a second one to go into the bedroom. There has been many times that I forgot to charge my phone, or numerous other things that prevent my alarm from going off. Combine that with having it read my news, traffic alerts, music, etc... while I shower to start my day? As well as being able to pass commands to my smart home hub, among other things. Yup, I love this thing.
 
I see a day where I will pull the plug on the Internet. Once it gets passed a threshold of data gathering versus utility and the data gathering exceeds the utility, then ....snip....its gone. It is getting insane and no one gives a damn as long as they have their toys they will sacrifice anything and be perfectly happy with that paradigm.

Neat how many ways spyware is now being accepted. All they needed to do was promise a butt massage, or something similar, to make the masses happy with losing every ounce of privacy they had.

Mind boggling and quite frustrating. The sparklies have it.
 
Why covertly install microphones when you can make people pay you for the privilege of their own intrusion? Someone is a marketing genius.
 
I don't have any of those devices. My parents just recently went on a echo splurge and picked up 5 of them. Not sure I how I feel about them yet, probably something i'd never use.
 
Bring me a 12'er of El Chingón and I will give you mine.
 
If you have a modern smart phone, you have a device like that that listens to you.

BSmith is the real tin foil wearer though as he doesn't have a smart phone. Those that are this paranoid love to rant and be upset at the mass that doesn't follow their paranoia. In reality not owning devices like this, staying off social media, and not following the norm will get you more notice than anything. What are you trying to hide?
 
I bought 2 more Echo's but have never even considered the Dot for more than 10 seconds. It doesn't suit my purposes.
 
If you have a modern smart phone, you have a device like that that listens to you.

I do not have a smart phone. I have a dumb flip phone, which has SMS (text messaging) disabled as well.

Rahh, you do not get it. People like you never do. It's all about giving away anything and everything just as long as you have your sparklies.

You know people used to pay for the data that is taken from you now? You willingly give away a vaulable commodity. I suppose you put things out on your yard to give away as well, instead of selling them. My data is valuable. If someone wants it, I will consider selling it to them, but I refuse to give it away for free.

You may not see your data being worth anything, but companies are making billions off of what you give them for free. I feel for people who think so little of the data/information they give away everyday. Worse than that. People not only give away that valuable information, they do so by paying for a product which takes it from them. Google and Amazon have to be laughing all the way to the bank at that one.

So I will happily keep my tin foil hat polished and securely planted on me noggin.
 
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