Amazon today announced a new equaliser features allowing you to fine tune the sound on your Amazon Echo.

This allows you to make subtle tweaks to bass, treble and midrange depending what you are listening to for optimal sound.

We have tested the feature out and as a simple as it sounds it does make a difference, especially increasing the bass!

If you are based in the UK you can access the new equaliser via the smart phone app.

• • Open the Alexa app.
  • Click the menu, top left
  • Tap Alexa Devices
  • Tap the device you want to change adapt the sound
  • Tap Sounds
  • Open equaliser

If you are based in the USA you can use Alexa to adjust the sound, using the commands:

“Alexa… turn up the (treble / bass / midrange)”

“Alexa…. set (treble / bass / midrange) to (plus / minus) (number 1 – 6)”
“Alexa…. reset equaliser ”

These commands only effect the Echo you are talking too, each has their own settings.

The post Amazon release Alexa equaliser feature appeared first on Smart Home Geeks.

We recently discovered someone had used their Amazon Echo to create a seating plan for their wedding. Then using it on their big day to let guests find their seats.

We thought this was an amazing idea and great fun for guest! Although you might want to consider also having a traditional table plan for those who hate tech or if there are a few guests.

Here is a simple tutorial showing how you can do it yourself, with no programming skills. Using a free amazing tool called Storyline.

Here is the video that inspired the tutorial.

How to make an Alexa interactive wedding seating plan!

The first thing you need to know is this is done via an Alexa Skill.

Skills are like apps that as you might have guessed, give Alexa more skills. These can easily be added via the phone app or just by asking Alexa.

What do you need?

• Google Account – Storyline links to your Google Login.
• Amazon Account
• Amazon Echo – Any will do!

Step 1. Create your table plan list

The first thing you need is your actual table plan, to make it easier later a simple list of who is on what table.

For example:

• Henry McLean – Top Table
• Danny Low – Table 2 – Gold

No need to do this on a computer if you prefer pen and paper as its only a visual reference for later.

Step 2. Setup your skill

Using your Google account sign into Storyline and select ‘Create Skill’.

Then select ‘New Custom Skill’ and give your skill a name, this will be the invocation name so choose something good, for example ‘Henry and Dannys Wedding’. Then select your time zone from the drop down and select No Template.

You will now see the Storyboard main screen, this shows all the blocks and default connections.

Step 3. Understand blocks

The next thing to understand is Stroyline works in blocks that connect together to create a Skill.
Blocks contain interactions with Alexa, either her asking you something or a user answering something.

The first block you will see is the welcome block, this is the block that opens when a user opens a skill. Think of it like a journey the user starts in one block and depending on how the user interacts with Alexa depends where they end up on their journey.

Click the Welcome Block – this is the first thing to load when the skills is opened.

Within the block you will see two types of icons:

• Speaker – These represent Alexa saying something, see the welcome message
• People – These represent a user saying something
• Arrows – This is to handle an unexpected reply, called else
• Music Note – This is to add an audio element
• Code Square – This is to connect it to a web service with programming.

Click the welcome message and edit it as this will be the first thing your guests hear

Step 4. Add Guests

Now you need to add your guests to your Welcome Block. To do this click the people icon inside the Welcome Block and add their name, for example: Henry McLean.

When their name has been added below the name you will see three stacked lines. This is to add variations of their name, for example ‘Tom’ might say ‘Tommy’ or ‘Thomas’. You don’t have to add these if there aren’t any, for example Henry is just Henry

NOTE: If you are desperately looking for the save button in Storyline, don’t worry it autosaves!

Keep adding your guests until they are all listed inside your Welcome Block.

When they are all added click the plus arrow top right to add a new regular block.

Name this block Not found guests this will be used if Alexa cannot understand the guest or cannot find them.

Next click the grey speaker icon and add something for Alexa to say.

Then go back to your Welcome Block, and click the arrow icon else and connect to Not found guests block.

Step 5. Add Tables

To do this we are going to make a new block for each table. Again click the square with the plus symbol in it, top right and select regular block. A block will be added.

Click the name of the block and name it, for example: Table 2 Gold

Now we need to make Alexa say the name of the table. To do this click the speaker symbol in the block and add your message for Alexa to read. You can use normal punctuation and Alexa will just read it.

To add a bit of suspense you can add a delay by using <break time=”0.1s” />

If you make a mistake and want to remove a table click the dots top right and click remove block.

Step 6. Allocate the guests.

Now you should have all your guests in the welcome block and all your tables set up as separate blocks. The next thing to do is assign guests to tables.

On your Welcome Block click a guest, you will see an arrow to connect a user. From the drop down select their table.

Go through each guest selecting a table.

Step 7. Essential blocks

Next you need to customise the required blocks, to do this click the block and edit the text.

The required blocks are:

Help – This block opens if a user asks for help at any point, as part of it you must have a Yes and No. By default the yes goes back to the start and the no goes to the Stop Block.

Stop – This is if a user says stop at any point.

That is it, hard work done.

Step 9. Test the skill

The quickest way to test the skill is in browser clicking the play button top right. Hopefully it should work exactly as you wanted. However note this is only a simulation.
If not you can edit and adapt your skill before publishing. If your stuck let us know in the comments below and we will try to help.

Thats it, your hard work is done!

Step 10. Go live!

We suggest you only publish it to your own Amazon Echo as this keeps it as a surprise. If you really want to you can publish from Storyline into the full Alexa Skill Store but then anyone can access it. The other benefit to keeping ‘local’ is you can do it instantly NOW and do not need to complete forms or design icons or wait for Amazon to test and approve it.

To go live on your own Amazon Echo you release the skill as development. To do this click the upload to Alexa button top right. You will now be asked to connect to an Amazon Developer account, if you do not have one don’t worry its free and you can sign in with Amazon to make one.

This will add it to your registered Amazon Echo and keep it private. A green tick indicates it has been uploaded. If you open the Alexa app on your phone and click your skills scroll far right, you will see it under dev skills.

Now you can ask Alexa ‘Open Henry and Dannys Wedding’ or whatever you named your skill to try it in real life.

Let us know how you get on with your skill in the comments and don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

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This is a We Own it review of the Kiwi Design Alex – an Echo Dot battery base.

What does Alex do?!

Alex is a is a battery base for a second-generation Echo dot.  It is only for the second generation because the Amazon Echo Dot fits perfectly inside Alex.

Alex has an impressive 10,000 mA/h battery – this means it can power the Echo Dot for 12 hours play time and 24 hours standby time. Standby is when it is just listening and waiting for you to invoke her.

Alexa is the super smart home assistant by Amazon, our favourite voice assistant in fact.

Until now Alexa has been stuck to where you have power as the Echo Dot requires mains power. Kiwi Design have just released Alex to fix that problem with their portable Alexa battery base.

It has four LED’s on the front to show how charged it is:

• LED 1 – Low
• LED 2 – Medium
• LED 3 – High
• LED 4 – Full

When empty it takes 8 hours to fully charge.

Once the Echo Dot is turned on the functionality of Alexa is the same, surprisingly music plays the same with no ‘muffling’ or distortion from the case. This is probably as the case is solid and doesn’t vibrate to the music.

To charge Alex you use the original Echo Dot cable and it can be on charge when in use.
The case does not cover the 3.5M audio jack so you can still use that when using Alex.

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Dot 2 Battery Base, Charger for Dot 2nd Gen. 10000mah 17 Hours Continues Playing Music by Kiwi Design

Check the Price on Amazon UK

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How easy is it to setup?

Very easy, you place your dot into Alex – making sure they are aligned.

Connect the power connector.

Press power button and done. It comes partially charged, LED 2 lit, so it can be uses straight away.

How much does Alex cost?

The RRP is £59.99 and can be purchased via Amazon, we have an exclusive Amazon Discount code to save 20% SJLG4TQO  

What’s it like living with Alex?

Alex is handy as you now have a portable Alexa you can easily take from room to room without worrying about wires.

It was also handy to take to the garden to use as a voice control for the garden tech. However, neither Amazon Echo Dot or Alex are waterproof or at all IP rated so it cannot be left outside or used in the wet.

What are our final thoughts?
Alex is a well-designed bit of kit, care has been taken with the build and the design. Its handy now being able to take Alexa with you.

Alex the Amazon Echo Dot Battery base can be purchased from Amazon

The post Alex – Echo Dot Battery Review appeared first on Smart Home Geeks.

This is a We Own it review!

Amazon Echo Dot is the Amazon Echo’s smaller brother (or sister actually!). It doesn’t feature as large speaker, however majority of features are the same and you can use all the same skills as you can on Amazon Echo. You can buy Amazon Echo Dot 2nd gen for under £50 on Amazon.

Amazon Echo Dot is basically your miniature home assistant operated by voice commands starting with ‘Alexa’. So whatever you say after ‘Alexa’ – the assistant will try to do.

What does the Amazon Echo Dot do?

Amazon Echo Dot comes with some pre built skills (voice commands if you like) and some you can download:

• ‘Alexa – what’s the weather?’ Will give you current weather in your area. You can add ‘tomorrow, next week’ etc and Alexa’s answer will change.
• ‘Alexa – what’s in the news’ –
  and it will read you the news
• Alexa – Simon says – make me pancakes’ – and it will repeat ‘make me pancakes’

The basic functionality also has some smart home control features like playing music, but majority really depend on connected apps (sorry, skills!) but there aren’t that many yet (at the time of writing of this review).

Alexa updates automatically and learns over wifi, it has a mobile phone app too.

Most importantly, Alexa allows you to add things to your Amazon shopping basket, the real (in my opinion) plan behind the item. You can also add things to your shopping list, however if you have kids and there are 4 of you at home, things get a bit complicated with the voice commands.

How does it work & what is the tech?

Alexa constantly listens, so at any point when you say ‘Alexa’, it reacts (changes colour) and you can see it’s listening for the command.

You’ll need to plug it into your mains socket and connect via the mobile app to your local wifi. It they gets updates and is pretty much ready to go.

Since the launch Amazon Echo Dot has some strong partners in terms of skills, you can order an Uber ride or takeaways from Just Eats, future success really depends on how often you use these services and if there will be more skills.

How much does it cost?

Amazon Echo Dot today is £49.99 – sometimes there is a special deal from Amazon on £5 off.

What’s it like living with it?

One of my issues with using it was my accent, sometimes the voice recognition wouldn’t be great, could be due to so-so microphone on the device too.

It needs to be positioned well, so the microphone is not covered, it occasionally picks up random things from the TV too.

What are our final thoughts?

Currently it’s faster for me to tap on my mobile in order to find the news or get something done, it’s also always nearby, when Alexa is likely to be in another room from which I am. So it all depends on your habits and if you do a lot of things that have skills designed for them.

PS. You can buy Amazon Echo Dot 2nd gen for under £50 on Amazon.

The post Amazon Echo Dot Review appeared first on Smart Home Geeks.