Amazon’s newest digital product the Echo and Dot became one of the hottest selling items this holiday season, millions of the devices were sold and the online retailer ran out of them. They’re currently back ordered more than three weeks.
If you were lucky enough to get your hands on one, we’ll show you some of its features and how to connect with us at NBC 5.
The Echo is the device, kinda like Apple’s iPhone, but to communicate with the Echo you must same the name of the personal assistant inside, so you say, "Alexa."
"I'll be cooking in the kitchen and I'll have entire conversations with Alexa about anything," said Peter Hull, an NBC 5 photojournalist who’s been using the Echo’s little brother, the Dot.
The Dot has the same features as Echo, just not as high a quality of a speaker. But it still has Alexa who can tell you how much wood a woodchuck can chuck, and knows that "A Christmas Story" is required watching during the holidays.
Alexa also connects with NBC 5, to get you the latest forecast and news of the day just by asking. You go to the app, choose settings, flash briefing, and select, NBC DFW.
"You can updates from NBC in Dallas, the local news here or news from across the world," said Hull.
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The device has it’s hangups, because it’s always listening, sometimes she chimes in when you’re talking about her to someone else, or if your name happens to be or sounds like Alexa. My daughter is named Priscilla and sometimes when calling for my 7-year old, Alexa would answer instead.
Amazon does let you change the assistant’s name to "Echo" or "Amazon" in case "Alexa" doesn’t work for you.
If you have to have one, the ship dates right now are at the end of January, depending on which model you choose.
