VR at comic cons isn’t worth the hassle
There was plenty to see at this year’s New York Comic Con, from the stars of the newest Netflix shows, to elaborate cosplay of superheroes and giant robots. However, it seemed like quite a few exhibitors would prefer that attendees spend their time in booths with virtual reality headsets strapped to their face. But instead of feeling like a pop-up arcade where fans could delve into the worlds of their favorite programs, many of the simulations felt like cheap marketing presentations. And, honestly, the technology and fans deserve so much better.
The use of virtual reality to promote other media is nothing new. We’ve seen simulations that allowed you to visit Castle Black from HBO’s Game of Thrones, or one that put you into the role of a Ghostbuster. Indeed, the Westworld setup at New York Comic Con would appear to be more of the same, with some extra flourishes to more fully immerse attendees in the world of the show. Those who showed up at its off-site location were greeted by women and men dressed in white and asked to wait in a tasteful lounge area. It felt luxurious, like I had actually booked a trip with the fictional company. Unfortunately, that feeling wouldn’t last very long as I was led into a mostly empty room and an HTC Vive was strapped to my face.
I continued my experience as a Westworld customer, waving the controllers to choose a hat and gun, then testing out my shooting skills on a small range. I felt mildly annoyed by the inability to walk around and explore the buildings in the distance, and that feeling got worse as the narrative kicked in. The scenery “glitched” and I ended up in a lab where technicians frantically scrambled to figure out what was going wrong with the sim. I was told to sit down — in an actual physical chair — and then I was rolled around the laboratory floor, passively watching as executives argued and malfunctioning androids attacked their makers. It was essentially an infodump that the company hoped would interest me in the series.
Amazon did something similar for The Man in the High Castle, minus the exterior role-playing elements. I was show protagonist Juliana Crain, searching for a filmstrip hidden in an office. I was a bit too tall for the room and looking down revealed some comically large breasts, while the gameplay mostly consisted of clicking on various items, with text hints appearing if I took a tad too long making my way through the office.
A lot of VR experiences encourage exploration and discovery, but neither of these programs had the luxury of letting the user wander due to the need to push their particular TV shows in under five minutes. They didn’t even do a very good job conveying what their source material was about. A friend of mine who also tried the Man in the High Castle experience said that it was a good thing he had seen the pilot, because he otherwise had no idea what was going on. The same is true of Westworld: I know that it’s ostensibly a story about theme park androids run amok, but that’s only because I’m familiar with the source novel and original film. The confusion and frustration I experienced during the VR demo actually made me a bit wary of the show: I still haven’t seen a single episode.
These experiences are “convention exclusive,” meaning they’ll never see release outside of the handful of attendees who arrive at the booth early enough or are willing to wait a few hours in line for a turn. They don’t even have a good ripple effect: You can’t really share the experience on social media, and your friends won’t watch a TV show or movie just because you saw a cool VR demo. So most of these demos tend to be short and unsatisfying, because there’s no point in spending a lot of resources on something that can only reach a couple thousand people at most.
This results in a sort of knock-on effect, as the experiences stop being worth the time and money attendees put into them. A single-day badge is $50, and many of the booths had lines advertising two or three hour waits. With hundreds of guests, dozens of panels and cosplay to check out, I’d be pretty pissed if I wasted a good chunk of my day on a mediocre VR demo.
At first glance, Starbreeze Studios’ John Wick experience would seem to be more of the same: It’s also a tie-in for an upcoming film and a limited number of stations meant a long wait. You even start out by watching a short trailer. But it quickly breaks off into a fully-realized simulation, forcing you to defend yourself from waves and waves of attackers on a roof. I was far from a passive observer of an ad at this point: I had to actually turn to aim my guns and duck behind walls to avoid being shot.
It didn’t matter whether or not I was familiar with John Wick, because it cut to the meat of what people like about the series: The intense action sequences. Granted, it’s a lot easier to convey the story of an assassin who everyone wants to kill than say, an alternate history where the Nazis won World War II. But, the best games and VR experiences play to their source materials’ strengths, and John Wick did that beautifully.
The reason that it succeeded is because it’s not an ephemeral gimmick. It’s actually going to be a real game next year, called “The John Wick Chronicles,” available on SteamVR for $20 in February. So no one actually needed to stand in line for hours to try it, they could have just waited for the retail release. But, if they’d never tried VR before, it was certainly a good first experience to have. It sold virtual reality as much as it sold John Wick.
This is important because even with three major headsets available, the price and required hardware keep them out of the hands of many fans. Large public events like New York Comic Con end up being the first time many people get to try the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR, so those experiences need to be good. Who’s going to want to buy a headset if their first simulation is a bad commercial?
Oculus’ plan to rule VR is to throw more money at it
Oculus is the first company to help ship more than one virtual reality headset. In the past year alone, it’s collaborated on two smartphone-powered versions of the Samsung Gear VR as well as the Rift, a higher-end model that requires a PC. But the company is also facing a growing field of rivals, including the HTC Vive, Sony PlayStation VR and, most recently, Google Daydream, which aims to unseat Samsung in the smartphone category. So how does Oculus draw consumers to its side? By betting on exclusives, eschewing standards, funding a vast ecosystem of games and relying on Facebook’s pocketbook.
Oculus touched on these efforts last week at its third annual developer’s conference, which also happened to be its largest. The event drew over 3,000 attendees — a far cry from the 1,000 or so who attended the inaugural Oculus Connect back in 2014. And it’s no wonder. With various consumer VR headsets finally shipping this year, virtual reality is no longer just a fad. But that doesn’t mean consumers are buying in just yet. Right now, VR is still something of a niche market. Samsung and Oculus reported there are now over a million Gear VR users, which sounds like a lot, but that’s still just a sliver of the population. The company wouldn’t announce exact Rift sales numbers, but that’s projected to be much lower.
Plus, Oculus suffered a few roadblocks along the way. Earlier this year, it weathered criticism when it implemented a DRM that blocked Rift titles from working with the HTC Vive. It eventually removed that restriction following popular outcry. Despite pushback by the community though, Oculus hasn’t given up on exclusives. “There are hacky ways of getting around the exclusivity,” said Jason Rubin, head of content for Oculus, referring to tools like Revive that some have used to circumvent the Rift’s DRM. But as Rift-exclusive titles are optimized for Oculus hardware, Rubin says it’s still best if users don’t use competitor headsets. To not offer exclusives isn’t an option either. “Everyone else is doing exclusives,” Rubin told Engadget, adding that to not do the same would put them at a disadvantage.
Exclusives or not, though, it seems to me that Oculus has the upper hand against the competition. For one thing, it has Facebook’s bank account at its disposal. At Connect last week, the company announced that it’s investing $250 million in game development, and will likely invest $250 million more. This makes Oculus a fearsome competitor because it’s able to foster a larger roster of games and apps, as well as take chances on more experimental stuff.
For example, it unveiled “asynchronous space warp” last week, a technology that would lower the minimum requirements of Rift hardware. It revealed that it has a standalone VR headset in the works, which none of its rivals have announced they’re doing. It’s also able to go head-to-head with its competition. While HTC’s Vive was touted as the more immersive VR system with its hand-motion wands and room-scale experience, Oculus is punching back with the release of its Touch controllers and the option of a third sensor for that same room-scale feel.
Plus, let’s not forget Oculus’ efforts in the social VR space, which instantly posits the Rift and the Gear VR as more than just headsets for gaming or 360-degree videos. It could also be used to talk with friends and family, which is a much more compelling use-case to the everyday consumer.
Still, that doesn’t mean the company is on an instant road to success. Sony’s PSVR is a lot cheaper and works on the PS4, a console that many people already own. It also remains to be seen what Google has in store for Daydream and how many more Daydream-compatible headsets will come to market in the next few months. Seeing as Samsung is facing a dire reputation crisis with the discontinuation of the Galaxy Note 7, the Gear VR isn’t looking so good right now.
“This is a very, very, new industry,” said Rubin. “It’s both fun and frustrating. Any given day you can wake up and see an announcement in the newspaper and say ‘Well that came out of nowhere and now we’re headed in another direction.’”
“But it’s a fun ride,” he said.
Grab your sonic and go for an adventure with these Doctor Who wallpapers!
It’s one of the touchstones of fandom, a franchise that renews and reinvents itself for its audience just as its main character regenerates every few years. Whether you’re a fan of fezzes and bow ties or attack eyebrows, or if you’re still pining after Ten, Doctor Who has something for everyone, and that includes wallpapers.
This wallpaper is so warm, so inviting, so comforting… and yet so sad. It’s a reminder that the Doctor walks in eternity, and as was said in the last season: “Immortality isn’t living forever. That’s not what it feels like. Immortality is everybody else dying.” The Doctor has seen and cared for and even loved so many, yet he always ends up alone — just a mad man with a box, running away from that pain and that loneliness. That means this isn’t exactly a happy wallpaper, but it’s been a small reminder to me to cherish the people I surround myself with.
The Lonely Doctor by T3ch82
I’m gonna make a confession here: Matt Smith was the first Doctor I could get into. (ducks and hides) I couldn’t help it, Ten was just so… moody, so dramatic, so heavy. Matt Smith’s Doctor was younger in appearance but felt more matured, more vibrant, more full of life.
He also had a penchant for thinking out-of-style accessories were cool. Fezzes are cool, bowties are cool, suspenders are cool. Sure, they are, Doctor…. Sure they are.
Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor by alicexz
Twelve has been a dramatic shift from the previous two Doctors, and while it takes a while to warm up to him, he’s a Doctor worth knowing beneath the gruff exterior and the attack eyebrows. (My god, the attack eyebrows!) And while there are several amazing details in this wallpaper, the one that calls out to me and my jacket-loving mind is that luscious red lining to his coat. I just wanna steal it and run away with it… hopefully with his shiny new sonic in the pocket.
The 12th Doctor. by spidermonkey23
The most constant character in Doctor Who is not the Daleks, not even The Doctor himself: it’s his TARDIS. The TARDIS may undergo some slight redecorating between Doctors, but it’s still that fabulous blue Police Box, bigger on the inside and capable of traversing (almost all of) time and space. This lusciously dark wallpaper highlights the TARDIS’s iconic outline against a magnificent nebula deep in the darkest corners of the universe, and reminds us that no matter how dark the universe may seem, the TARDIS and The Doctor it carries within will light it up with hope and insane plans.
TARDIS Wallpaper – Black Edition. by MrGrandhighmonkey
These wallpapers are a little smaller than I usually want, but for a text wallpaper, they scale well. Doctor Who has amazing action and truly awesome visuals, but it also has a lot of quotable dialog. Twelve and Clara in particular had had quite a lot of gems, like this wallpaper, which is as true as anything the Doctor has ever said. Those attack eyebrows get away with the most ridiculous of schemes. As a bonus, if you want a Doctor Who wallpaper that will keep you motivated heading into election day, this one is perfect.
Eyebrows by inkandstardust
Save $10 on these magnetic Bluetooth headphones right now!
Right now you can pick up a pair of Vtin’s magnetic Bluetooth headphones for just $12 with coupon code 3ZNN27RG, a savings of $10. The magnets in these headphones allow for them to do additional tasks just by simply separating or placing the two together. For example, if you have the headphones connected to each other around your neck and separate them, it will automatically answer an incoming call. Putting the two back together with pause the music you are listening to or end a call for you. The lightweight headphones have a built-in battery that should provide around 7 hours of playback per charge.
If you are looking for a nice set of Bluetooth headphones that don’t break the bank, you’ll want to check these out. Remember, you need coupon code 3ZNN27RG for the full savings.
See at Amazon
The Galaxy Note 7’s death creates an environmental mess
Samsung’s decision to discontinue the Galaxy Note 7 and recover remaining units isn’t just a blow to smartphone fans… it’s not so hot for the environment, either. Experts speaking to Motherboard point out that phone recycling is still a very young field, and that many of the rare earth elements (such as cobalt and indium) won’t be recycled at all. There’s going to be a significant amount of e-waste when all is said and done, in other words. And while the waste from about 2.5 million barely-used Note 7s isn’t going to trigger an ecological disaster, it’s considerably worse than refurbishing those phones.
And yes, as you might have gathered, Samsung’s decision to seal in the battery isn’t helping. It couldn’t just have users toss out their old batteries and wait for replacements, provided batteries are the cause — it had to ask everyone to return the phones themselves. While these kinds of calamities aren’t widespread among phones with sealed-in batteries, the Note 7 incident is a reminder that removable power packs can be friendlier to the environment, not just convenient.
Source: Motherboard
Twitter’s Flight developer conference was scrapped this year
For the past two years, Twitter has put on a big show called Flight to dazzle mobile app makers with new tools and highlight new shifts in strategy. This year, though, Flight is grounded. Twitter confirmed in a statement to Recode that instead of the usual big fete, the company plans to host smaller, more intimate events around the country — all the better to improve the Twitter’s dicey ties with developers.
“Somewhere along the line our relationship with developers got confusing, unpredictable,” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said at last year’s Flight conference. “We want to come to you today and apologize for the confusion. We want to reset our relationship and make sure that we’re learning, listening, and that we are rebooting.” Dorsey’s words seemed earnest at the time, but it’s hard not to look at Flight’s cancellation as a sign of Twitter’s continuing struggle to figure out how best to work with its developer community.
Curiously, Recode also points to unnamed sources who said that a Flight conference was actually in the works for a while before the plug was unceremoniously pulled. It’s not clear how far along plans for another Flight conference were, but it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Twitter ultimately didn’t want to devote time and energy to a big show. After all, power players like Alphabet, Salesforce and the Walt Disney Company were exploring the possibility of buying Twitter, at least before their enthusiasm died down (dinging Twitter’s stock price in the process).
Make no mistake: giving developers the tools they need to turn this “people’s news network” into something truly indispensable is hugely important for Twitter’s future. Dorsey also admitted in a company-wide memo that his goal is to turn Twitter into “the first place people check to see what’s happening,” a vision that is only helped by developers splashing that firehose of information all over the place. Still, as schizophrenic as Twitter’s stance with its developers might seem, you can’t really blame Jack and his crew for focusing on more short-term priorities.
Source: Recode
Apple Pay Launches in New Zealand Through Partnership With ANZ
Apple Pay today launched in New Zealand, marking the 10th country where the payments service is available. The “Coming Soon” label has been removed from the Apple Pay New Zealand website and New Zealand website Stuff confirms Apple Pay is now functional in the country.
Apple Pay in New Zealand is available through a partnership with ANZ bank, meaning it can only be used with Visa credit and debit cards issued by ANZ at this time. Some banks in Australia and New Zealand have been reluctant to accept Apple Pay due to the fee Apple collects. ANZ executive Liz Maguire told Stuff Apple Pay was worth the fee.
“For us it much more about the value it brings out customers than anything else. I think we’re going to see a lot of people using it because it’s so easy.”
She said the bank had received enquires from new customers but did not say how many.
“We think there’s a lot of interest for Apple Pay in the market and when it was announced there was a lot of commentary on social media saying ‘when is my bank going to offer Apple Pay’”.
Apple Pay works with all of Apple’s latest iPhones, including the iPhone 6, 6s, 7, 6 Plus, 6s Plus, 7 Plus, and SE, plus it is available on the iPhone 5, 5c, and 5s with an Apple Watch.
In New Zealand, Apple warns that a PIN may be required for purchases over 80 NZD, a restriction also implemented in several other countries for security purposes. For purchases under 80 NZD, no confirmation beyond Touch ID (or skin contact on an Apple Watch) is required.
Apple Pay is available at many locations in New Zealand, including McDonald’s, Domino’s, Glassons, K-Mart, Hallenstein Brothers, Stevens, Noel Leeming, Storm, and more.
Apple Pay is now available in the United States, the UK, China, Australia, Russia, Canada, Switzerland, Singapore, France, Hong Kong, and New Zealand. Later in 2016, Apple plans to expand Apple Pay to Spain through a partnership with American Express.
Apple Pay will soon expand to Japan, Spain, and Taiwan.
Related Roundup: Apple Pay
Tags: New Zealand, ANZ
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Why buy gadget insurance?
Why should you shell out for tech and gadget insurance? After all, you might be thinking that providing I’m super-careful and keep a watchful eye on the hundreds of pounds’ worth of phone, tablet, laptop, headphones and/or games consoles and other expensive gadgetry in my bag, there’s no need to pay out more money to cover any breakages, losses or thefts. Is there?
There are plenty of things to think about beyond the above regardless of whether you take your gadgets out into the wild or keep them snug as a bug in a rug in your home.
Dedicated cover
One of the key reasons to go for dedicated gadget insurance is because you’ll get a package that covers the specific needs and issues of that device.
While many home insurance policies will cover gadgets, you are bundling them into a bigger insurance package that covers lots of different products.
Many gadget insurance policies cover things like unauthorised usage or even e-wallet cover, something you don’t normally find with home cover.
Cover anywhere
Home insurance is just that, it is insurance for things stolen or broken in your home. That might mean that dropping your phone down the toilet at work isn’t covered, nor may they be covered if you take your gadgets on holiday. A devoted gadget policy could be detailed to cover you wherever you are or whatever you are doing, including up to 180 days worldwide.
Manage the individual policies
If you’ve got loads of gadgets, insurance cover for each individual item would mean you’ve got the right solution for each device rather than a “catch all” approach. For example, you may be offered flexible repair options allowing you to take your Apple devices to be repaired at your local Apple store.
Avoid big excess claims
We’ve all been there. To make a claim on any insurance we have to pay the excess fee, which is essentially your contribution towards a claim. With some insurances the price of the excess is normally increased to bring down the cost of the policy premium. That’s great for when you are talking home insurance because the likelihood is that you’ll be using it to cover something or a collection of things that add up to a sizeable amount.
You might find though, that the excess you have on your home insurance far outweighs the cost of the gadget you want to claim on, especially if it is a broken screen. With standalone gadget insurance that’s unlikely to be the case and you’ll only pay an excess amount depending on the value of your gadget
Time
When it comes to your phone, you probably use it every waking moment, and probably given half the chance you would use it while you are asleep too, it’s okay really.
Some home insurance claim systems can be lengthy, especially for smaller things, whereas a standalone gadget insurance policy should be quick and simple.
Peace of mind
Most people have the odd worry. The idea of insurance is that it can take some of those worries, box them up, and take them “off the table”. Now you don’t have to worry what happens if you lose that shiny new camera, or break that lovely new phone. If you do, the insurance is there to sort it out. Peace of mind is a great thing.
Get a quote in 10 seconds with Pocket-lints favoured partner: Gadget-cover.com
Amazon Music Unlimited or Spotify: Which is best for you?
Amazon has just released its new music streaming service, Music Unlimited, in the US. It’s not the first time Amazon has offered a music streaming service as it has Prime Music, but Music UnlimIted has a much larger catalogue of music and is open to everyone.
Spotify on the other hand has been in the streaming game since 2008 and has since amassed in excess of 125 million users, 40 million of which pay for it. It has a huge following and is probably the first service you think of when you think of music streaming.
It’s clear then that Amazon has a mission on its hands to topple Spotify’s reign, but it has some competitive pricing options and intuitive features that set it apart.
But which service is best for you? We’ve compiled together all the features of both, how much they cost and how you can access them to help you make your decision.
- Which is the best music streaming service in the UK? Apple Music vs Spotify vs Tidal and more
Amazon Music Unlimited or Spotify: How much do they cost?
Amazon Music Unlimited is only available in the US at the moment, so we can only go on US pricing. It has been confirmed it will be made available in the UK before the end of the year.
If you don’t subscribe to Amazon Prime, a Music Unlimited membership will cost you $9.99/month, but if you do have a Prime account then you’ll only pay $7.99/month or you can $79 for a whole year.
Amazon also offers a membership for $3.99/month but you can only stream music through the Echo speaker, Echo Dot or Amazon Tap. Amazon has said it has plans to introduce a Family membership for $14.99/month or $149 for a year.
Spotify has two tiers, a free, ad-supported tier and a Premium tier that costs £9.99/month.
Spotify also offers offer a family subscription plan which costs £14.99/month for you and up to five family members. Each member gets their own personal account.
Students can also get a discounted membership for just £4.99, but they have to sign up through UniDays or NUS Extra.
Amazon Music Unlimited or Spotify: What devices are they on?
Amazon Music Unlimited is accessible through the Amazon Music app. The app can be downloaded on iOS and Android devices, as well as Mac and PC. You can also access it through a Web player in your browser and through the company’s Echo devices.
Amazon’s Fire tablets and the Fire TV also have an app and you can also play music through a Sonos Multi-Room system or Roku media streamer.
Amazon has also said that select BMW, Ford and Mini cars are Amazon Music-enabled and provide access to the service through its infotainment system when connected to a smartphone.
Spotify is available almost everywhere, there’s an app for iOS, Android, PC and Mac but is available on a list of devices that’s almost too long to put on here. You can get a Spotify app on select TVs from Panasonic, LG, Sony, Samsung, B&O and Philips, and on Bose, Sonos, Onkyo, Denon, Yamaha, Pionner, Naim, Libratone and Revo home entertainment products.
A wide range of car manufacturers, as well as Uber, have either built-in access via Spotify Connect, Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. The Sony PlayStation has an app for Spotify that will let you play your music from within games and you can also access it through Google Chromecast and Chromecast Audio. You can find a full list of devices here.
Amazon Music Unlimited or Spotify: Which offers better sound?
Amazon hasn’t revealed the streaming bitrate quality of its library, but we’d have a guess and say it will be 320kbps as this would put it on par with Spotify.
Spotify reserves the 320kbps streaming quality for its Premium tier. It’s called high quality on computer and extreme quality on mobile. If you use the free tier and listen on a mobile, you can choose between 96kbps normal quality or 160kbps high quality. The same 160kbps streams are called standard quality on computer.
We haven’t heard Amazon Music Unlimited yet, so we can’t say which one sounds better. But since Amazon hasn’t said it’s going to offer high-resolution audio, we can assume they’ll sound very similar.
Amazon Music Unlimited or Spotify: Which has more music?
Again, Amazon hasn’t revealed exact details about its service. All it has said is that Music Unlimited will offer access to “tens of millions” of songs from the major labels.
Spotify has around 30 million songs in its catalogue, but the songs you’re able to listen to may vary depending on where you’re listening from. It’s not clear if Amazon Music Unlimited will have the same location-dependant library.
Amazon Music Unlimited or Spotify: What do they feature?
Radio
Both Amazon Music Unlimited and Spotify offer personalised radio stations based on artists and tracks you like.
Amazon Music Unlimited has the unique ability to be used through the Echo range of voice-controlled devices. You can ask Alexa, Amazon’s assistant, to play songs based on an artist, genre or even for a mood and setting.
Spotify also has mood-based playlists and a list of auto-generated stations and you can also choose to start a station based on an artist or song you’re currently listening to.
Playlists
Both services will let you create your own custom playlists you can then share with friends, or you can save curated ones to your collection.
Discovery
Amazon hasn’t specified exactly how you’ll be able to discover new music through its service, but it has put great emphasis on the newly redesigned Music app, which it says will make music discovery easier than ever before.
Spotify meanwhile has a feature called Discover Weekly, which is an automatically curated playlist of songs that it thinks you’ll like based on your listening habits. It’s updated every Monday morning and from our experience, we’ve always liked what we’ve heard.
Connectivity
Amazon Music Unlimited can be played through the Echo devices, Fire devices and Sonos multi-room systems.
Providing you subscribe to the Premium tier of Spotify, you can use Spotify Connect. It’s a way to stream music to compatible speakers, home entertainment systems or even in an Uber taxi.
Assistant
Because of the integration with Echo devices, Amazon Music Unlimited can be used with Alexa. You can ask Alexa all manner of questions to get the music you want, such as “play music for a dinner party” or “play Britney Spears greatest hits” and so on.
Spotify has no built-in assistant as such. You can’t ask Siri to play songs through it either, as it will default to playing music through Apple Music instead.
Offline
Both Amazon Music Unlimited and Spotify offer offline playback. Amazon offers it as standard but you can only download songs from Spotify if you subscribe to the Premium tier.
Amazon Music Unlimited or Spotify: Which is best for you?
So we come back to our initial question, which music streaming service is best for you? Both offer a compelling argument. We obviously can’t fully recommend Amazon Music Unlimited right now because it’s not available in the UK just yet, but it’s definitely worth thinking about.
If you already have an Amazon Prime membership it could definitely be worth it because of the cheaper monthly cost compared to Spotify. And if you’ve bought an Echo speaker or Echo Dot, paying just $3.99/month makes it incredibly worthwhile.
If it were us, we’d get an Echo Dot and hook it up to our home entertainment system so we could have a large catalogue of music on demand and a good quality system to play it on.
Spotify on the other hand is available almost everywhere and offers a free tier. It’s worth noting that while the free tier still lets you listen to Spotify’s entire 30 million strong music catalogue, it does come with some limitations.
You can choose whatever song you want if you’re listening on a PC or Mac through the app or web player, but if you listen on smartphone or tablet, you have to make do with shuffle-only access. That means you can choose an artist, but not a specific song, instead you have to rely on Spotify to shuffle their tracks.
But Spotify’s service is incredibly easy to use, it sounds good and it has some incredibly useful music discovery features.
We can’t wait to try Amazon Music Unlimited here in the UK, as it seems to offer a genuinely compelling case to switch from Spotify or indeed Apple Music.
Amazon Echo Dot review (2016): Forget the Echo. Buy this instead.
The robot assistants we were promised as children are finally ready for the home. Well, sort of. Instead of walking, talking humanoid automatons like Rosie from The Jetsons and Robby the Robot from Lost in Space, our well-spoken helpers are housed in plastic and sit on tables. They answer our questions, control our homes and sometimes tell us a story. The most ubiquitous assistant so far has been Alexa, an Amazon-powered attendant that has made the jump from a $180 tower to the $50 Dot, which isn’t much bigger than a hockey puck. That sort of drop in size usually results in a loss of features. In this case, you’re going to want to go tiny.
Hardware
At only 1.3 inches tall, the Dot (available in black or white) virtually disappears into your home. It can be placed anywhere, and it won’t disrupt your carefully decorated room. Like the larger Echo, the second-generation Dot can be used to fill an Amazon cart. But that’s not the only thing people use it for. Instead, the Alexa platform is an incredibly helpful connected home hub, a fountain of random facts, an audiobook reader and a music player.
Indeed, it’s music where the Dot really shines, thanks to an audio-out port and Bluetooth speaker support. That gives it access to nearly any audio system in your home. The full-size Echo’s built-in speakers sound fine too, but the stereo system I already own sounds better.
Also, you can switch between wired and Bluetooth speakers on the fly by enabling and disabling the Bluetooth connection with your voice. That feature allowed me to switch my audio source in two different rooms using a single Dot. That said, the Alexa platform does work with Sonos if you want that type of audio system and you have the money. Unfortunately, you can’t play audio out of both a wired and a Bluetooth source at the same time. Like the Echo, the Dot has an internal speaker, but it’s too anemic for audio playback to be truly enjoyable.
And while about 90 percent of your interactions with the digital assistant will be voice-based, there are physical buttons on top of the device as well. The most important of those is Microphone Off, which, as you’d expect, stops the device from listening for the “Alexa” wake word. It’s a great feature for when you want to discuss sensitive topics and you’re feeling a bit paranoid. Indeed, there’s good reason for being cautious with sensitive material: Sometimes the Dot and Echo think they hear “Alexa,” even when that’s not what you said. Now a bit of your conversation has been recorded as a query, sent to Amazon’s servers and also stored in the app.
Additionally there are volume buttons that replace the full-size Echo’s twistable top. Fans of the knob will be disappointed, but most of the time I use my voice to raise and lower the volume anyway. The buttons are surrounded by an LED ring that indicates when the Dot is listening and thinking. It also reflects the current speaker volume. It’s a nice indicator that your assistant is listening, and it can be seen from across the room without being too bright or blinding.
In use
The thousands of “Skills” (what Amazon calls third-party add-on features for the Alexa platform) are where Amazon has a distinct advantage over Google’s forthcoming speaker hub, called the Home. It already supports popular connected-home brands such as Nest, SmartThings, Philips Hue and IFTTT, as well as platforms from WeMo, Insteon, Lutron, Honeywell and Ecobee, among others. Plus it works with travel and recipe apps. You can order a pizza, flowers and a car with it. You can check bank balances and get news briefings from NPR, Fox and the AP. You can hear sports scores from ESPN, and you can even figure out how much gas is in your car using the “Automatic” Skill.
I tried nearly all of these (except ordering pizza, because ew, Dominos) and they all worked like a charm. But the Skills library — like all app stores — is filled with some add-ons that are better left ignored. For example, the Moon Age add-on notes, “you can know the moon age by asking to [sic] Echo.” What does that even mean?
Adding all these Skills requires using the Alexa app, which is clearly the weak link of Amazon’s platform. I’ve been using an Echo for more than a year, and in the past few months the app, frankly, has been a pain to use. The issue is that it says it’s not connected to the internet, even when my phone and Echo speaker both can access the network without a problem. If it doesn’t think it’s online, the app becomes worthless. Fortunately, you can also tap into Alexa via your web browser. That workaround has consistently worked for me. But I usually learn of a new Skill while on the go, and if 20 percent of the time I can’t add it because the app is buggy, that’s frustrating.
Another confounding thing is that you can’t really have two Alexas in adjoining rooms. Amazon says that its Echo Spatial Perception feature (ESP) determines which device hears you the best and sends answers only to that piece of hardware. But during my tests, the Dot and the Echo both replied and answered when I said the wake word or made a query. Even if I was sitting in front of one of them, if the other assistant heard me, it would react. To combat this, I changed the wake word on one device to “Echo.” Those in larger houses with more rooms might have a different experience altogether, though.
The competition
While there are rumors of an Apple device on the horizon, the only real challenge to Alexa’s dominance in this field is the forthcoming Google Home. While the Home does have some Internet of Things capabilities, they pale in comparison with the Echo and the Dot. While the Google offering works with four connected home platforms, Alexa supports more than 13 different manufacturers and developers. But the $129 device will allow for audiocasting to multiple devices that support Google’s audio and video streaming service. The Dot, meanwhile, can send music only to a single device.
The Amazon Dot is also out sooner, but only by a few weeks. It starts shipping next week, on October 20th, while Google Home goes on sale November 4th. Engadget will have a full review of Home once it’s available, so stay tuned for that over the coming weeks.
Wrap-up
Even with multiple wake words, the inability to stream to multiple devices and an app that sometimes fails, the Amazon Dot is an incredible value at $50 a pop. Dropping one in the kitchen and one in the living room seems like a no-brainer. I’ve used the Echo tower for more than a year and it’s one of the only — if not the only — IoT devices that actually works as advertised while continuing to gain features. Alexa doesn’t roll around the house cleaning up your mess like the home robot of our dreams, but it does make your life better by bringing all your various services and information into an easy-to-use setup. Plus, thanks to the audio jack, the $50 Dot is a much better value than its taller cousin. Just don’t call it Rosie.
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