Anyone got an Echo Dot / Alexa

We have a dot and I think it is great. I listen to a lot of radio stations and podcasts on it. My current favourite is The Moth Hour podcast on it. I set my morning alarm, have had it play lullaby's for the GD, and set cooking timers. You can ask Alexa to Google things for you, get news and weather updates in a flash. DH likes to ask Alexa: "will I need my umbrella today?" and he gets a short weather update in reply haha!!

As Sar53 says, the sound isn't brilliant for music if you want to play it loud, and I too have a bluetooth speaker which is paired with the dot. This improves things quite a bit.

Another random app you can enable is 'Guard Dog'. Alexa will bark at random times in the day, so that anyone lurking outside thinks there is a dog inside!!

Culag, the echo will play any od your Amazon purchased music plus the free prime music, but the collection is not very big. The 4.95 a month all music is a great deal, but I didn't use it enough so I cancelled. I tend to buy albums when I really like them.
You can also sign up for a free Pandora account and then make yourself playlists and then ask Alexa to play it on Pandora.
I like a playlist on Pandora called Dinner Downtempo - so all I say is "Alexa, Play Dinner Downtempo on Pandora"
and it starts playing, if you don't like one of the songs, just say "Alexa, next" and she will skip to the next song

DD1 has two. Her husband is disabled and often in bed and they can use them as an intercom for him to speak to her and ask for a cuppa. Less usefully he freaked her out by turning the living room lights off and on.

Thank you everyone, all good things said about it. The one I looked at on Amazon is 3rd generation and supposedly much improved regarding sound. I'm liking the sound of it more and more.

Culag I don't know much yet but think there is perhaps a music library already within the Dot itself.

Culag I have no idea! I just ask Alexa to play whatever and she does!

Idiot iPad has started deleting whole sentences. Both great!

Have both. Big Alexa better sound quality and volume that ’ or whatever and there it is!

I bought an Echo Plus for downstairs and an Echo in the bedroom as I wanted good speakers. I’m still finding out what it can do.
How do you get it to play music without paying a sub for Amazon Music or Spotify though Charley ?

We started with a dot, it was a gift. We now have 4! Different types in different rooms. I like the fact that I can put my ear phones into the bedroom one, set a time for it to turn off and listen till I drift off. All without disturbing DH.
And of course any music or radio, just by asking!

We have three. The Echo Dot we got by accident, (won't go into that now). An Echo Show which was a gift last Christmas, and an Echo Spot which was a gift this Christmas. I love them. I live in an area without radio reception, and no DAB radio at all. As I love music they are great. Every radio station you could wish for. The sound quality on the Dot isn't as good as the others, but my son gave me his Bluetooth speaker which I linked to the Dot, and it's much better.
Have fun with it. ?

I bought an Echo Dot when they were half price on Amazon recently. I had a Bluetooth speaker bought for me for Christmas and they are paired together. I have Amazon Prime and play music from that. The sound is now good, the speaker on the Dot on its own is not the best. I'd recommend buying one.

I love Alexa - she is the only person in my home that doesn’t disagree with me!!!!

I have both and I love mine. I have the Dot in my bedroom and use it as an alarm clock and also she tells me the news whenever I ask.

The one downstairs tells me the local weather (for some reason my Dot will/can not). The Alexa downstairs acts as multiple timer when I am cooking. I play music on it and I do not pay a penny. I have even stored away my CDs. Okay, the sound is not perfect but I am happy.

The one annoying thing is if eg I say Alexa, flash briefing (news) and both hear, both will talk merrily unless I stop one or both. Does that help?