For all those who are anti "Alexa"

Hope it lifts your spirits phoenix. Alexa played some music to me today too......in the middle of a TV film. Something made her suddenly decide to join in the conversation and start playing a tune ?

But you could actually get up and put the music on, gaining a little exercise, or download music and games on your phone. It just seems to me that at a time when we really need to keep moving and stay active, we are inventing more and more devices to keep us confined to the sofa! Why have a device to close the curtains or turn up the heating when you can do it yourself?

Each to their own, but I value my privacy, I don't want any device listening in and sending my conversations off to India to 'improve communication skills'.

B9exchange
Lots of people can't get up and put music on or close their curtains. Just because you are physically able to do these things doesn't mean everyone has the same level of fitness or health. I know these smart devices have transformed the lives of paraplegics, visually impaired people etc etc. I do think you're absolutely right to question privacy issues though.

I'm in the dont want a spy in my camp brigade.The computer is bad enough .I was talking to my son recently about something I bought him 25 years ago ,didn't google it,just talking .Less than 10 minutes later up pops an ad for the very same thing .
My OH told me to talk about something else I wouldn't have googled so I spoke to him about a holiday in Cyprus and yes,you guessed it,an advert appeared within minutes.I dont really like the idea of being monitored so Alexa wont be invited into my home .

While I was baking scones this afternoon, Alexa played me O Fortuna and In Trutina from Carmina Burana.

I spotted a plane flighing past my house so I asked Alexa to tell me what it was.
An Airbus out of Schippol (sp) airport in Amsterdam apparently, heading north west.

She's an absolute mine of information!

The vast majority of people are perfectly capable of managing their lives without Alexa and similar systems. I accept that Alexa may be very useful for people with certain needs.

Why are growing numbers of people allowing themselves to become so disabled and powerless that it is possible to imagine a world in which everyone is almost totally reliant on technology to manage even the smallest tasks.

If you don’t have Alexa paddyanne how was your conversation picked up ??

Hope it helped a bit phoenix. I love my Alexa and ask her questions or to play music while I'm busy doing something else.

In my view it's not a case of being lazy and needing the exercise but being busy.

Paddyann
I've been aware of this for some years. I did my own test following the example of the person writing the article. He had a conversation with someone about dog bedding, a subject he had never searched.
We had a conversation about dog bedding, something I've never searched. Lo and behold, up pops an advert for dog bedding.

A conversation where petra ? online or just words in the air I don’t believe anything or anyone is listening to my conversations in my house as in speaking (I don’t have Alexa or anything else like it) but I fully realise its picked up online

Here is a link to explain these ads
www.vice.com/en_uk/article/wjbzzy/your-phone-is-listening-and-its-not-paranoia
Alexa is not the only device that is listening!!

I would rather do things for myself rather than rely on a device that to do things for me. However, if I were physically incapable of putting on a record or the telly, etc, I can see that Alexa and her ilk can be useful.

I feel we humans are programmed to find the easy way. I could put on a record, for instance, but more often I just switch the radio on as it's so much easier. I've lots of vinyl records which I don't wish to offload but I don't play them as often as I should. Laziness wins out.

Question, hope it's not too stupid but bear in mind I'm pretty ignorant about Alexa. When you request a piece of music, have your individual playlists been loaded on to the device as they were with the now defunct Ipod, or will the device spontaneously play anything you ask it to?

TerriBul, we have an Alexa and also Amazon Prime, we can ask it to play any piece of music and it does. (I say please and thank you to Alexa, my family think it's hilarious)

My 4year old GS has discovered that Alexa will fart if asked and has a large variety of farts!

I don’t use google as a search engine and don’t get tracked. Checking that out I just switched to google, did a couple of searches and yes a large number of local ads came up. As for voice activation of ads, forget it, although I’m sure Alexa is useful to some people if you tolerate the intrusion.

Oh thank you for that GG, that's an aspect that would appeal to me. I have found compiling playlists unremittingly boring, I'd like to hear random pieces of music, classical right through to rock as and when the mood takes me, without having to scroll about for them. I jump about in genres quite a bit when I listen to music. Almost worth being spied on!

No Alexa here but I agree with Paddyann (there's a first! ) about being listened to. I use an iPad & iPhone and I assume it's them. I had been talking to dh about Fiji, then when I looked at my iPad, up popped adverts for holidays to Fiji.

For those who have Alexa, what else do you use it for except for music? I rarely play music but if I do I just go to Youtube. What else is useful?

I live in a place with zero radio reception. Amazon Echo has solved that. I can ask for any radio station now and hear it crystal clear.
I also pay £3:99 per month for Amazon music unlimited, and I've listened to The Pirates of Penzance in its entirety. Great when doing extended work in the kitchen.

You do have the ability to delete all your conversations with Alexa, and they are gone completely.

We don't have Alexa, but when staying with DS & famly, it drove us mad! Open-plan living, with three generations, all with their own ideas about what Alexa should be playing - and then telling her.... Give me some peace and quiet anytime, or I might put on a favourite CD, dinosaur that I am.

You can, ( and probably should ) switch off Microphone on Iphone/Ipad.
Open settings
Tap privacy
Tap microphone
you will see a list of apps that have requested access to the microphone and can remove access from those you wish.

To answer your question GrandmaMoira, I get the news and weather, ask for conversions from American cup s or grams into ounces. It's like having a reference library in the kitchen.

There are loads of skills you can enable (skills are like apps). My grandchildren like The Magic Door, it tells you a story and you have to choose what happens next.
I like 20 Questions. The question of the day is fun too, I have amassed over 1000 points.

To understand it all, you really have to try it.

Oh by the way, press the microphone button on the top, then it doesn't listen.