Encouraging Moms at Home

Tips, Tricks and Tools for the #MomWin

  • Home
  • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Brand Inquiries
    • Full Disclosure
    • Our Writing Team
  • Homemaking
    • Cleaning
    • Essential Oils
    • Recipes
      • Instant Pot
      • Gluten Free Dairy Free
      • Using Produce
      • Cooking with Pumpkin
    • Nutrition
    • Food Preservation
  • Homeschooling
    • Homeschool Resources
    • Homeschool Encouragement
    • Homeschool High School
    • Special Needs
    • Homeschooling Art
    • Homeschool STEM
    • Charlotte Mason
    • Homeschool Technology
    • Teen and Tween Writers
    • Homeschool Notebooking
  • Teaching Ideas
    • Free Printables
    • MInecraft
    • LEGO
    • Fine Motor Skills
  • Family Life
    • Gift Guides
    • Kid’s Activities
    • Summer Fun
    • Hiking
    • Moving
    • Christian Life
      • Christian Family Activities
      • Scripture Memory
      • Poetry
      • Creation
      • Advent and Christmas
      • Thanksgiving
  • Moms
    • Encouragement
    • Budget And Finances
    • Mom Fashion
    • Date Your Spouse
    • Work At Home
  • Shop
    • My Account

Eight Reasons You Might Want an Amazon Echo

by Amy Blevins 7 Comments

Posts contain affiliate links. This means, if you choose to make a purchase, I will make a commission at no extra cost to you. For more information please see our full disclosure.
1284 shares
  • Facebook10
  • Twitter1

The Amazon Echo is a brand new toy tool for grown-ups, released on Amazon this fall with much fanfare and lots of front page ads. My husband has been trying to buy me one for a few months now, pinging me to see if the Amazon Echo or Amazon Tap would be a good birthday gift for me or Christmas gift for me. Frankly, I’ve been ignoring him.

Today, I have been looking for a trendy gift that might be perfect for a giveaway, and I decided I needed to give the Echo a closer look. And shoot. Now that I’ve convinced him that it’s a stupid gift for me, I actually want one.

“I was trying to decide if it was a good gift for you because I was thinking about buying one. So I suggested it for Clara to see how you would react. And you said it was stupid. So I’ve decided it is not a good gift for you.” Those were literally his words to me when I just casually mentioned tonight “Oh, the Amazon ECHO can do that,” in a discussion. Fiddlesticks.

So what exactly can it do and why might you want one for yourself?

The Amazon Echo is a new device that is voice-activated. That’s the base of information from which all the rest of the things Echo can do hinges. You speak, Echo responds. Or Alexa responds. She’s the voice inside Echo.

Amazon Echo

Let’s start with music. I never remember to play music in our house. I want to play music and I think music goes a long way toward improving the atmosphere of a home. So in some cases, I really NEED to play music. Apparently all you have to do is say “Alexa, play Christmas music.” and the Echo starts playing the music. It can play music from iHeartRadio, Pandora, OR (and this is really important in my case) your iTunes collection. Ours is huge. And I’ve never seen an Amazon device that integrated with iTunes before. Score One for Echo.

Do you have a wifi thermostat? Echo can control your heat if it is on the list of compatible thermostats. I can just imagine laying in bed and saying “Alexa, please set the heat on 65.” It gets so hot upstairs since the thermostat is downstairs! And while my husband has the app on his phone, I never have gotten around to getting it on mine. Which is a problem when he travels or is soundly sleeping. I usually just get up and open a window. Bad. Turning down the heat remotely? Score Two for Echo.

Have you ever gotten to the store and forgotten what you were going to order? Today, I repeated my three items TEN times out loud to my kids before I left for Walmart. Paper plates. Eye Drops. and something else. It’s the something else that always gets me! I texted my kids and no one could remember the third thing. I finally remembered it just before I got to the checkout. Thank goodness. (Don’t ask me what it was because I’ve forgotten again.) Just think if I had repeated that shopping list to Echo right before I left. Aha! Voice-Activated Shopping lists is something I can handle. Score Three for Echo!

Amazon Echo - Eight Reasons you might want one

Today I was at a friend’s house and we started wondering if it was going to snow. I had very poor phone service there, so while we were waiting for my phone app to respond, her teenage son offered to connect me to their wifi. Which was very sweet. But in the end we opted to just wait it out. Echo does weather. “Alexa, is it going to snow today?” or “Alexa, when is it going to snow in Virginia?” would have been much faster. Even if we had to wait for the answer we could have moved on to other things instead of waiting around to push buttons. Score Four for Echo.

One of the recent developments in our home is that we have removed all electronic devices from the bedrooms. Everyone turns them in at night. Which leads to two small problems. 1) My teenage son has always gone to sleep with an audiobook. For years. and 2) Everybody uses their electronics for an alarm clock. The Amazon ECHO can do both of those things! Play the audiobooks directly from Audible (of which we have hundreds after fifteen years of collecting them) AND set an alarm clock. This paragraph seriously makes me want a voice-activated alarm clock. “Alexa, BE QUIET.” I’m not sure that would be very effective as an alarm clock, but it sure would be fun to turn it off right before I fell back to sleep. Score Five and Six for Echo.

I am seriously the most unorganized person in the world when it comes to calendars, but if you do happen to use Google Calendar, Echo can do that for you too. Come to think of it, Echo is your own personal secretary! Make appointments, find appointments and cancel appointments, and more. Manage your calendar with your words. I might actually use a calendar like that. Maybe. But anyway, if you use Google Calendar, Score Seven for Echo!

Okay. This is the one that got me. “Alexa, order toilet paper.” Have I ever mentioned that I order my toilet paper on Amazon with Prime shipping? It keeps me out of Target, thereby saving me money! And there is nothing worse than realizing you need toilet paper when you are nowhere near the computer. Echo can hear your voice from seven feet away though, so measure the distance from your night stand to your bathroom. Hey! I’m forgetful! Score Eight for Echo!

Have you ever said “I wish there was an app for that?” Alexa has skills! With Alexa you can dim your lights, open your garage door, order a ride from Uber, search the web for answers, check the traffic report for your husband’s commute, and order pizza. Some of these require apps or devices like a special garage door opener, but once enabled Alexa has some serious home and life management skills and many of them do not require anything extra at all.

As an invitation to join our brand new Crazy Deals Group, my friend Marcy at Ben and Me and I are sponsoring a giveaway of one Amazon Echo in the color of your choice (it comes in white or black).

Amazon Echo Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure

1284 shares
  • Facebook10
  • Twitter1

7 Comments
Family LIfe, Gift Guides

About Amy Blevins

Amy lives with her husband and six beautiful children in Northern Virginia. Besides blogging, Amy enjoys homeschooling, hiking, reading, singing, teaching, and serving Jesus above all. Welcome.

Comments

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  1. Ruth Yam says

    December 15, 2016 at 6:06 PM

    I wanna try please

    Reply
  2. Allison schroeder says

    December 21, 2016 at 11:14 PM

    What a life improvement tool!!

    Reply
  3. Brandy Arivett says

    December 21, 2016 at 11:17 PM

    Oh how I would love to win this. I have a degenerative neurological disease and I can see many ways that this would make life easier for me. Thanks for the chance!

    Reply
  4. Tracy Sylvester says

    December 21, 2016 at 11:21 PM

    Looks like an amazing thing to have. I’ve seen some commercials but really had to look it up and check out all the things it can do. Got to love technological advances today.

    Reply
  5. Keylee says

    December 22, 2016 at 11:20 AM

    This would be a cool & functional gadget for my family.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. The Best Gifts for Busy Work-At-Home Moms says:
    June 7, 2017 at 12:00 AM

    […] All the reasons why you might want an Amazon Echo was over 1000 words, I but honestly think this one little gift might rock a work-at-home mom’s world. It’s a executive personal assistant in a little black box. […]

    Reply
  2. 7 Pieces Of Technology That You Deserve Your Attention | Tech Blog by Guy Galboiz says:
    July 3, 2018 at 8:29 AM

    […] assistant that interacts with you to answer your questions and help you perform daily tasks. Amazon Alexa works much like Siri does on Apple products in the way that it quickly scans the internet in search […]

    Reply

Get Sam’s Club Half Off!

Search

Keep In Touch

  • Shop
  • Contact Us
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • About Encouraging Moms at Home
  • Brand Inquiries
  • Full Disclosure with Privacy Policy
  • Our Writing Team

Kids Can Learn with LEGO Bricks

Our Latest Shenanigans

Follow on Instagram
Copyright ©2023, Encouraging Moms at Home. All Rights Reserved. Custom design by Pixel Me Designs