Don't Buy Anyone an Echo
&gt; You don’t need an artificially intelligent robot to tell you about the weather every day. Just look outside or watch the local news or even look at your phone.<p>I stopped reading here. This is FUD, or scaremongering, or <i>something</i>.<p>The truth is the reason the Echo family (and others) have seen such success is because they approach the virtual assistant problem from, in my opinion a novel and underutilized, place: the home appliance.<p>Sure I can pull out my phone (or is it charging on the nightstand?) to check the weather, but I can ask my Echo while I&#x27;m tying my shoes and by the time I&#x27;m done grab a jacket if necessary. It&#x27;s so natural.<p>I have bought Echo dots as gifts for family and friends -- there seems to be a 50&#x2F;50 split between the primary use being for music or home automation. It&#x27;s far less kludgier than using a phone to turn your lights on and off. What if you have guests?<p>Lastly, when I travel I find myself missing the utility of being able to simply ask a question in the middle of another task, hands free. I&#x27;ve heard that some hotels are installing Echos, I think that&#x27;s great.<p>Overall I think they&#x27;re a great value add to my life -- I could buy a new phone for almost a thousand bucks and I barely get any noticeable improvement (and the improvements are usually along the lines of things <i>actually working</i> the way they are supposed to).<p>For $30, an Echo is a steal.