Don't Buy Anyone an Echo
> 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.I stopped reading here. This is FUD, or scaremongering, or something.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.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'm tying my shoes and by the time I'm done grab a jacket if necessary. It's so natural.I have bought Echo dots as gifts for family and friends -- there seems to be a 50/50 split between the primary use being for music or home automation. It's far less kludgier than using a phone to turn your lights on and off. What if you have guests?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've heard that some hotels are installing Echos, I think that's great.Overall I think they'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 actually working the way they are supposed to).For $30, an Echo is a steal.