Just Ask Alexa

NEW – Audible: Play audiobooks from Audible with Echo. Plus, Echo supports Whispersync for Voice to continue right where you left off.

NEW – Calendars: Check your upcoming schedule by asking what’s on your Google calendar.

NEW – Shopping: Restock on previously purchased items by re-ordering Prime-eligible products in your Amazon shopping history.

NEW – Connected home: Control compatible WeMo, Philips Hue, and Wink devices with your voice.

NEW – Traffic: Hear commute time and the fastest route to your destination.

NEW – Sports: Ask for sports scores and schedules from the NFL, NBA, MLS, MLB, NHL, NCAA, WNBA, and more.

NEW – Pandora: Listen to and discover music from Pandora's library of over 1 million tracks.

And now Alexa (The Amazon Echo) can handle multiple timers and alarms!

Amazon Echo, your very cool personal assistant.

So now everyone can have an Amazon Echo of their very own.

This was just posted to Amazon's home page!

Dear Customers,

Today, we are excited to announce that Amazon Echo is available to everyone.

We launched Echo as an invitation-only program in November to learn how customers would use and enjoy it most. The response has been overwhelming.

Echo was born from a simple idea: create a computer, controlled entirely by your voice. This idea required some incredible invention. It had to understand natural language requests, from many voices, from across a room, even when music is playing. It also needed to be informative, entertaining, and useful—while always getting smarter.

With seven microphones, beam-forming technology, and noise cancellation, Echo achieved this goal by enabling far-field voice recognition. And Alexa, our cloud-based voice service that powers Echo, provides information, music, news, weather, and more—and she is constantly learning new skills.

Since launch, we have added streaming music from Pandora, audiobooks from Audible, calendar access, live sports scores and schedules, traffic reports, Amazon.com re-ordering, control of connected devices such as lights and switches from WeMo and Philips Hue, and more. Many of these features are a result of feedback and suggestions from our customers—thank you.

I am excited by what the team has done in a short period of time with your help—and we're just getting started. We hope you enjoy Amazon Echo.

Jeff Bezos
Founder & CEO

P.S. — See what some of our early customers are saying about Echo.

Amazon Dash Button

So I finally managed to get my hands on a Tide Dash Button


Very easy to setup!

The Dash Button is simple to set up. Use the Amazon shopping app on your smartphone to connect to your home Wi-Fi network and choose the product you want to reorder with Dash Button.

Now here's the catch. There are not a lot of choices. We prefer to use Tide liquid but that wasn't one of the options. We don't use Tide Pods so we went for the one choice of powder they had (glad we like that scent).

Once connected, a single press automatically places your order. Amazon sends a notification to your phone confirming your order. And to make sure the kids don't just keep hitting the button and reordering stuff, be default Dash Button responds only to your first press until your order is delivered (you can change the setting in the app).

Place it. Press it. Get it.

Dash Button comes with a reusable adhesive and a hook so you can hang, stick, or place it right where you need it. Keep Dash Button handy in the kitchen, bath, laundry, or anywhere you store your favorite products. When you're running low, simply press Dash Button, and Amazon quickly delivers household favorites so you can skip the last-minute trip to the store.

My wife pressed the button and two days later (Sunday no less), there was the box on the front step.


We're still waiting to get low on Paper towels so I can mash the Bounty Dash Button that I got too!