It’s been almost two months since Amazon announced Alexa+, but despite the company’s claims that the new AI-enhanced voice assistant would begin rolling out in waves shortly after, we haven’t heard from a single person who’s actually used it – until now.
Reddit user Pretty2be is an early adopter who says they have been using Alexa+ for six weeks and has launched an AMA (ask me anything) thread to answer questions about their experiences.
To verify that they’re the real deal, they have posted a picture of their username written on a piece of tape, attached to the screen of an Amazon Echo Show displaying the words ‘Alexa+ Early Access’.
Their overall opinions seem pretty positive, but there’s enough criticism to dispel the idea that they might be an Amazon employee paid to promote Alexa+ on Reddit – and some might argue they’re not using it to its fullest.
According to The Wall Street Journal, a senior employee on the original Amazon Echo team was horrified to find that people were underusing the smart speaker’s capabilities, and essentially using it as an elaborate egg timer.
Amusingly, that still seems to be one of Pretty2be’s main uses for the AI-enabled upgrade, though they’re more impressed by the performance of Alexa+ when it comes to “setting multiple alarms or timers at a requested interval starting at a requested time.”
Thankfully for the Alexa+ team, Pretty2be didn’t stop there, and reports that the new assistant works particularly well for controlling connected smart home devices (including smart lights from a non-Amazon brand, a Ring video doorbell, and a smart thermostat).
“Only used old Alexa a few years ago but it was smooth and intuitive to set up the devices I have,” they wrote when asked about the overall smart home experience.
Smooth operator?
According to Pretty2be, Alexa+ is good at interpreting natural speech, and can generally tell from your tone of voice whether or not you’ve finished asking a question to avoid interrupting you.
They admit that they haven’t tested text-to-speech with Kindle books yet, but say that speech synthesis has improved, too: “I can say the voice in general is very nice, some longer delays than old Alexa but very smooth replies once it responds! I have not detected any “off” or robotic sounding replies!”
However, it sounds like the smooth-talking new assistant isn’t without its quirks. For example, when asked to play a song from Spotify, Pretty2be says that Alexa+ will instead try to push them towards Amazon Music.
Overall, though, they were pretty impressed by their experience. “Old Alexa was hot garbage but this new one was a pleasant surprise,” they concluded. “I did not pay for my device but I would purchase it myself if I had to return my current one.”
We still don’t know when Alexa+ will begin rolling out more widely. Back in February, Amazon promised that Echo Show owners in the US would get access very soon, but we’re still waiting for that to begin.
We’re poised and ready to receive it when it finally does, and will bring you our own impressions as soon as we do.
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source: https://www.techradar.com/home/smart-speakers/alexa-early-adopter-gives-their-thoughts-old-alexa-was-hot-garbage-but-this-new-one-was-a-pleasant-surprise
