I bought another one...

"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury) 11/10/2019 at 23:26 • Filed to: None

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10

It was only $15. These little things are wonderful, especially when connected to the lights, Chromecast, Smart TV, misc devices and thermostat. I’m now up to four of them (plus the odd Siri and Alexa; poor Cortana is being ignored).

I just discovered that you can pair these for stereo so I put one on each nightstand and can use them to help get me to sleep or to relax (or to drown out the neighbor’s bathroom fan that’s been running for two hours...) whilst not in the same league quality-wise as my dedicated audio gear, they sound remarkably good for their size and price. I hear that the Nest versions sound even better, but considering the minuscule investment I have in these ($56 for all four) I’m certainly  not going to complain.

I’m going to have to figure out how to get my personal music library to play back through this setup. In the meantime, Google does a very nice job of streaming tunes when I ask it to play a favorite artist. AND THERE ARE NO COMMERCIALS! SUCK IT PANDORA!

facw > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 11/10/2019 at 23:50

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I’ve got a couple Echo Dots which are enough to cover my space. Mostly use them to control lights, timers, and alarms . I like that a lot, I’m here in Star Trek world talking to the computer! Audio quality i sn’t good, but I usually don’t use them for music. Google Assistant gets used in the car (though not as much as in the past, because many things seem to work less well than they used to?). I was using Cortana for a bit, but she’s offline because I decided I should unplug my webcam until I get a shutter.

For playing back your own library, you should be able to upload your stuff to Google Music, and then play it from there I think? Google Music is supposed to be going away this year, but there hasn’t really been much sign of that (they discontinued one feature this summer I think).

I do wish they’d play nicer together, I’d rather use Google’s music stuff on my Dots than Amazon’s (though I’m getting free music on the Dots, even though I don’t think I’m supposed to? It randomly stops playing from time to time so not so great regardless ).

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > facw 11/11/2019 at 00:05

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Shutter for the webcam? They come in all sorts of colors these days 

I’ll have to see if I can tie this setup into my Apple Music subscription. I don’t use it much, but if it was more convenient to use I just might. So far, integrating various bits of hardware into this home automation setup has been simple, but I have a feeling that the four big software players might not make the non-hardware side as easy to mix and match.

facw > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 11/11/2019 at 00:06

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I mean, I’d like to be able to use it if needed without cleaning of tape residue.

Nick Has an Exocet > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 11/11/2019 at 02:43

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I wish they would make an option to output the sound of my android phone (like bluetooth) to these. That way, I can just roam around the house listening to my podcasts. Not all the podcasts I listen to are available through voice actions, so booooooo.

mazda616 > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 11/11/2019 at 05:41

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We have one of these now, as well. Got it for free from Spotify. It’s nifty.

Jewish Stig > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 11/11/2019 at 09:28

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They can hear you when you poop...

Just saying 

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > Jewish Stig 11/11/2019 at 09:34

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That might be a good thing. It could turn up the music so my neighbors don’t have to hear it. Or it could give me recommendations on how to stop this, um, excessive outflow (this is going to be a rough day at work..) Or maybe I could tie it in to an air freshener that automatically fires up when the smell gets to a certain level...

Jewish Stig > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 11/11/2019 at 09:48

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Or automatically forward your poop information to your astrointestinal doctor... But Google will read that data first in order to display appropriate ads 

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > Jewish Stig 11/11/2019 at 11:47

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After I had been diagnosed with colon cancer I was obviously doing quite a bit of research on the matter. Every other ad was for a test to diagnose cancer. Uh, not helpful - I already have the diagnosis, thanks...

Thomas Donohue > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 11/14/2019 at 13:02

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I have a few around the house (the larger one has very good sound) but it seems that my phone is all I need these days to issue commands. I have a few Leviton light switches and Wemo plugs.

I had a previously hardwired whole-house audio system, which is now conveniently attached to a Chromecast. Spotify was always great, but as of last week Sirius is now fully integrated with Google Home (I used to have to cast my phone audio. ) Sooooo awesome to be able to just call out the ‘satellite’ channels (spotify playlists are very r epe ti tive, i.e. it plays the same damn playlists nearly every time ).

Also, I don’t care if the Russians are listening all the time.