That time we talked about the Amazon Echo sub bundle

This is episode number 21 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Haggett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We are so glad that you could join us today as we Try to be better homeowners.

How you doing, man? I'm doing good. Yeah, yeah.

Anything fun going on?

Oh man, just, uh, nothing, nothing particular other than I am continuing to work on my entryway. I've got, uh, the top portion of my bench built.

Nice.

Which was a lot of fun joining boards together. Biscuits.

Biscuits?

Yeah.

She had to make you some biscuits to—

Some wooden biscuits.

Oh, gross.

Yeah. No, they're great. You put them right in between the boards, join them together, glue them up, clamp them together. You got yourself a nice looking bench.

Nice.

Yeah. So, uh, so that's coming together. Um, other than that, things are, things are pretty normal. How about you, man?

Pretty good. The, uh, the, the wall behind Kevin continues to escalate.

Uh, it's going up.

It's going up. So yeah, no, we're— things are, things are progressing here. This is kind of my, my project for the time being. So we got it, we got the wall to continue putting up. Um, I think from there we're gonna move on to the ceiling, and then the final touch will be the floors.

Yeah.

Uh, we may, we may paint before we put the floors in. I'm a little weary of getting paint on those. We're gonna put some hardwood.

Yeah.

Down in here.

Yeah, it'll look good.

I don't want to get any paint on the hardwood. That'd be Bad.

Paint first floor next.

Yep.

Yeah, so it's, it's really looking, looking good, coming together.

Yep.

And, uh, you get the fancy wall. Yeah.

So I get this funky shelf behind me.

The new shelf.

Yep, we're excited about the shelf. My sister got this, get this for me. She said it was for the, uh, for the studio.

So it's nice.

Yeah, we got to do some work on that too, but it's, yeah, it's a really cool like rough finish shelf. I don't know if you can see, people at home, if you're listening, you can't see it at all. If you're watching on the YouTubes, you You might be able to get a gander.

Yeah, it's unique.

Yeah.

But it's fun.

It's crazy heavy. I think it's like 300 pounds.

What?

Yeah, it's insane.

Dude.

So it's much fatter than I am.

That's good to know.

But if you are just joining us for the first time, go ahead and hit the subscribe button there in iTunes. You can listen to us there on Stitcher and Spotify. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. You can even like nose around there on Tumblr. Tumblr. We're, we're drifting in the, uh, the interwebs over there as well.

Okay.

So we're, we're all over the place.

Yeah.

If you can't find us, it's really your fault.

Yeah, you're not looking.

We are there. So yeah, man, I mean, uh, man, last week, uh, I've really enjoyed the episode, but I— this, this whole week I listened to it and I was just doing some research and I, and I walked away with what I have decided are 3 absolute truths that I, I think everyone needs to be made aware of. Um, and part of this is we, we kind of started a bit of a, of a social media fight. Um, okay. And that's okay.

Yeah.

Families fight.

It happens.

You know, as long as we can sit down and have dinner and a little glass of wine, we'll be, we'll be good.

Yeah.

But anyway, So absolute truth number 1.

Number 1.

Toilet paper can only go one way.

I— well, you know, that's interesting that you say that because so many people do it wrong.

Exactly. It doesn't mean that you can't put it the other way, but it only goes one way. There is a right way to put the toilet paper on the roll.

And a left way. Right.

Right.

Correct.

Jerk. Isn't it— it's always on the right, isn't it?

No.

No?

Well, it depends on where you're going.

I mean, like public restrooms, isn't it always on the right?

No.

No? No. I don't know that I've ever been where it's on the left. Well, maybe I have.

You hadn't been to the right bathrooms, my friend.

Well, maybe I just don't go to that many public restrooms. I think I'm winning then. So, apparently there's a right and a wrong way to put toilet paper on the—

No, there absolutely is and there's been much debate about this.

So, I think there's actually like this document that's like floating around the internet that's like the original design, the guy that came up with the toilet paper roll, this is how he designed it, so that's the right way.

As if it were a blueprint.

Right.

Right.

So, absolute truth number 1.

Okay.

Absolute truth number 2.

Number 2.

All hip-hop music should be in French.

It—

now this is not—

wait, isn't it? Isn't it?

No. Oh, um, so hip-hop actually originated in the United States.

Okay.

Um, but having listened to American hip-hop and now had the pleasure of enjoying French hip-hop.

Okay.

All hip-hop should be in French. Like, not even a question.

Okay.

What's—

what— who are you listening to in French?

I don't even know that I can pronounce their names. I don't like want to like insult them. Yeah, not that they do anything to me.

So, but that's a whole nother conversation.

I can't imagine French hip-hop artists being all that tough. Well, I mean, they grew up on the streets of what? I don't know.

The protected streets.

But they sound incredible. Okay. So, and like, what—

where are you finding this?

Oh, you can get it on Amazon Music. Oh, absolutely. So like, I'll make a recommendation. Go do, uh, French hip-hop by various artists on Amazon Music. And it'll pop up and it's various artists from France that, uh, do hip-hop music in French. Okay. Um, and it's good. Like, and I'll tell you why I like it and, and why I'm declaring it as an absolute truth and mandate for everyone from henceforth and always. Um, it sounds like old school hip-hop, like they're doing old school hip-hop and it sounds, I mean, like their, their, their beats and, and all the samples that they're using. Like, it's just, it's old school, man. And it's really, really good.

So it's stolen.

Sure, all hip-hop music is stolen.

All rap, hip-hop, it's all stolen.

Samples. I mean, yeah, that's what it is. That's how you do it.

Sure.

Um, so, and then, and then absolute truth number 3.

Number 3.

Last week I invented a new word, uh, the schnoozin' Bowser.

Um, yes. So, and you still remember how to say it?

Absolutely. Uh, it's my baby.

Uh, I thought the finger wagging Ursula was your baby.

Well, you know, I— you can have multiple children. It's okay. You don't—

Hey, you're Your children are weird.

That's okay too. Um, so it— I invented the word, but I think it should become a real thing.

Okay, how are you gonna make that happen?

I'm, I, I'm gonna have to like find a manufacturer that's gonna— I'm gonna have to do some research as to like what you use to install carpets. Um, because if you go back and listen to episode number 20, we were talking about installing carpets and I said, well, I don't know what the tool is called, but it should be called the Schnooze and Bowser. And I stand by that statement. firm and resolute that, that we should now and henceforth and always call any carpet installation tool the Schnoozen Bowser, or a Schnoozen Bowser.

Okay.

And I, I think, I think we can market that. I think we could, you know, I think our listeners would be happy to buy a Schnoozen Bowser, an official Homeowner Show Schnoozen Bowser.

But yeah, logoed and everything.

Yeah, stamped on the handle. Yeah. Because I assume it has a handle.

Yes. Well, I would hope so.

So, I've obviously gone very deep on the research on this.

You've got it all planned out in your head.

But I've got the name.

You have a name.

I haven't— well, I shouldn't say that.

You've even figured out how to spell it. Yes.

And I Google searched it.

And?

Nothing.

That's what I figured. So, good luck, people.

Well, I've found a place that I can actually bring life to the internet, a space where it did not have something before, I can put it there.

And everybody is so thankful that you would do that.

Yes, they should be.

Wow.

Now you don't have to, like, you know, it's like those kids that get sent to the automotive store looking for blinker fluid.

That is funny.

But like, you know, I don't want to have to go to the hardware store and go, I need something to put my carpet in.

You just wanna say, I need one of those Schnoozenbauzers.

I need a Schnoozenbauzer. And that way when he doesn't know what I'm talking about, he's the idiot.

Yeah, 'cause he's probably not gonna say, that's on aisle 37, bay number 4.

He's gonna have to Google it and read my article.

And that, he won't do that though.

I'm putting too much faith in these guys.

You really are. But you know what? I, I have faith in you.

Thank you. Yeah, somebody needs to.

We'll see how far that goes.

So, and, and, and then last week you, you offered up, uh, that we were gonna work on something for the website, right?

Yeah, so, uh, one of the things we discussed in our DIY versus, um, hiring a professional episode specifically was, uh, this calculator that you came up with, uh, and not specifically the calculator but the formula, right? That will help you as a homeowner, if you're trying to do something DIY, kind of determine what is the cost of this so that I can compare that to hiring a professional. And, you know, kind of determine this is how much it's going to cost, how much time it's going to take, um, those sorts of things. And so my, my suggestion is we find a calculator. put it in, uh, you know, make it available.

Yep.

And, uh, we now have that capability on our website. So, uh, you can go to our website, uh, homeownershow.com, and there's a calculator on our website to help you calculate a DIY project. Um, and man, this thing is slick. It, it really is Very easy to use.

Pretty well. Yeah. Um, yeah, you can, if you go to homeownershow.com, there's a button there for DIY calculator, or you can go to homeownershow.com/diy-calculator.com. Um, and it'll pull that up. And if you want to go back and, and, and really get a good handle as to why all those numbers are in there like they are, you can go back and listen to episode number 20 for all those reasons. Um, but one of the things I thought was really cool Is you— I mean, you can do it as many times as you want.

Sure.

I mean, like, we're not, we're not charging for this. We're not like secretly trying to like harvest your contact information. However, it does ask for your email address, and the only reason it asks for your email address is because you can have multiple projects that you can save. And so you name that project, put your numbers in, and then you can click send, and it's going to email you all the numbers and figures that you just sent in. So you don't have to remember those, what you put in last time. And so you know how you ended up with the numbers that you got.

Yeah, you don't have to screenshot or anything like that because this calculator calculates on the spot. In real time, it shows you your amount. The only catch is, you either have to write it down, take a screenshot, something. This way, send it to yourself and you've got it saved.

Sends it right over. Hopefully, that's a good resource for you guys and you guys take advantage of that and use it a bunch. Send us some feedback if you use it and let us know if there's anything we need to do to make it better, uh, because we were pretty happy with the end product. We got it. We got a couple— we got a little bit of feedback on it already. Nothing, nothing major, just, I mean, just a little bit of verbiage that needs to, to be altered in there. We're gonna, we're gonna adjust that, but it's live right now and you can jump on there and use it. Um, I've sent a few things to myself.

Yeah, I checked it out as well and, uh, it works really well.

Yes.

It's a, it's a neat little deal. So, um, check it out, tell your friends about it. share it on Facebook.

Do it. Do it for sure. Yeah, so we're doing a quick product review today, uh, because I was excited to, uh, get in this new thing from Amazon. And it may not be like— it's not super new, I think it's been out for a couple months now, um, but I really, really wanted to get it. Um, and it's this new Echo bundle. So had you heard of this thing, Tom?

No, I, I hadn't. Uh, in fact, it wasn't until you, you mentioned it to me that that I had looked into it at all.

At the time of this recording, it's currently on sale with Amazon as a bundle. Do you remember the price?

Yeah, it's right around $250, whereas the original price is $330.

$330. What you get with this, essentially, is 2 Echos and the new Echo Sub. The Echos are just the standard Echos, the second-generation Echos. The ones that I got— Kevin, you want to show them real quick?

Yeah.

This is the walnut finish Echo. Yeah, right there. It's got kind of a wood grainy finish on the outside, but it's just a standard Echo standalone. You could buy this Echo and just put it in any room. It would operate like a regular Echo. But what makes this bundle kind of cool is they're now allowing you to install them in different spaces of your house as a stereo system. And so like one of— so there's 2 Echos and then this Echo Sub right here that Kevin's holding up. Really, really slick looking Echo Sub that he's gonna unpack here in a second.

Yeah.

But it allows you to operate like a really slick 2.1 system. And you don't have to have them connected by any wires. Your home wireless system will immediately sync them up via the Alexa app. Alexa app on your smart device, and you can even attach it to your TV. And it's supposed to be just this really, really cool stereo system that you can have. It's actually going to be replacing a vintage stereo system that I have so I can have a little bit more room on some bookshelves upstairs. And I'm going to be moving that vintage unit to my record player. Yeah.

These speakers sound really good. Uh, you know, we've, we've tested out these, the, the Echoes themselves. Yeah, the sub we have not plugged in yet.

We haven't plugged it in yet. Yeah.

However, I can tell you that, uh, you can tell a lot about speakers by how much they weigh. Yeah. And let me tell you, that Echo Sub, it's pretty hefty. It— yeah, it, it is. It's heavy.

Yeah.

I mean, it's a 6-inch sub. Um, but, but the thing is, it's a down-firing, so—

I mean, it's heavier than the box looks.

Oh, absolutely.

So I mean, compared— I mean, compared to this, this thing that you usually— I mean, and like, this thing is not light either, right? No, it's not for what it is. I mean, like, it's, it's pretty hefty little, little speaker as well. Um, I'm trying to remember the size of the ones in the Echo. I can't remember off the top of my head. Um, but like, I do know that like the— these are 21 watts. And I think that sub, is it, is it 100 or 120?

It's 100.

100?

Yep.

Uh, so it's, it's got some oomph.

Yeah, it really does. I, I was quite impressed to see that spec on a, you know, 100-watt, uh, you know, deep bass 6-inch woofer.

Yeah.

Um, it's, and it's honestly a fairly tiny package even though, um, it's got a substantial weight to it.

Yeah. Yeah. And one thing that I think is important to point out is the Echo, you can buy, if you already have some of these Echos, and I think you can even, I'm trying to remember the list. You can't pair the Sub with like a Dot. You can only pair it with like the standard Echos.

Right.

And pretty much all the regular Echos. You can pair it with the Spot and the, man, the name of the big video, The new one. Yeah, I can't remember what it's called.

I've lost it as well.

Anyway, you can pair it with that. And the only downside to those 2 is the Sub really only works when you're playing music through those. The Sub does not work when you're playing video through those.

Oh, okay.

That's probably an issue they're gonna address later on, but you can pair the Sub with those units. It is optimized better to work with just the standard Echos.

Sure.

But the Echo Sub is not a standalone Alexa device.

it just to say, you know, hey, Alexa, do something. Right, right.

Just not gonna work.

I will tell you, I just looked, um, that Echo Sub weighs 9.3 pounds. 9.3.

Yeah, but I mean, like, 9.3, it's not really that heavy, but for what it is, that's, that's a pretty hefty—

It's, it's basically an 8 by 8, uh, device. So 8 inches by 8 inches. Almost 10 pounds. Yeah, it's got some weight to it.

So I, I'm, I'm, I'm really stoked to get this thing plugged in. I'm, I'm a big fan of, um, low frequency sounds and, and not, not like big boomy, you know, you know, you pull it next to like that tool in the car next to you that's just like rattling the windows.

Sure.

That annoys me. That's, that's not what low frequencies are. That's not how they're supposed to be enjoyed. So like good, clean, yeah, thumpy low frequency sounds. I'm all over it, man.

It's—

yeah, it can— it, to me, it's like a warm fill in the room.

Yeah. So do you, do you know what frequency this, this gives you?

I don't, not off the top of my head.

So, uh, let me just tell you really quickly. So, so it's low, uh, frequency response for, for people that are into speakers, the audiophile people. Yeah, exactly. Um, it's at 30 Hz, which is, uh, you know, -6 decibels. And its crossover frequency is, uh, somewhere between, depending on the, you know, what you're listening to, 50 Hz and 200 Hz. Uh, it's got an adaptive low-pass filter. So, um, that's— it's pretty impressive for, for the little sub that it is.

Yeah. Well, and, and also when you, when you consider that this is like, this is like an all-in-one kind of a unit. I mean, when you, when you think about like buying a receiver and a nice set of speakers and maybe some ancillary devices to go with that thing, whether it be like a turntable or or something like that. I mean, this is, this is out of the box ready to play music and interact and do lots of different things right away.

Yeah, and, and, and you're— it's not unheard of to spend a minimum of $250 just on a receiver.

Oh, easy.

And, and I think back close to 10 years ago when I bought my Yamaha receiver, it was $650.

Yeah.

So, you know, again, you get what you pay for. At the same time, You have to understand that $250 for this 2.1 system is not bad at all.

Right. Yeah, absolutely. And it can do— if you're not familiar with some of the things that Alexa is capable of doing, I'm gonna run through that really quick. And while I'm doing that, Kevin's gonna go ahead and unpack these things so we can kind of let you guys see what— how they come out of the box.

Yeah, and I'll show you real quick. Hopefully you can see this in the video. It's really neat how they've got this, um, they're taped up, but it's just, you know, it's like a perforated kind of thing right there. Yeah, you just open it right up. I mean, it's— you don't have to have a knife or scissors or anything to, to open this thing up.

So, right, so you don't have to be a man to get into the boxes, which even I can get into it. I wasn't saying anything about you. I was just saying, you know, like, you know, if you didn't have a knife, right, you're probably not a man.

There's that.

Um, But yeah, so, so some of, some of the, let me, let me run through some of the apps that I use with this, with this thing right now. So like, I, I do use Amazon Music. It's, it's a really good service. I also use Pandora, uh, mostly because sometimes Amazon Music doesn't, uh, recognize some of the artists and the styles that I wanna play. And Pandora's a little bit better about that. Um, and I, I, I have some, I have some good friends that have had a hard time getting Pandora to work for them, and they come and listen to my Pandora stations. They're like, how do you get it to do that? And I was like, I don't know, I just program it the way I'd program it. Um, so I use

it, I use it for that, for both of those music services. I also use it for the Philips Hue system. Um, and that, that's something that we could probably go do a deep dive at some point in time because that's actually been changing quite a bit recently. Um, they've, they've come out with a whole new app and, and system and all this kind of stuff. But I, I love my Philips Hue system. Uh, it allows me to do all kinds of different colors. And, um, the bulbs last really long. The bulbs are really, really good. I mean, like, you— it's kind of a tough pill to swallow when you, when you go to pay that

ticket, but now that I've had one, um, and they're definitely worth it. I mean, they last a lot. I, I've yet to have one go out, and I've probably had it for 3 or 4 years.

Wow.

At this point. Um, now they're not, they're not like heavy work light bulbs or anything like that. They're mostly for like lamps and different things like that. But very, very good bulbs. And Kevin's got the, uh, he's got the, the Echo out of the package now. You can kind of see the walnut finish.

That's a really nice, uh, nice finish to it. Most of them are black.

Black or white or— yeah, they have the newer ones actually, some of them you can get like a cloth on the outside now too.

That's—

they have like a dark gray and a light gray.

This is just really, really nice. It's clean finish, looks really good.

Yeah, it's— and again, I got these because I thought it would blend in really well with my bookshelves. Um, And can you show them the back there? You can kind of see, I mean, like, it's nothing much to it. I mean, like, there's a plug, and then I think that's probably an input jack right there.

It's an auxiliary out, right?

Actually, so you could send it to a stereo, you could send it to a bigger speaker if you wanted to, right? Um, and then on the top there, you've got, uh, your, you know, microphone cancel button, your action button, and then your up and down volume. This one does not have the, uh, the the turn knob on the, on the top, which is right for the nicer one. For the bigger ones, you have a turn knob that turns the volume up and down that way as well.

And then, then here's the power supply.

Yeah, power supply for that.

So nothing, nothing too fancy with the power supply.

Now, and that— now it's, it's, it is good to note that these, these Echos, they have a sub in them as well. It's obviously a much more, much smaller sub.

Sure, but it's got some, it's got some meat to it.

Yeah, it does. And it's, it's got a sub and a tweeter. Um, in, in there as well.

That's different than a Twitter.

Yes.

Um, for you audiophiles.

Yeah. So, and I'm just going through the— some of the apps that I use with the Echo. That is by no means the entire list. These are just the ones I've had familiarity with. If you remember back, I can't remember what episode number it is, but we did the episode on the Ecobee, and then I ended up buying the Ecobee. So now I use the Ecobee Uh, with, with the, uh, with the Echo and the Alexa devices. Kevin's, Kevin's making a face here. He wants to show us.

Yeah, I wanna— okay, so, so I'm gonna kind of tilt this forward. You can see, yeah, there's a, uh, when I open this, there's like a bag this thing is in. So I'm gonna pull this out.

You got the nice smiley face on the, on the underside of the packaging there too.

It just—

oh nice, it just comes—

Yeah, the whole thing just— and it says Echo Sub Right there.

That's cool.

So yeah, it's really easy.

I don't think I've ever had a speaker have like its own bag.

It's super easy to get out of that box. You know, if you've ever had, um, you know, tried to unbox something like this, a lot of times you got to figure out, okay, how am I going to get my hands around this?

Yeah, you got to like turn it upside down, skinny fingers to get down in there with it.

Yeah, it's very, very difficult. So, um, so that's, that's really nice. A little the power supply is even simpler, smaller.

Yeah, because it's got the, um, probably got a built-in—

yeah, yeah, it's the, the meat of that is, is built in.

So is that all there is?

That's it, dude.

That is awesome.

Yeah, there's a little instruction, um, booklet here.

And then, um, I will tell you something kind of— it was a little bit creepy, but it was cool at the same time. When, when it was delivered, I got a notification on my Alexa app that's like Your sub is available now.

That's awesome.

And I was like, what?

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, dude, this thing is got—

he's coming out there. Oh man, that looks cool.

It does. That does look really cool. Can you see it there in the shot?

Yeah, it's in the shot.

So you, you can see there's some ports. It's ported under there. So, um, yeah, when you set this on a, on a a tabletop or, you know, a shelf or something like that. It's, it's ported nicely. Um, looks really nice, kind of a cloth finish.

And, um, I haven't decided where I'm gonna put it yet though. So where's, where's the power go on that thing?

So, uh, there's a, there's a little sticker back here. So it goes back here in the back and the sticker says, uh, stop and set up your other devices before plugging it in. So you want to set it up first. And I'm not going to take that sticker off, but whenever you take that sticker off, that's going to be where you plug in the power supply.

Gotcha.

Okay, so it's in the— it's in the back.

Yeah. I am curious as to— it doesn't look like it has like any like LED lighting or anything.

No, it looks— it looks pretty simple. No, no, uh, bells and whistles on it. No frills. Um, doesn't really need it. Um, you're, you're getting that out of the, the, the, the Echo speakers.

Yeah.

So yeah, it's, that's nice.

Is that solid there on top?

Yeah, it's, yeah. So, uh, solid on the top and kind of a cloth, cloth finish around the, around the sides.

Hmm.

So it's nice.

Yeah. And again, excited to get it up and running.

It, it's, it's heavy. It's, uh, it's got a good weight to it, but it's not, it's not huge. I mean, um, So, so I'm a little bit of an audiophile myself, myself, and I've got, uh, some, some good, good speakers in my, my home system, uh, and I've got a 12-inch sub in my house. Um, of course it's not going to put out that kind of sound, uh, this 6-inch, but what I love about the 6-inch is you could put that almost anywhere.

Yeah.

And it's gonna, it's gonna be fairly inconspicuous because of the size.

Yeah. So, well, I mean, going back a little bit, I was talking about the Philips Hue aspect to the Alexa. I really like that because, you know, it's voice-activated lights. The only downside to it, in my opinion, is that she will sort of respond to you when you ask her to turn the lights out.

Hmm.

And which can be a little frustrating if you're trying to go to bed.

Right.

Like when you're like, Alexa, turn the lights off in the master. She's like, okay, I'll turn the lights off in the master. And I'm like, I didn't really need you to repeat it back to me. Just turn the lights off.

Sure.

Um, so that— but I, I know why they do that, but like, it's still at the same time, it's like, I wish there was a way like I could just do it. Well, I mean, either that or just like turn that, turn that feature off.

Sure.

For that, for that particular app. Okay. Um, but other than that, it's, it's a great— I can, I can control the lights on like basically all 3 floors. Um, turn the kids' lights out if I need to. Yeah, turn them on to freak them out.

Time to get up.

That's right. And then I use it for Audible and my podcasts and stuff like that. Uh, I mean, she, she syncs with my phone and pretty much has access to anything on my phone. Yeah, audio-wise.

Sure.

Um, and so we, we, we listen to that. But then like she just has like some built-in features, like, uh, she can generate lists for you, like, um, shopping lists that then get sent You know, as a document to your phone. Okay. Um, you can just tell her like, hey Alexa, add eggs to the shopping list, and she'll put, she'll put eggs on the shopping list. Um, you can set, you can ask her to, you know, set reminders for you. Um, you know, hey, remind me on the, you know, 16th of February to apologize that I didn't get my wife a present on the 14th. Is that a special day?

Absolutely.

Uh, it's coming up, fellas. Um, so yeah, you can set those reminders. You can also ask her to set alarms. She, she can function like an alarm clock. Um, and you can tell her to wake, you know, and you can set it for specific rooms too if you have multiple systems in different rooms. Like, hey, wake this person up now, wake this person up now, set an alarm in this room. Um, and, and do all those kinds of things. Um, she can also access your contacts in your phone.

Oh, nice.

Because you can now make phone calls from these devices.

Okay.

Which is pretty cool.

Yeah.

You can make video calls if you have the video units. Another feature that my kids love to use is the announcement feature, because you can say, Alexa, announce that dinner is ready. And we use that one all the time, which is a fun one because when you tell her to do that, she actually rings like a dinner bell triangle.

Okay.

And then says, dinner's ready. And it says that on every Alexa device in the house. And like, no matter where you are, that announcement gets made.

Wow.

My kids love to use this to yell at one another from opposite rooms.

Oh, that sounds fantastic.

It has its ups and downs. The downside is, is that it's really annoying.

Absolutely.

And they do it constantly.

Sure.

The upside is, is that that usually means they're not within swinging range of one another.

And you know what's going down. Right. Yeah.

So one of the, and like some people may think this is kind of creepy. I've used this a couple of times to figure out which one of my children is the liar. But one of the features now is the drop-in feature.

Okay.

And so from, from, if you have administrative capabilities, you can actually drop in and listen to any room with an Alexa device in it.

Okay.

And, and so like, you know, if you hear the kids fighting upstairs, like, hey Alexa, drop in on Ella's room, and it'll drop in and you can hear the conversation that's going on so that when they come tattle on one another, you actually know what happened. You know what happened.

That's awesome.

Um, you can set her up with routines. Um, like we have a routine that turns lights on at certain times of the day.

Yeah.

Uh, usually at night when, like on certain days when we know we're not gonna be home, she'll cycle lights on and off. Um, you can set routines with the thermostat, um, and, and all kinds of stuff.

Yeah.

And, and then, and then, then there's just all the different skills that you can download. Um, like for our kids, we, we have a skill, uh, that are rain noises. for them to help them sleep at night for when the goofy dogs are chasing possums.

Yeah.

And things are screaming and bleeding outside. They don't have to encounter that because of the lovely rain noises that—

Absolutely.

Alexa is pouring into their rooms. So, so there's, there's this, there's a whole suite of things that you can do. And this just really, this, this package just allows you to have a better sound for playing music and doing some of those things. So it's, it's a pretty cool little package, I think. Yeah, um, but it may not be for you. I mean, like, you, you may need like the tower speakers with the 2 10-inch subwoofers and the, the tweet— tweeters and the, you know, the mid-range and all that kind of stuff. I've got those. Those are, those are great. Sure. Um, but the, the real estate that these guys take up is extremely minimal. Yeah. And, and not very invasive at all. I mean, that's, again, that's

the whole reason I got them is that I needed some more room on the bookshelves. Yeah. So, um, man, is there anything else about these?

No, the, the only thing I will say is, um, we've referenced the, the one that, uh, that, that has video. Um, that one's called the Echo Show.

Show, that's right.

Yeah, so we, we've referenced that. So, uh, there's that. There's also—

Those are cool. I mean, like, if you specifically have like a Ring system, which we've reviewed before, right, you can access the video on the Ring, right, via the Show or the, uh, the, um, Spot.

The Spot, that's what I was about to say. There's also one called the, uh, Echo Spot, so it's, it's kind of a smart display as well.

Yeah, and I mean, it has other capability. You can, you can tie it into like security systems and sure, like video security systems, um, and, and, and use it that way as well. Um, and the Sub does pair with those, but again, only to play music, right? Um, so, but I don't— I've, I've never used one of those. I don't know the audio qual— quality.

I don't either of those.

I can't imagine that it's great. Well, yeah, I imagine it's functional.

Yeah, it's, it's gonna, it's gonna be optimized for, for voice.

Sure.

It's not gonna be optimized for, for, uh, speakers. In fact, you know, like, like the, the Echo Plus, you know, it, it has premium sound with it, right? Um, and so, you know, the, the, the regular Echo has good sound, right? The, the Plus is gonna have premium sound, right? And, and again, with those video devices, they're gonna be primarily for, for good— what, what speaker people would call center channel type sound, right? Which, which is good. Yeah, it's just not gonna be as quite as full of a sound.

Well, I'll tell you this, I mean, and this was sort of my reasoning with, with this whole bundle, is we, we have the one of the Echo Pluses in, in our bedroom. Um, and I, I'm, I'm not necessarily like an audiophile. I have a pretty sensitive or attuned ear to some of these kinds of things, and it has really good sound.

Yeah.

I mean, like full range. I mean, the, the volume on it, I mean, like, and it, the, it, I mean, like you can take it all the way up to the top and it's not, you're not getting any distortion on it. I don't think it, I think it's designed so that you can't. do that with it. Um, but I mean, like, it's— its top end is nice. It's really, really loud. It's good clean sound. I mean, like, and for like a bedroom, you don't need much else than that.

Sure.

Um, whereas with this, you know, this is something where, you know, the Plus to fill like a living room, for instance, I don't know that the Plus would do all on its own as well as a smaller bedroom.

Sure.

Um, and you know, in my bedroom I don't really want it to be all that loud, but like in sometimes in my living room I'm, I'm working or I'm doing something and I just want to turn the music up.

Sure.

This is gonna offer, you know, offer me the option to really fill that room, fill that room, right, with again not that much equipment.

Sure.

Um, so Yeah, that was really the— because I mean, it will— you can get 2 Pluses and pair it with the Sub as well.

Sure.

Uh, that, you know, and either you might have a really big room that you need to fill, um, or, you know, you're just getting it because you want the biggest and the baddest.

Sure.

And kudos to you.

Mazel tov. Yeah, you're— I mean, you're, you're gonna spend an extra $50 on the Plus.

Each one, right? Yeah.

Yeah. So it's substantial. Difference there.

Yeah. And I, I would say if you don't have one and, and you want something for like a smaller room, it's fantastic. Yeah, it's absolutely fantastic. It's a great device, uh, for that. So do we have anything else?

And I think we've, uh, hit all the highlights of this. And, uh, we just want to thank everybody for, for tuning in and listening and, uh, checking us out on all the places Yeah, be sure to, uh, if—

I mean, the, the audio for this episode is going to come out on Tuesday, but if you want to see the video, see how actually the, uh, the, the Sub was unboxed and the, uh, the Echo was unboxed, you can go to the YouTubes.

Yep.

Kevin's going to get that up there.

Yep.

Make us look as pretty as possible.

That's going to be hard to do, but I'll do my best.

It's a tough job, you know. It's probably not ever going to happen.

No. Um, but yeah, uh, thanks for, thanks for listening in. Uh, like Like you just said, it'll, it'll come out on Tuesdays. And, um, we're glad that you're listening to us. And, uh, we, we do ask, uh, that if you get a chance, uh, go leave us a review on, on iTunes. Uh, that would be fantastic. That would really help us out. Uh, but until then, we will see you next time.

See you then.