Entertainment with Alexa

[DeaneG]

I'm still getting used to using Alexa, coming from Google Assistant in our phones, our home, and our other EV. It's a work-in-progress. I tried calling my wife today after picking up some grilled salmon & sushi:

Me: Call [Wife's Name]
Alexa: [Wife's Name] is on Deane's contact list and [Wife's]. Which contact list would you like to call from?
Me (impressed): Deane's contact list.
Alexa: Playing Christmas music on Amazon Music.

How are your interactions with Alexa going?

 

[MoniputerLM]

I'm still getting used to using Alexa, coming from Google Assistant in our phones, our home, and our other EV. It's a work-in-progress. I tried calling my wife today after picking up some grilled salmon & sushi:

Me: Call [Wife's Name]
Alexa: [Wife's Name] is on Deane's contact list and [Wife's]. Which contact list would you like to call from?
Me (impressed): Deane's contact list.
Alexa: Playing Christmas music on Amazon Music.

How are your interactions with Alexa going?

"She" has gotten much better, but I still get "I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that" a lot and I think that it's bad cell coverage.

I still have some issues with phone calls going to the wrong person but haven't' tried to see why.

Playing music works most of the time for me and a lot of the cabin functions seem to work now. "Alexa set the temperature to 72", etc.

 

[Gullotta]

Agree, cell service plays a big factor in Alexa’s functionality.

 

[MoniputerLM]

Agree, cell service plays a big factor in Alexa’s functionality.

It would help if she would say "cell coverage is bad at the moment, please try later" or better yet say that and cache the request and reply when coverage is better.

 

[Gullotta]

Great idea!

 

[DeaneG]

"Business Insider's tracking now puts Alexa in third place in the US voice-assistant wars, with the Google Assistant at 81.5 million users, Apple's Siri at 77.6 million, and Alexa at 71.6 million."

 

[stratus]

I'm still getting used to using Alexa, coming from Google Assistant in our phones, our home, and our other EV. It's a work-in-progress. I tried calling my wife today after picking up some grilled salmon & sushi:

Me: Call [Wife's Name]
Alexa: [Wife's Name] is on Deane's contact list and [Wife's]. Which contact list would you like to call from?
Me (impressed): Deane's contact list.
Alexa: Playing Christmas music on Amazon Music.

How are your interactions with Alexa going?

At least Alexa got the season correct.!!

I have also been a bit frustrated with Alexa

 

[MoniputerLM]

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...failure-on-pace-to-lose-10-billion-this-year/

 

[Clyde2575]

I can’t even get her to play music from our playlists. After a few minutes she says there was an error and then nothing but the blue light stays on that she is listening and won’t go away.

 

[HC_79]

I do think the coverage is half the issue with Alexa. If you have 1 bar don’t even bother using it as you’ll either just get silence or “I’m sorry…….” message.

 

[Volund]

I'm still getting used to using Alexa, coming from Google Assistant in our phones, our home, and our other EV. It's a work-in-progress. I tried calling my wife today after picking up some grilled salmon & sushi:

Me: Call [Wife's Name]
Alexa: [Wife's Name] is on Deane's contact list and [Wife's]. Which contact list would you like to call from?
Me (impressed): Deane's contact list.
Alexa: Playing Christmas music on Amazon Music.

How are your interactions with Alexa going?

Hasn't worked for me. Period.
Haven't been able to make a phone call

Many times Alexa just hangs and I see the blue bar underneath.

I have tried to even ask her to do in car functionality. Always get the "sorry, I can't do that"

So I just don't use Alexa, at all

 

[DeaneG]

She's gone silent for me lately too. Also won't read texts anymore.

 

[Volund]

She's gone silent for me lately too. Also won't read texts anymore.

One more thing, I haven't found any way to add "favorite" contacts to the car.
When I click the phone button, I see the dialer, contacts, favorites, etc...

Clicking on the favorites tab it's empty. (I thought it would pull my phone favorites.. Guess not)

But there's no way to add to that list either on the Lucid interface

 

[HC_79]

The only thing I really use Alexa for consistently is "navigate to X" 80% of the time it works and enters the address or location into the GPS. It's quicker to just set your climate control manually than to remember the specifics on how to get Alexa to do it (or any other car command for that reason). I ended up having to turn off the "active" mode because it was just too sensitive and would activate when nothing remotely sounded like Alexa was mentioned. The voice assistants in the car are too gimmicky at the moment and provide no real value in my opinion.

 

[Bobby]

I haven’t had any luck with Alexa either. My main use for it would be sending and receiving texts. This is why I am looking forward to CarPlay.

 

[DeaneG]

The voice assistants in the car are too gimmicky at the moment and provide no real value in my opinion.

In the Air, agreed. We use Google Assistant in our Volvo EV all the time. It is generally reliable and is context-aware.