Excellent little helper

4.7 out of 5 stars

This is great to be able to ask for music or a radio station - or just confirm whether something is right or not - as a wheelchair user, I can use voice only to play music activate lights, even precondition my car before going outside to drive

Amazon Echo

5 out of 5 stars

I find Alexa incredibly useful. As a wheelchair user, I can get it to switch on the house lights, boil the kettle and play the radio, turning hearing on and off without physically doing so, which is a huge bonus. It gives me independence. The quality of voice recognition and sound quality of the speaker are second to none.

Amazon Echo.

5 out of 5 stars

I first bought a Amazon Echo and used it to help me with my lights with the thought to add the more to it.
As I have it set up now I can control all my lights, except the strip lighting in the kitchen and the bathroom, via voice. This helps when retiring for the night as one command turns all the main lights off. I next bought a sensor, which is great, that is set to turn on one light in the hall, for 2 minutes, and one in the living room, until I turn it off, on coming in with shopping or the likes. The hall light also switches on when I rush to the loo.
The lights will still work the normal way but if you switch them off Alex will not switch them on until you move the light switch to the on position so she can control it.
All in all I find it very handy as with having the need for one hand to hold my stick or control my chair I am not having to wander around in the dark until I put the contents of the other hand down. It does have wee glitches but some of them are self caused.
I am getting there slowly and I am slowly gathering and learning more skills.
I would give it a 9 out of 10 overall.

Hands free

5 out of 5 stars

I have been using my Amazon Echo for almost a year now. I find that it really helps me to save my energy. I just call out to Echo to turn on the radio, tell me the time, set an alarm, add items to my shopping list. I am sure that there are many more applications that I have yet to find. I haven't got the light bulbs that can be operated by Echo, but I can see what an advantage that would be when reaching is difficult, or you just don't want to get up off your chair or out of bed. What I would also think is really useful is to have an Amazon Echo in more than one room so that you can 'drop-in' on the other device and summon help from your partner or carer. All of the operations are done without having to use your hands or eyes, so is useful for a number of disabilities.

She's all ears

4.7 out of 5 stars

It isn’t the Echo Dot per se that makes life so much easier for older and disabled people, it’s the multiplicity of things to which it will connect, to enhance home automation. Hitherto, the technology for being able to control devices in the home by voice was prohibitively expensive. Now, it’s mainstream.

I have recently upgraded my Echo Dots to Echo Spots which have a small screen as well as the build-in speaker. There are four of them around the house. What do I use them for?

* Connecting to my Phillips Hue Bridge in order to control upwards of 50 lights around the house
* Opening and closing Somfy-controlled blinds and curtains
* Getting the latest news
* Checking the weather
* Ordering from Amazon
* Finding out when Amazon deliveries are due
* Playing interactive quiz games like Question of the Day
* Listening to Kindle Books being read out by the Alexa voice - a major accessibility gain
* Setting routines so that some lights come on automatically at sunset and turn off at sunrise
* As a handy conversion tool - e.g. Alexa, how many euros to the pound? Alexa, what is 72˚ Fahrenheit in Celsius?
* Setting multiple timers while cooking * Adding things to my Ocado trolley
* Setting reminders and wake up alarms
* Communicating between rooms - especially to ask for help from my care assistant when I am in my second floor bedroom and she is in the kitchen - it beats yelling down the stairs!
* Viewing the output of interior and exterior home cameras

The Echo’s apps, known as ‘skills’, are growing daily so the technology is likely to be more and more useful, especially to older and disabled people.