General   (General discussion, talk about anything.)

Just been reading a few articles on Alexa.

Seems that folk are using them to listen to music, and to set alarms.

Answering simple questions seem to be a bit of a gimmick. Fine if you are asking a question that has been anticipated, and the answer provided by a human. Falls flat on its face with other questions. Less useful than Cortana or Google Assistant for actual information retrieval. (Though links to weather, travel and suchlike seem OK)

In spite of all the hype from Amazon, it seems that people are not, in any great numbers, using them to control internet enabled devices by means of voice.

That could change. I am of the opinion that their efforts to lock users in to their family of devices in a manner incompatible with their competitors is a huge disincentive.

That will change overnight if cross platform standards emerge to counter the 'lock-in'!

Big opportunity there for the Chinese manufacturers if they reach out for it.