Yes, after months of wonky performance and it not getting requests even remotely close to what I asked for, I have relegated the dots to the junk drawer. I knew it was too good to be true when I got the things, but they were cheap enough so. . .
I am laying in my bed, and I ask Alexa to play me a song. That's all I wanted. I know what I want, or I would have asked for more to start with. Now that the volume is well up, being that some streamed songs are weak on sound level the song plays and I am done and am about to get up anyway. But that's not good enough for Alexa. She has to ask me, in a sound level that is much louder than the song ever got to be, if I would like to hear more songs related to this? Never even made it to the volume cntrl on the remote fast enough. I know, there are probably some settings to fix this, but I can't be bothered with something that has way too many options to explore. It never used to ask me extra questions unprompted before.
I have a song I want to hear. Alexa has managed this request before. 2 word song title, followed by a one word band name. What she replies back is a 5 word title and a half sentence for a band name that doesn't even have close to the same mumble signature, if that's what I was doing. No, I tried it 5 different ways. As clearly as I could say it, slowly enough as to really clearly separate the words and give the fookin thing some time to reason it out. Now I look/sound like I am talking to something that is mentally challenged. Not getting caught doing that anymore. I'm on the verge of sarcastic fake sign language along with my new speech impediment that tries to get my point across to this dummy. And when she screws up my selection, her selection ends up being some underground rap garbage. Something I have/would never choose in my 4 years with this device.
Okay Alexa, you can't hear or understand me, let me just search it myself (I see 6 different versions of the song on amazon music) and type it in via the Alexa app? I can control the volume and such from there so, why not just give me this option, instead of talking to this dummy? The option may very well be there, but it's not right up front where an old roller like me can find it.
The dot is not powerful enough to hook to my active speakers. It's not much better than my android phone, since the powers that be became concerned for my hearing and limited my phone's output in which to make it pretty much useless in that role as well. So, what now, I need to add a better, more powerful preamp in this chain to fix this?
Basically, after 4 years of using this device, it has caused me more anguish than pleasure or satisfaction. Gave it many chances or avoided it altogether. I'm just not patient enough for buggy tech things. I am putting my CD player back in service for bedroom music.