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Unboxing the Echo: Will Control4 Play Nice?

Trade shows are kind of a fantasy. Or at least they can be. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen some sparkly new gizmo on a show floor and been completely smitten by the promise of a changed life, only to bring said product home and realize that the princess I had fallen for was really just a frog with a mop for a wig.

Trade shows are kind of a fantasy. Or at least they can be. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen some sparkly new gizmo on a show floor and been completely smitten by the promise of a changed life, only to bring said product home and realize that the princess I had fallen for was really just a frog with a mop for a wig. So when Control4’s Brad Hintze hinted with a nod and a wink that there was something special waiting for me when I got home, and he wanted me to commit my first impressions to video, I gulped a little.

Especially since I was 99.99 percent sure that the something special in question was Amazon Alexa. The popular voice assistant/wireless speaker/future robot overlord made quite a splash at CEDIA 2016, as you’ve no doubt heard by now. But to ask me to commit the sausage-making of pulling it out of the box for the first time and getting it to actually work with my Control4 system filled me with dread. Something would inevitably go wrong.

And something inevitably did.

But I don’t want to spoil anything. Watch for yourself as I unbox my very own Amazon Echo for the very first time and dip my toes into the emerging world of voice-activated smart home control as a complete and utter noob.

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