I've already been told of one problem with a grandkid who overrides his dad's commands.  In another daughter's house, the 9yr-old routinely tries to gain command.  Currently, you can't set it to recognize specific voices, so anyone has control.

Also, I have one granddaughter named 'Alexis' and Echo picks up on it as Alexa.  But you can now choose among 3 names; Alexa, Amazon, or Echo.

I was researching on how to market via the echo and ran across this article written back in April. Nothing about using it for eyeballs, but worth a read.

"One of the early employees said Echo hit a million pre-orders in less than two weeks, a far better pace than the iPhone, which took about 70 days to reach the same milestone."

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-inside-story-of-how-amazon-created-echo-2016-4

So, where is Apple's Echo like device?

Looks like they were caught off-guard.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-23/apple-said-to-step-up-plans-for-echo-style-smart-home-device-itfnod11

Lenovo and others are piling on (by licensing Alexa)
http://www.businessinsider.com/lenovo-smart-assistant-speaker-amazon-echo-features-photos-2017-1

QuoteSpengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

Stantz: Total protonic reversal!

Users are crossing the streams;

The Best Features of the Alexa Phone App You Might Not Know About

http://lifehacker.com/the-best-features-of-the-alexa-phone-app-you-might-not-1792630570

BTW, best estimates say Amz has now sold 10m+ Echo devices.

>So, where is Apple's Echo like device?

Shots fired: AMZ backdoored Apple.

QuoteSiri had one key advantage: a cushy home on hundreds of millions of iPhones. Now, however, Amazon has snuck Alexa onto iOS—making this look more and more like a blowout.

https://www.wired.com/2017/03/siris-not-even-best-iphone-assistant-anymore/

More on the infectious spread of Amz's jabbernet. (Jabbernet -credit Brad for this branding. Don't bother to look, domain is registered.)

Amazon adds Alexa to its main shopping app

https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/16/amazon-adds-alexa-to-its-main-shopping-app/

TL;DR: You don't need to buy extra appliances, Alexa can now reside on your phone.

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Alexa now takes orders from Amazon's instant Prime Now and alcohol delivery services

https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/21/alexa-now-takes-orders-from-amazons-instant-prime-now-and-alcohol-delivery-services/

Alexa Is Spreading From Speakers To Screens

https://www.fastcompany.com/3069137/amazons-alexa-is-spreading-from-speakers-to-screens

Quote from: rcjordan on March 21, 2017, 11:01:06 AM
Alexa can now reside on your phone.

Translation: as of the latest update, like it or not, Alexa does now reside on your phone if you use the Amazon app.

Google is going to have a much harder time finding its way onto an iPhone

https://xkcd.com/1807/

Everybody I know seems to have gotten an Echo device for Christmas and they all still love them.  Games seem big.  This isn't going away.

It's pretty sad that the high point of my week was hearing that Alexa now has a new skill: SomaFM, which makes it easier to play my favorite background music (Secret Agent and Illinois Street Lounge streams).

I rarely use anything but the [1] ToDoist integration (along with my hack now a daily absolute must-have), [2] timers, and [3] OurGroceries integration.  Except that I'm waiting to see what the next generation hardware has to offer, I'd buy another couple to locate in spots like the garage just to have even-more-convenient access to ToDoist --it's an incredibly cheap  secretary^{(non-human! WOO HOO!!)}.

How Amazon's Echo went from a smart speaker to the center of your home

http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-echo-and-alexa-history-from-speaker-to-smart-home-hub-2017-5

Reminders and Named Timers now work in the US

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/6/1/15724474/alexa-echo-amazon-reminders-named-timers

This is a big deal as these were among the top-requested by the user base.

I just ordered the voice remote. The hardware is just a vehicle to patch me into my customized version of Todoist and transcribe my list items. Productivity has sky-rocketed ^{(Help! It's killing me!)} Secondary use is timers and time-of-day. 3rd is OurGroceries list.