Amazon Echo Dot
So I finally got the Amazon Echo Dot that I ordered a while back. It has been an awesome addition to our kitchen (I will review many of the features in the near future. I just want to live with it a while first), especially for controlling Hue Lights that we have in the area and for listening to Pandora and Amazon Prime Music. However, if you have read my blog, you know that I like having music available all over the house via Airplay, so I wanted to see if I could do more with it.
Note: I get paid commissions for purchases made through any links to Amazon products in this post.
Note: I get paid commissions for purchases made through any links to Amazon products in this post.
Mad Skills
The Alexa app for the iPhone has numerous "skills" you can add. Many aren't that useful, but I ran across one for J River Media Center. While J River isn't cheap at nearly $50, it is a great program because it plays so many formats. I already had an old version (version 18) of it that I actually have on the Windows 10 partition of my iMac. I wasn't sure if this old version would work with this "skill", but I thought it was worth trying it out.
First off, to give Alexa control over J River, you need to forward a port and create a static IP. I found everything I needed to do to make the possible by following the instructions on this port forwarding website. The instructions made the process easy enough that I was able to get it to work on my first try (photo below from J River website).
First off, to give Alexa control over J River, you need to forward a port and create a static IP. I found everything I needed to do to make the possible by following the instructions on this port forwarding website. The instructions made the process easy enough that I was able to get it to work on my first try (photo below from J River website).
House Band
.Once the port was forwarded, I was ready to try it out. With this skill you have to say "Alexa, launch House Band". Alexa will ask you what you want it to play. In this case, I said "play the album Kind of Blue by Miles Davis". To my surprise, the album started playing, but not on the Echo. It was playing from the computer running J River. At first, I thought this was a downside, but in fact, it turned out to be much more flexible.
Airfoil
I have written about Airfoil ($30 for Windows) in the past. You can search for more about it on my site, but the main thing it does is send audio signals from your computer to any Airplay receiver you have on your network. It also works with multiple Airplay receivers and you can choose any combination of receivers or all of them.
In this case, I opened the Airfoil Satellite iOS app that lets me select which Airplay speakers get audio and directed Airfoil to send audio to my living room receiver. It started playing the music in that room instead. (the pic below is from my Airfoil 5 review. As you can see, it works with Bluetooth, as well. The company is also working on Chromecast integration.)
In this case, I opened the Airfoil Satellite iOS app that lets me select which Airplay speakers get audio and directed Airfoil to send audio to my living room receiver. It started playing the music in that room instead. (the pic below is from my Airfoil 5 review. As you can see, it works with Bluetooth, as well. The company is also working on Chromecast integration.)
Echo isn't mobile
The problem is that the Echo is in my kitchen and I want to be able to use the feature all over the house and even out on the deck. I didn't want to buy a bunch of Echos for putting around the house, so I found a better (cheaper) solution. The answer was the $5 Lexi iOS app. This app will put Alexa in the palm of your hands. (Note: You may need at least one Echo to get the "skills" on the app, but I don't know for sure).
Lexi
Once I connected Lexi to my Amazon account, I was up and running. You also have to give the app access to your microphone. The only difference is you have to hold down your finger in the middle of the screen to verbalize to Lexi the same commands that you gave Alexa. But the upside, it that with the Lexi app and the Airfoil Satellite iOS app, I can put music anywhere in the house with very little effort.
The Wrap Up
While Siri has some of these same functions if you use Apple Music, this gives your Echo/iPhone access to your J River music collection and that often means that I am listening to my lossless (ALAC) music files rather than the compressed versions that are available on Apple Music. If you just listen to it from your computer's sound card rather than Airplay (which is limited to 16/44.1 files), J River will play high resolution formats and give you numerous options to make sound quality that much better.
In short, playing anything from your music collection by just telling Alexa to play it, is simply awesome!
Note: I get paid commissions for purchases made through any links to Amazon products in this post.
In short, playing anything from your music collection by just telling Alexa to play it, is simply awesome!
Note: I get paid commissions for purchases made through any links to Amazon products in this post.
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