So often, big companies try to create better horses, when the next stage of evolution is the car. This is a (barely) better horse. Amazon does it, too (see the laughably bad Fire Phone, which had unique features designed primarily to sell you crap from Amazon). I'm not buying a device to "help me shop". Shopping is the least of my problems that need automating (and when they are usefully automated, I want a subscription like Amazon offers with Pantry). I like the idea of having an automated assistant, but we're still so far off it's more annoying than useful, I feel like.

I've never purchased anything using my Echo, but find it invaluable as a home assistant for all the things it does besides shopping. Shopping via text interface, if we're still at the stage of "personalized to your tastes" being a laughable claim, is a terrible experience.

Q- why does this Alfie device exist at all? It appears to just be a button + microphone that starts a chat session on your phone. There's no point in making that exclusive to the device. If you can't already, I'd be amazed if in a year you can't do this through the Kenmore app/website.

So they made a box that uploads a recording of your voice to the internet, and then someone sends you what is basically a txt msg of something you can buy at sears?

That is really stupid and sad.

After a month of trying out things, I mostly use Echo as a voice controlled music player - kids love it for that too. so this is more a Dash competitor than an Echo competitor.

Color me impressed. That's pretty cool. I think there's plenty of room in the world for devices like this.

Do you want Sears listening in on your every conversation? How would someone justify that decision?

your cell phone /might/ already be listening to your every conversation, or at least has the ability to do it.

Its also nice that you probably carry one with you everywhere.

I think its funny that when presented with a new tech that has a microphone people will always think "omg, its a spy device!" but they conveniently forget the "spy device" thats been in their pocket for the last 10 years.

Based on the description, it sounds like you need to press the button to turn on the microphone. As opposed to the Echo which, as I understand it, is always listening.

Amazon Echo is always looking for the keyword, something that is done locally. I think it's the same thing basically, it's a microphone constantly connected to the internet and you have to trust (or verify) it's only transmitting when asked to.

You have press a button on it though. That's just missing the point.