#Giant Three-Way Plug (Cube Tap) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

suckonmybalz · 6 years ago

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Repetitive - EM & CM

/ This one is a self insert to be honest. It was the easiest and healthiest way for me to think of properly expressing recent thoughts and emotions. In this one, I'm related to Vincenzo Mauro as a sister and dating Chris Motionless. Enjoy, if you can! /

"I'll be fine, Chris. Don't worry. I'll see you for your birthday, baby. Have fun, and make sure to text me when you get there, alright?" Eli had requested of him, and she fixed her black knit beanie on her head and made sure it was snug over her ears.

"Are you sure you don't want to keep at least one of my thick hoodies? It's a three day slot of time, yet in three days you could freeze. Baby, I understand it if you want it. Just say so. I won't be mad if you need one." Chris assured, holding a gentle hand on her right shoulder and moving his thumb in minor reassuring circles, to notion the comfort and safety of the conversation.

"Chris, I have this knit sweater, the green jacket over it and my beanie. Not to mention the fact that this sweater is a turtleneck, and I have a scarf over on the couch. My leggings aren't really warm, yet I'm not too cold in the leg area. I'm also wearing my boots, so I should be fine. Three days won't freeze my cold dead body. It's too late for that to occur so no worries." Eli tried to make further worthwhile statements to assist in assuring her boyfriend the comfort needed to take off.

"Eli, you know you don't bother me. Right?" It was beyond his control to check these things, and to check in on these subjects with his partner. Sometimes, she would avoid requesting help or something of Chris when she'd felt a bother. At this point, in advance he'd try to correct those emotions and help her realize the inaccuracy of those phrases.

"Today, surprisingly, I don't feel as though I am a bother. At least not to you. At least, not right now." Eli scoffed slightly, and turned her head down a bit to hide her smile from her boyfriend's searching eyes. He knew he'd get a smile and he wanted to see one before he left.

"Is that, woah. Did you really just say something not condescending about yourself? Did you just, accept how beneficial having you in my life is? Did you, woah, Eli just realized she doesn't bother me. This is amazing. Shoulda gotten it on film, damn." Chris joked, but he was also proud to have heard her admit to it. She rarely spoke too positively, especially in regards to herself as a conversational topic.

"Yes Chris, don't get too high over the rush of success. Want to read the checklist?" Suggested the compulsively organized girl, trying ti look out for her boyfriend before he left and texted her about missing a charger or wall plug.

"Juuuust one more time. Once. Go!" Smiled the giant, and he unzipped his decorative pumpkin decal covered suitcase and threw the lid back to expose the innards.

"Toothbrush, hairbrush, makeup bag, makeup wipes." Was only a quarter of the list.

"Check, check, check and yes, check. Next!" Chris clarified positives, and glanced over to his girlfriend as he awaited the next part of the list.

"Leather pants, two pairs of jeans. Baseball t-shirt, Creatures t-shirt, Reincarnate t-shirt and the denim custom jacket vest thing. Three pairs of socks, three boxers and the bag full of rings." Eli read off, and watched him go through the bin to check for each item. He stuck a thumbs up after finding each item.

"Now for the last few things." Chris reminded.

"Creepers, sneakers and slides?" She checked, and her hair was beginning to slightly drift towards concealing her face. She loved that.

"Bueno. I'm ready to go but not ready to leave you. Three days is a lot of hours, lot of minutes. So many minutes. I wish you could come." Chris whined, as he zippered up the suitcase again. Waddling over to Eli like a penguin, he wrapped his arms around her whole upper body and her face tucked into his chest.

"Baby, three days isn't too bad. We will text and call, and then before you know it you'll be back in this bed." A yawn followed that, and she wrapped both arms around him.

"Little miss, you message me as soon as anything goes wrong, Satan forbidding anything does. I love you. I'll be back in a lot of minutes." Chris kissed her forehead, and she looked up at him. Big deer eyes is what it felt like, when she caught a moment to silently admire her partner.

"I love you too. See you in a lot of minutes, babe." Eli gave a small smirk, and picked up his makeup bag to carry out to the car. She didn't want to stress herself over the bag or carrying too much. He had already grabbed his other bags, so there wasn't much to worry over. After loading the car, the lover waved bye until out of sight. It was the classic way they'd handle splitting apart for 'so many minutes.'

- - - >

"I think I bother him when I talk about it, but I have been hearing and experiencing such bad buli thoughts recently. I've been recovering for so long, or well, the six months that feels like forever. I don't want to mess up and then mess us up. Yknow, when Chris gets upset, and it upsets me and we fight and I sleep on the couch with the dog." Eli explained how she viewed the situation to a friend named Amelia, a loved and dear friend she had known for years longer than herself and Chris eloped.

"I totally get that but sweetie, whether he gets mad or not; you still have to eventually confess to why like your intake is minimizing and like weight loss or shaking. It's better to tell him than for him to pick up pieces and finish the puzzle on his own. Then it'll seem like you lied yknow, or that you were hiding it from him. And after that it'll just really feel off because it'll seem like distrust or fear. Chris hates being feared by ones he loves. I don't think he'd like to have something kept a secret and then sprung upon him when he finds you like, passed out yknow?" Amelia tried to show her part of how Chris would feel, or react as a warning and a guide. She knew Chris fairly well and only desired the best for their relationship.

"Yeah. I got it. Do you always tell Ricky when you feel bad? Like do you tell him the second you start feeling that way, or do you wait? How do you tell him?" Eli was intrigued and needed ideas to help her plan how she would be telling Chris.

"I try to tell him about an hour after, so that I understand the feeling and find the best way to express it. Soccer field at three in the morning isn't descriptive enough for most, so I give myself time to do a better job at explaining it. I just tell him the truth. Last week or the week before that I felt really bad about my body, and I messaged him like an hour and thirty, maybe forty five minutes after the feeling started. It said like; 'Babe, I just figured I'd let you know. Feeling really bad about my body, and feeling bad about my life choices and where I currently stand in terms of success and I just feel not good enough as a whole. I was telling you so in advance you'd understand my attitude or my negative crap I've been saying. Maybe you have some advice. I love you, be safe.' Just something like that works. To the point, and wrap it up lovingly." Amelia advised and Eli nodded.

"Thanks Meals. Always the right one to go to. I love you, I'll tell you how it goes after I send the text or make the call." Eli was concluding the conversation so she could work on her own message or script to explaining this. She feared scaring him, or worrying him too much.

"I love you too, message me if you need me. I might not answer fast, but I'll try." Amelia smiled a little and peace signed her way goodbye. Eli returned the peace sign.

- - - >

'Hey Chrissy, hope today was really amazing for you! Any nice dogs over there? The weather is really even where you are so you must have enjoyed it! Figured that I should tell you that I've been experiencing strong bulimia and bulimic related urges. Relapse puking shit. Don't rush home, I'm working on distractions to avoid it. I assumed it'd be safer to tell you about it in case something relapse like does happen. I should be fine. Making sure you know so that if I act weird, or am shivering on the call or seem shaky that you can understand why. Take a selfie in the new sunglasses for me, I love you! Be safe please and smile!' At around four thirty two, Eli sent that nicely articulated message to Chris after multiple drafts back and forth to Amelia and tons of revisions.

It was read only minutes after it'd been delivered.

'I have until five, you can call me and talk if you need to. Thank you for letting me know baby. I met two really soft dogs today, and my new sunglasses are in the bathroom so I'll send you a pretty picture later! Perfect apple cider weather, though!' Chris replied, and after reading it, the phone screen switched to the incoming call one.

"Hey, Chrissy! How are things?" Eli asked, trying to keep things uplifting while she could.

"Relaxing, and kind of cool. I opened the window for a breeze and got cow poop smell. Fresh!" Chris chuckled a bit. That chuckle was known to cure broken hearts and busted brains for a moment or two.

"Amazing, that sounds like a perfect Friday evening." Replied the now smiling and giggling female.

"What are you up to, now?" Chris asked, and he raised a brow in slight curiosity.

"Painting daisies on my leg, because I got sort of bored with red ice cubes and purple grapes." Eli sighed a bit, and she made another petal to the light purple daisy.

"Send me a picture when the garden is done, babe! Is there anything I can say to help out with those recent bad buli thoughts?" Chris inquired, in hopes that he could make the situation lesser than the intensity it seemed to be at.

"Anything you want." Eli said softly. Embarrassed by these struggles, embarrassed by these bothers.

"For starters little miss, ya ain't bothering me still. You know that already, right?" Chris checked, and it felt like when someone taps your nose as a child and proudly babbles at you.

"I know that, but feel differently." A sniffle finished that statement, and Chris grew slightly worried.

"Are you crying or coming down with a cold?" The gentle giant inspected.

"Probably coming down with something." As she rolled her eyes and came to that likely knowledge, she corrected her boyfriend.

"Two, you're perfect and I love you as is. Your hips are perfect for holding. Hands perfect for manicures and holding. Chest perfect for hearing that heart beat, laying on and loving on. Legs are perfect for looking at and lifting stuff. Arms amazing for hugs. Tummy perfect for rubbing. Face so beautiful for kissing, and person so perfect for marrying." Chris babbled a bit on the subject of his lover, hoping it brought a blush and smile to her face.

"Oh, you're too nice you romance novelist." Eli tried to be angry about it, but her blushing and smiling was audible through her speech.

"I love you, Eli, as you are and don't want you any different way. You is who I love, now who you want to be like. You're original to me. I love that." He added on, his voice softer and more affectionate.

"I love you too Chris, forever and always the way you came to me five years ago. Never change please." She whispered, and smiled a bit brighter.

"Of course not. I'm an invincible lightbulb. Bright as always, never changing." Chris compared, and Eli let out a nice chuckle.

"Do you also refer to yourself as the nut? That's what you sound like, so it suits!" Eli mocked and Chris laughed with her.

"A cashew, or an almond, huh?" He continued, as they mocked one another and the nuts comparison.

If it weren't for Eli reaching out to Chris, she may have considered destroying her progress and self in one of the worst ways. The plan would have been to binge eat tons of toxic foods and damage her throat, and body as well as progress. Luckily, the laughter stepped in medicated the negativity for the night.

#tw #tw: puking #tw: ed #tw: negativity #tw: binge eating #tw: self deprecation

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zrtranscripts · 6 years ago

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Season 7, Mission 26: Dead End

Critical Systems Failure

[goo oozes from faucet]

MAXINE MYERS: Veronica, can you hear me? We've got a real problem.

[computer chimes]

VERONICA BASIC: Hello. I am Veronica Basic, a simple program designed by Veronica to answer queries while she is in diagnostic mode. Diagnostic mode has been enabled due to – A CRITICAL SYSTEMS FAILURE. Do you have questions about the plant?

MAXINE MYERS: For God's sake, tell her to come back from diagnostic mode. This is serious!

VERONICA BASIC: Veronica cannot come online now. My sensors have detected elevated stress levels in your voice. Please explain the crisis situation.

MAXINE MYERS: All right. Fine. Five and I are in an employee kitchen in the sewage plant. Veronica melted a giant zombie with acid, and what's left of it is pouring out of the kitchen taps. Five, that goo is definitely alive. It's formed itself into a plug to block the sink hole, and now the sink's overflowing. Get into the corridor. Close the door.

[door creaks shut] Veronica, we're in the corridor now. It's badly damaged by acid, and there's a hole in the floor. There's a big puddle of liquified zombie on the other side of the hole. It's pouring itself into some expose pipes. That must have been how it got into the taps!

VERONICA BASIC: Biohazard warning confirmed. Initiating lockdown.

[alarm blares]

MAXINE MYERS: Wait, no!

VERONICA BASIC: All exits have now been sealed.

MAXINE MYERS: There's goo seeping under the door. It's curving toward us. I don't believe this, Five. It is still chasing us!

VERONICA BASIC: Suggestion: there is a furnished safe room in Lab 46. The room can be sealed, and will be secure.

MAXINE MYERS: Veronica, whatever you are, can you contact Sam or anyone outside?

VERONICA BASIC: I'm sorry. Computer damage is too extensive to restore comms. I can activate a general distress beacon.

MAXINE MYERS: All right, do that. That safe room sounds like our best bet until we figure a way out. Lab 46 is that way, Five. We passed it earlier. Come on, run!

[alarm blares]

MAXINE MYERS: Veronica, we're in the safe room. Seal it off. [door clank shut] Hey, it's nice! TV, beanbags. Even an en suite with a shower! [laughs]

[goo oozes from faucet]

VERONICA BASIC: Warning. The contaminant has spread throughout the building's plumbing and ventilation. Containment is failing due to system damage.

MAXINE MYERS: Veronica, open the door. There's goo coming out of the shower.

VERONICA BASIC: Affirmative. Safe room compromised.

[door opens]

MAXINE MYERS: Run, Five! Into the corridor!

VERONICA BASIC: Scans indicate the contaminant is behaving like a microscopic swarm of V-types, prioritizing the DNA of targets it has acquired.

MAXINE MYERS: Don't let it touch you, Five. For all we know, it'll make you a regenerating zombie.

VERONICA BASIC: Suggestion: there is an automated furnace in the sewage plant. The Ministry used it to dispose of failed test subjects.

MAXINE MYERS: So that's why Sigrid chose a sewage plant. Lovely.

VERONICA BASIC: If you can lure the contaminant into the furnace, it will be incinerated. The nearest access tunnel is in the basement, down the stairway to your left. You must hurry. The liquid is converging on you from multiple directions.

VERONICA MCSHELL: Maxine, Five, what are you doing? My sensors show you running through a tunnel to the furnace station.

MAXINE MYERS: What you told us to do. Luring the goo to the furnace to destroy it.

VERONICA MCSHELL: Oh, you've been talking to Veronica Basic. It's me now, Maxine. I've stabilized my computer core, but a lot of systems are still offline. Reviewing your situation now... oh no.

MAXINE MYERS: Yeah, things have been better.

VERONICA MCSHELL: Five, Maxine, you cannot allow the zombie goo to reach the furnace! The results could be disastrous.

MAXINE MYERS: But you said -

VERONICA MCSHELL: My basic interface is a prototype. I thought you were safe! The microorganism that disabled the nanites is coordinating the biomass. If it's a colony organism, that would explain why it gets cleverer the more hosts it occupies. It could be a fungus. They're very robust. I don't know what it can survive. If you evaporate infectious biomass and it proves resilient -

MAXINE MYERS: We could end up with an airborne zombie virus.

VERONICA MCSHELL: Due to acid damage, the building may not be hermetically sealed. That furnace cycles on and off every 12 minutes. I'm too damaged to deactivate it. All of the biomass is funneling into the tunnel behind you. You need to outpace it and shut the furnace down manually before the biomass spills inside. Hurry! Run!

[furnace burns]

MAXINE MYERS: Veronica, we're in the furnace station. It's a big iron chamber with a huge incinerator. It's hot as hell in here, and there's a lot of dead sewage workers. Five, help me with these controls. [computer beeps] We are going to survive this, Five. Paula and I promised each other we'd always come home to Sara. Okay, the furnace is shut down. I don't see any way out.

VERONICA MCSHELL: You should find another tunnel behind the furnace leading back to the main lab building.

MAXINE MYERS: Veronica, the goo's congealing around the dead sewer workers. It's flowing into the corpses. They're moving! They have yellow eyes. Oh God, it's turning them into ghouls.

VERONICA MCSHELL: Head down the empty tunnel and regroup in the lab building. I am going to apply all my processing power to solving this. I will find you a way out, I promise. Just run as fast as you can! Run!

[ghouls hiss]

[alarm blares]

MAXINE MYERS: I think the goo slowed down a bit, Five. Probably busy infecting all the corpses back there.

VERONICA MCSHELL: Maxine, Five, I'm sorry.

MAXINE MYERS: It's okay, Veronica. We're doing to find a way out of this.

VERONICA MCSHELL: No. You don't understand. The nearest exit is some distance from you. The biomass is speeding up now that it's turned the ghouls. Even if I lift the lockdown, it will overtake you.

MAXINE MYERS: We can still try.

VERONICA MCSHELL: It gets worse! That acid caused microfractures in some walls. Not big enough for a person to get through, but -

MAXINE MYERS: But big enough for the biomass.

VERONICA MCSHELL: Right now, you're all trapped there. But if I lift the lockdown so you can escape, it will be able to follow you out into the world. It's highly toxic. It creates regenerating zombies. If it gets out, I project the country will be dead within 700 hours. There is only one way to stop it.

MAXINE MYERS: Sterilization.

VERONICA MCSHELL: Janine gave me four burn cubes for research. They are unpredictable, but a viable self-destruct method. Due to their instability, the cubes are in a reinforced chamber. I have yet to develop a remote detonation system. They must be activated manually with DNA authorization from two trusted Abel personnel.

MAXINE MYERS: Where are they?

VERONICA MCSHELL: Maxine -

MAXINE MYERS: Sara, Paula, Sam, Abel. If this thing gets near them, they're worse than dead. We can't let that happen. Now, where are they?

VERONICA MCSHELL: Lab 37. Two floors up. You should be able to get there before the biomass catches up to you, but you will have to hurry. Run!

MAXINE MYERS: Veronica, Five and I are in the lab. I can see the burn cubes behind a transparent barrier. I guess that's our self-destruct?

VERONICA MCSHELL: Yes. There should be two DNA scanners nearby. After you press your palms to them, the barrier will open. You can trigger one cube by pressing the switch on its rear. It will then set off the others.

MAXINE MYERS: If one of us stays behind to trigger the cube alone -

VERONICA MCSHELL: Every potential exit path is blocked. There is no way.

MAXINE MYERS: There must be something!

VERONICA MCSHELL: I'm sorry. I've run all the numbers. There's nothing. I wanted to make everything safe. After the Aqua Center, I wanted to show I was better.

MAXINE MYERS: Veronica, we're about to die here. We need you to hold it together.

VERONICA MCSHELL: I'm sorry. I should have more control. I'm not supposed to be human anymore.

MAXINE MYERS: Yes, you are, Ronnie! You're always human to me. But you are also one of the most powerful beings on the planet, and I need you to make me a promise. Because I should be there for my daughter. I shouldn't be leaving her. But this is the only way to keep her safe. Promise me you'll look after her, Veronica. Promise me you'll help Paula and Sam. I can't do this if I don't know my daughter is going to be okay.

VERONICA MCSHELL: I promise. The version of me in this building will be destroyed. I can use the damaged comms array to back up some memories, but I'll lose a lot. The research I did here will be gone. But I won't forget how this happened. I will remember your message.

MAXINE MYERS: I'm so furious with myself for ending up here, Five. Well, I guess that makes two of us. All right. We can't afford to wait. [computer beeps, barrier buzzes] The barrier's open. We grab it on three. One, two -

VERONICA MCSHELL: Maxine, Five! A convoy of vehicles just entered the area.

COLONEL SAGE: Abel runners, this is Colonel Sage. My forces picked up your distress beacon. Please advise.

MAXINE MYERS: Sage, the guy from the necropolis!

COLONEL SAGE: I'm getting a sitrep from your AI. Five, Myers, I can extract you. The AI says you can't get to an exit. My forces can blow a hole in that building somewhere you can reach. We'll pick you up and send a drone to trigger the burn cube remotely.

VERONICA MCSHELL: There's a stairwell outside the lab. It leads down to a corner office. It's a dead end, but if Sage can make it, it's an exit. [ghouls moan] Hurry! The biomass is approaching by a different stairwell. Ghouls, too. They'll be on you in seconds. Run!

[explosion, tires squeal]

COLONEL SAGE: Dr. Myers, Runner Five, over here and no dallying. The hole we just blew in that wall may have made it unstable. I have deployed my drone via an air vent. It's already in position.

VERONICA MCSHELL: Colonel, the biomass will not stay in range for long. I must trigger the burn cube at once.

COLONEL SAGE: Understood. Myers, Five, into my Jeep. Driver, get us out of here. Drone, execute command. [explosion, vehicle accelerates] Keep driving! The blast radius is increasing! I know burn cubes are unpredictable, but that must be a three kilometer radius! Terrifying!

MAXINE MYERS: At least we got out. And that thing is dead. I really thought it was over back there, Five. I wonder how much of herself Veronica managed to salvage before the blast.

I get to see Sara again. [laughs] I'll hold my daughter tonight. I guess now we know why Peter's afraid. If I thought I could become that... thing, I'd be terrified to go near anyone I cared about. It must be awful, Five. To live through anything, and be scared of coming home.

#zombies run #zrs7 #s7m26 #dead end #zr transcript #zrs7 spoilers

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artabovereality · 5 years ago

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“Ran off on the plug 🔌 twice..” - @plies • #ClaesOldenburg’s Giant Three-Way Plug Cube Tap, 1970 at @philamuseum .. • #ArtAboveReality #LookWhatArtFound #Inspiring #Art #Curator #ContemporaryArt #FineArt #ArtMarket #ContemporaryPainting #CollectArt #ContemporaryArtCollectors #LiveWithArt #ArtConsultant #ShotOniPhone #Museums #ContemporaryArtist #Sculpture #PublicArt #ArtistsOnInstagram (at Philadelphia Museum of Art) https://www.instagram.com/p/BxixVmwHSre/?igshid=19ys1wxvf1d6u

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actutrends · 5 years ago

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Too much, yet not enough: Amazon’s Echo Studio, Echo Flex, and Fire TV Cube

I behold the pile of Alexa devices that Amazon has sent me to review, and I do not immediately know what I want to do with them. There’s an Echo Studio smart speaker, a Fire TV Cube, an Echo Flex (which defies description), and a couple of accessories to go with the Flex. Our household already has an Echo Spot (smart clock with a screen), a smart plug, and a pair of Fire tablets for the kids. And of course, we have the Alexa app on our phones.

Given the volume and diversity of Alexa devices now populating my home, I decided to go all in and try to create as unified a smart home system as I can, comprising all these parts and pieces. This is, of course, what Amazon wants. I bow to the will of the tech giant for the purpose of testing out this smart home stuff.

After doing so, I have three key observations:

These devices, what they offer, and what they require are simultaneously too much and not enough.

To extract any significant value from these devices, you need to have a specific problem (or problems) that a specific Amazon device (or devices) can solve.

These Amazon devices cost a lot of money, and in many cases you’ll need more than one to get the full functionality you need.

The task of creating what portends to be a convenient, virtual assistant-enhanced home feels overwhelming — so many devices; so many individual device settings; so many possible types of lists, reminders, alarms, skills, routines, games, and “Blueprints.” It costs a lot of time, work, and mental energy to dig around to find useful ones and set them all up.

There are some 100,000 Alexa skills you can enable on these devices. Some of them are eminently useful, like a “find my phone” skill to help you keep track of your phone, while a great many of them are utterly banal, like the Spongebob Challenge skill that’s just a themed memory game. It can be a challenge to separate a small bit of wheat from so much chaff.

I do not ascribe to a “tech for the sake of tech” ethos. I’m interested only in what sort of tools or new capabilities tech can provide. That’s a necessary approach to take with these devices — not “what can they do,” but “how can they help me.” If all you want is a nice speaker that you can control with your voice, great — the Echo Studio is for you. If you want a way to control your lights with your voice, you’ll need to pair an Alexa device with an Amazon Smart Plug, if not a third-party lighting system that works with Alexa. If you want an alarm system, you can pair a Ring doorbell with an Echo Flex plus a motion sensor accessory. And so on and so forth.

The point is, although Alexa is an extremely broad, generalized tool, the devices on which you find it are incredibly domain specific. Because they have a discrete purpose, each item in the vast and growing ecosystem of Alexa-powered devices has commensurately limited capabilities, too. Combining multiple domain-specific devices can get you increased capabilities, but only to an extent. A fully tricked-out Alexa-powered smart home needs more than just a handful of devices.

And that’s problematic, because these devices are not cheap. It’s true that Amazon kept costs impressively low on things like most of its Fire tablets (never mind that such devices are loss leaders) and some Fire TV devices, but other devices aren’t so affordable. Even the humble Amazon Smart Plug (which works with Alexa but doesn’t have the virtual assistant on board) is $25. The costs build up from there.

All the things

The devices at hand — the Echo Studio, Fire TV Cube, and Echo Flex — are compelling in their own rights, despite their respective costs.

Echo Studio

The Echo Studio ($200) is a smart speaker designed to play high-quality music, as opposed to a smart speaker that’s meant to be simply a hands-free voice assistant. The idea is that the Echo Studio offers the sort of audio range and fidelity that you’d want from a nice home speaker system, with five internal speakers, including a tweeter and a subwoofer. It’s able to automatically adjust to a room’s acoustics, too.

The large black cylinder measures approximately eight inches tall and seven inches in diameter, so it’s reasonably compact, such that you can stick it on a shelf or corner of a kitchen counter and it won’t take up an egregious amount of space. It has the normal slate of Alexa buttons — volume controls, mute mic button, and “action” button that obviates the need to use the wake word– and the telltale LED light ring that shows you Alexa’s status or activity.

Subjectively, the audio quality, range, and spatial sound is on par with the stereo speakers-plus-standalone subwoofer that I was previously using — which is impressive, given that the Echo Studio is a single unit. The volume was sufficient to fill the entire main floor of my house with clean, distortion-free music.

Echo Flex

The Echo Flex is a palm-sized device that plugs into a wall outlet and is designed to control things like your lights, locks, thermostat, and so on. It has its own little speaker (and mic) on board, but that’s for communication purposes only — the tinny, distorted sound is grating if you try to play music through it. You can augment the Flex’s capabilities by plugging in attachments to its USB port. Ostensibly the roster of such add-ons will grow, but the two that Amazon sent along are the Third Reality Smart Nightlight and Motion Sensor.

It’s unclear why the Smart Nightlight exists at all. It’s essentially an overcomplication of the traditional night light, which is arguably already a perfect product. The Smart Nightlight lets you set different colors for the light, adjust the brightness of the glow from 1% to 100%, and determine when it turns on and off.

The Third Reality Motion Sensor is more practical. From its position in whatever outlet you’ve stuck it and the Flex into, it detects movement that crosses its sensor. Then, you can use the Alexa app to enact all manner of subsequent actions, from giving a verbal welcome to using Alexa Guard — a security notification feature that’s part of Alexa — to alert you to intruders.

You configure all of the above from the Alexa app on your phone. The Flex costs $25, or you can buy either (but not both!) of the Third Reality accessories in a bundle with it for $40.

Fire TV Cube

Essentially, the Fire TV Cube can supplant whatever other media streaming devices you may employ with your TV, like a Roku.

It’s small and unobtrusive at a little over three inches square (it’s technically a rectangle, but barely). You have to plug it in to a wall outlet, and it doesn’t come with its own HDMI cable. You’re supposed to position it at least one to two feet away from any speaker, including your TV’s built-in speakers, which can create some placement challenges. However, it includes an IR extender that will help you keep your home entertainment setup’s clean look if you need it.

You can control the Fire TV Cube with the included remote, your voice, or both. The box itself has a mic and Alexa, as well as Alexa buttons, so you can speak commands to it with a wake word and do things like adjust the volume directly from there. The remote has an Alexa action button on it, though, so you can press and hold it and issue voice commands without saying the wake word.

The $120 Fire TV Cube has the same on-screen interface as any Fire TV device, giving you access to streaming channels, live channels, games, and more.

I incorporated all of the above into my home network. None of the devices proved terribly onerous to set up. (You do need to have a Wi-Fi network and your Alexa app handy to perform any necessary configurations.) They joined an Echo Spot (smart speaker with a screen), smart plug, and two Fire 8 tablets that we already had — and of course, the Alexa app on the phones we own.

The app and everything

Even though Alexa is a voice assistant, the organizational center of any and all Alexa devices is the app. It’s where you do everything from adding devices to configuring their settings to checking your device activity.

One could fill numerous tedious pages with all the items and features included in the Alexa app. But a few screenshots tell much of the story:

Most of these items are self-explanatory, like reminders and lists, but some are more specific to the Alexa ecosystem. Routines are essentially a way to string together commands or set up cause and effect relationships between commands. If you tap Things to Try, you’ll get a little overview of all the things that you can do with Alexa, from communication to productivity to music. The Skills & Games section is a sort of marketplace where you can hunt for skills, which are essentially apps for Alexa.

The Activity section is one to keep an eye on; it’s where you can see your personal history with your Alexa devices and even play back to recordings of your commands. (Yes, Alexa records and stores audio files of all your queries and commands, although you can delete them.)

Blueprints is one of the more compelling features. It lets you easily create your own “Skill Blueprints,” which are customized skills that you can create from templates, like a chore chart, special date countdown, or study aids. Like many of the Alexa skills, though, a lot of these are frivolous, like a custom Q&A where you create your own answers such as making your hometown the answer for “Alexa, which is the best city in the world?”

I created a basic but customized to-do list in just a couple of minutes, but it was indeed basic — for instance, I included leading items like “email Mike” and “check my meeting schedule,” but Alexa didn’t follow up on any of those things by, for instance, sending the email or checking my actual calendar and reading off my schedule.

What to do

Armed with a group of Alexa devices and the Alexa app, I had to come up with things to try, given the nature of the devices I had on hand and the specific things that made sense for me to use them for.

Listening to music

My family has a propensity for playing music in the house, so voice-controlled music via the Echo Studio seemed ideal. There’s a Spotify Alexa skill you can toggle on (from the app), which is perfect, because we have Spotify Premium. Setting this up took just a few minutes and a few taps in the Alexa app.

However, Amazon really, really, really wants you to use Amazon Music. By default, that’s the pool of content from which it draws. Some of it is free, but to get the best experience, you’re strongly encouraged (by Alexa, via the Echo Studio) to subscribe. Although we believed we obviated this need with our Spotify subscription and Alexa skill, the Echo Studio seemed unable to tap into Spotify like we wanted.

For example, when I said, “Alexa, play Yola on Spotify,” it played “Yola radio” — which includes Yola’s songs, but also the songs of others. When I specified that I wanted to hear Yola’s album Walk Through Fire, I got the same frustrating result. “Maybe we should just use Amazon Music,” my wife sighed, annoyed but resigned. “But that’s what they want us to do!” I yelled, in the general direction of the Echo Studio.

Whatever tracks we did get the Echo Studio to play sounded terrific, though. We did not spring for an Amazon Music subscription.

Watching TV

In order for the Fire TV Cube to be of any real use to you, you need to subscribe to streaming services. We’re cord-cutters, so that was not a problem in our case. Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Netflix, etc. were all there and available on the little cube. All you have to do is install their respective apps and log in to your accounts, all through the Fire TV interface and using your remote.

I found that navigating to and through the various streaming services using Alexa was intuitive and direct. (You can also turn on follow-up mode, where you can ask Alexa trailing, contextual questions without re-saying the wake word.) From the home screen, for example, I could say, “Alexa, play Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” or “Alexa, play Tiny House World,” and it opened Prime Video and took me to the right show. If I’d previously watched an episode, it returned me to the exact spot where I left off.

Only a certain number of the apps on the Fire TV Cube work with Alexa, but for the ones that do, Alexa is smart enough to know that a given show or movie is on multiple streaming platforms. For example, when I said, “Alexa, play Good Girls,” it asked me if I wanted to view it on Hulu or Netflix.

However, when I asked Alexa to play Little Women (which is a new show on Prime Video), it instead suggested that I buy the book on Audible, and by the way wouldn’t you like to buy an Audible subscription? No thanks, Alexa.

You can also use the Fire TV Cube and Alexa to turn your TV on and off. This feature may or may not work on TVs of a certain age, though.

Lists and reminders

One of the advantages of an ecosystem of devices that all have the same virtual assistant on board is that the experience of interacting with Alexa is essentially the same, no matter the device. It’s true that the commands you might make of a given device are dependent upon what it can do, but Alexa offers plenty of capabilities that work across all of them. For instance, you can ask about the weather or the day’s headlines, or set a reminder, or add to a list, whether you’re near the Echo Studio or browsing on a Fire tablet or watching TV show on the Fire TV Cube.

These are applications where you’re using the cloud-centric strengths of Alexa and not the purpose-built tasks germane to, say, a smart speaker. You could say, “Alexa, remind me to take out the trash tomorrow morning,” and as long as you’re within earshot of an Alexa-powered device, you’re good to go.

But even here, you’ll bump into limitations, like if you make a list. It’s ideal in one sense, because it’s in a shared Prime account, and anyone in the house can say, “Alexa, create a new list” or, in the case of an existing list, “Alexa, add [item] to the list,” and there it shall be. But that just creates a “dumb” list. To get any kind of advanced features, like a grocery list that organizes items by food category or shows you which items you’ve ticked off already so you don’t miss anything, you need to locate and enable a skill, or hope that an automatically suggested one fits the bills. Also note that if you try to use the “dumb” list for groceries, you really need to enunciate clearly, because Alexa isn’t trying to match your words to any sort of domain-specific bank of terms. That is why when I said, “Alexa, add to my grocery list,” and it asked what I wanted to add, when I said “beer,” it added “fear.”

You’ll want a skill, like the OurGroceries skill. This was quite handy, because we already happen to use that app. I found it in the Alexa Skills Store on the web, clicked to enable the skill, and had to create and enter a password for the skill. But then, any additions to our shared lists we made via Alexa automatically synced to the app on our phones. The only slightly annoying bit is that you have to invoke the skill every time — “Alexa, ask OurGroceries to add milk” instead of “Alexa, add milk to the grocery list.”

Communications

One of the most compelling uses of Alexa is communications, especially if you have a lot of devices on your network, as we presently do.

You can make calls from an Alexa device to a phone, and vice versa. Setting this up can be a bit complicated, mainly because you have to know contact names, who has which devices, and so on. But for my specific purposes, it was fairly easy: I turned on the calling ability in the Alexa app and made sure every device on the network was enabled, too. If the kids want to get ahold of me while I’m out, or my wife wants to call me hands-free, they can just ask Alexa to do it from any of the many Alexa devices around the house. If I need to call home but doubt that anyone will pick up a smartphone and answer, I can use the Drop-In feature.

Drop-In is a fabulous tool that lets you connect to one of your Alexa devices from another — including your phone. It’s basically a smart intercom. If I’m in the kitchen and don’t want to yell down to the basement playroom for the kids to come up for dinner, I can tell the nearby Echo Studio to drop in on the Echo Flex (which in this scenario is plugged into an outlet downstairs). After confirming that’s the device I intended to drop in on, Alexa will turn on the Echo Flex’s mic so I can talk to the kids, and they can respond that they’re coming. Even if I’m not at home, I can “drop in” on any of the housebound Alexa devices from the Alexa app on my phone.

Airing of grievances

Here is a short list of annoyances I encountered in the course of setting up, using, and evaluating these devices and Alexa — in addition to any aforementioned grievances.

If there are multiple Alexa devices within range of your voice, the wrong one often picks up the command, like when you’re trying to tell the Echo Studio to play a song, and the Fire tablet jumps in instead. (This was abated by Echo Spatial Perception [ESP]), a feature that determines which device you’re closest to if there are multiple Alexa devices nearby. But if you’re shouting at the Echo Studio from across the room while you’re prepping dinner, the tablet your kid is playing with at the kitchen counter may actually be closer to you.) You can change the wake word on the devices so they don’t all respond to “Alexa,” but you can choose from only a few options. Even then, you have to remember which of your devices has which wake word enabled.

When your children interrupt you when you’re in the middle of saying something to Alexa. (This happens no matter what virtual assistant you’re using.)

The presence of multiple voice assistants. In addition to Alexa devices, you will likely have one or more Google Assistant or Siri devices. Sometimes I’ll find myself using the wrong wake word for a given device.

The Alexa app can technically be the default assistant on your phone, but it’s tough to consider ditching Google Assistant or Siri, for all the reasons they’re valuable to your phone experience. If Alexa is not your default assistant, then you have to open the Alexa app and tap the action button in the app before issuing voice commands.

The constant upselling is annoying at best. Amazon wants you to keep buying back into its vast service and device ecosystem. This is why a search on the Fire TV Cube resulted in a pitch to subscribe to Audible, why there are ads and promos all over the Fire TV interface, why the Echo Studio tries to steer you to an Amazon Music subscription, and so on.

Something of value

Any time you add to the roster of devices you depend on, you have to come back to the fundamental question of whether it provides something of value — in particular, something of value that you don’t already have or can’t acquire via easier or less expensive means. Although results will vary depending on what each individual wants or needs, for me there’s very little that I got from the pile of Alexa-powered devices that I found indispensable or superior to other options.

Although the calling and drop-in features are nice to have, we already have a smartphone as a dedicated house phone that serves that purpose. “Dropping in” is way more fun, and potentially more effective because you can essentially call a room and anyone in it rather a specific device. But in order to maximize its effectiveness, you need to have multiple Alexa devices spread out across multiple rooms, such that you guarantee that a drop-in can be heard by someone in the house.

The voice features on the Fire TV Cube work quite well, but in most cases I can navigate to what I need faster by pressing a few buttons on the remote. The interface is more cluttered than, say, that of a Roku device, and although the Fire TV Cube does have more features, such as games, there’s nothing particularly compelling about playing games on a device like this one instead of a phone, tablet, or console.

The Echo Studio provides excellent audio performance, and it’s nice to be able to speak the music I want into existence, but it didn’t hook into the music streaming service I prefer in the way I wanted it to. (And although not everyone has the luxury of such a setup, I have a PC with decent speakers already set up in a common area of the house.)

The Echo Flex, along with its accessories, does offer some functionality that you can’t readily get from other devices, like motion sensing and the resulting routines you can employ such as alerting you to the sound of breaking glass. But in order to really extract value from it, I felt as though I needed two or three of them, plus an accessory for each, placed strategically around the home.

Everyone has their own predilections, but in our house the most useful application we’ve found for Alexa so far is connecting the Echo Spot in the bedroom with a Smart Plug so we can turn off the lamp across the room without getting out of bed.

Of course, there are literally tens of thousands of things that Alexa and its many devices can do, so the specific things that clicked for me won’t necessarily appeal to others, and vice versa. But that brings us back to the notion that before you spend a lot of cash on the Echo Studio, Echo Flex, or Fire TV Cube, make sure that they’re going to solve a problem for you, or make something more convenient, or bring new and valuable capabilities to your home — and that those advantages are worth the setup and management overhead.

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