Alexa in Canada - Assitance, advice issues and solutions

[Alexa in Canada]

Amazon Echo and Alexa was launched and made available in Canada on Dec 5 2017.  There is a separate Alexa App in Canada and a separate list of enabled skills.  This is at the heart of the opportunity and the problem. Like many others I have struggled with getting the product running and am disappointed at the lack of many features already available in the USA.

This thread is meant to attract comments and suggestions about this product rollout.  I hope the forum moderators of this independent forum will consider helping to turn this topics into a separate forum category. 

There is a large user base in Canada that has exploded in the last 3 weeks and they will turn to online forums to understand what is going on. I have not found a good independent forum so far dedicated to this topic. I encourage others to post here and build the conversation.  We want this new technology to work well and grow be as useful as possible.

I will post my own experiences and solutions to problems and I encourage others to do the same. 

[Alexa in Canada]

Here is my first post as some background for my future posts. I am a regular consumer. I like technology and enjoy putting to use at home.  I believe that Echo and Alexa ( and other products like Google Home) have the potential to transform our lives.  However, the current state of the product support is not good. 

FYI, I have used and experienced a large number of home automation products since the original X10 stuff in the early 80s. I have I used an implemented almost every form of Audio Visual home technology and computer systems. I have over 35 years of technical experience in the computer industry. 

I currently have running Echo Gen 2, Harmony Hub and have used Harmony products for years, I have automated lighting, Chromecast, Plex, Sonos, Spotify, Rachio etc and will likely add much more as I go. We have an active technical family with more devices, phones and computers than I can count. 

I control home devices with Wifi, Bluetooth, Infared, Radio Frequency and now voice.  I love this stuff, but Alexa, at this point, is far from as useful as it is in the US. I do not want t create a fake US Amazon account to get the the US app but I might have to. 

There are many major functions missing right now. Here is a short list.

No household profiles, so I can't link other accounts to Alexa

No Sonos skills available , but Sonos says it was s co ING in early 2018

Harmony Hub Skills seem to work well , but the ability to sync with Alexa is pretty bad at present. 

I encourage others to post questions and any solutions you may have uncovered. 

[Alexa in Canada]

Link for Plex support for Alexa in Canada, not available yet but hopefully will come. 

http://forums.plex.tv/discussion/298270/amazon-alexa-in-canada

Link for Harmony Hub support for Alexa, this works well in Canada 🇨🇦.

Harmony is an excellent way to bridge from Alexa voice control to control many devices that are IR, RF or wifi controlled. 

https://www.amazon.ca/Logitech-Harmony/dp/B01M4LDPX3

And

https://support.myharmony.com/en-ca/harmony-experience-with-amazon-alexa

[Laurel]

You are a loyal Canadian to put up with the Alexa system in Canada.  I am Canadian with an Echo, 2 Echo Shows, and one Tap.  No benefit at all for me to lose what I have with Echo Show i.e. photos, videos, cooking recipes etc. I bought on Amazon.com when Echo was just in pre-order.  We love the Alexa devices, and we detest Amazon.ca.  The price differences on Amazon.ca are outrageous,and when reported Amazon.ca is wishy washy. Sometimes saying they will remove the gouging seller and other times saying they can do nothing.  So we stick with Amazon.com and I am happy with it. I have an apk app for Alexa and Amazon Music and Pandora.  Happy as can be.  I don't know how Amazon.ca and Amazon.com can be run so differently when I believe they are one owner.

[tuicemen]

I too have both Amazon.com and .ca registrations
I registered with .com then switched to .ca  and still have all US skills working. Although I use very few.

[picklebreath]

Have my Echo connected to my Control4 automation since April (.com) All skills available and working. Now have the Canadian address in settings. I can get Alexa to tell me how frigging cold it is by just asking for weather or using Big Sky skill.

[tuicemen]

Being able to now add a Canadian address has been a big plus for me as well. 

[Laurel]

I have two Echo Shows so it is not useful for me to switch at this time based on that alone. I live 2 kilometres from Blaine so Blaine weather is very accurate for me--in fact more accurate than Surrey or Vancouver weather. I am a happy Amazon.com user.  No reason so far to change over.

[Alexa in Canada]

You are a loyal Canadian to put up with the Alexa system in Canada.  I am Canadian with an Echo, 2 Echo Shows, and one Tap.  No benefit at all for me to lose what I have with Echo Show i.e. photos, videos, cooking recipes etc. I bought on Amazon.com when Echo was just in pre-order.  We love the Alexa devices, and we detest Amazon.ca.  The price differences on Amazon.ca are outrageous,and when reported Amazon.ca is wishy washy. Sometimes saying they will remove the gouging seller and other times saying they can do nothing.  So we stick with Amazon.com and I am happy with it. I have an apk app for Alexa and Amazon Music and Pandora.  Happy as can be.  I don't know how Amazon.ca and Amazon.com can be run so differently when I believe they are one owner.

This is the main challenge that I will continue to grapple with. I am not sure how long I will be willing to stick with the Canadian roll out when I know there will always be new features available in the US app that I can't get.  Part of my concern is how much complexity I will have to introduce to mainatain a US app and persona over time. Some of the devices I use most often like my iPad are actually company owned not mine personally so I worry about that. 

As for Amazon in Canada vs US, I guess we have all been living with major difference in the two companies since the beginning, I assume for shipping and distribution reasons.  However, recently, my wife ordered something from Amazon US and it actually was pretty smooth, paid Taxes and everything in the same order and the product arrived in our mailbox just like an Amazon Canada order, so maybe using the US system more and more will be the way to go.

Another good example is we have a few Amazon Kindles in the family. Although purchased from Amazon.Ca most of the Amazon content ordering is processed through Amazon.com. In fact as a user I can't really tell if it is .ca or .com. Perhaps Amazon will realize that Echo and Alexa are similar. Why not let us buy the hardware in Canada but let the software and content flow across borders freely , like every other software does.  It might be nice if someone learns why Amazon Canada is not doing this.

For the immediate future, I am able to control so much with Harmony using Alexa as the voice commands, I will see how far I can go with that while I wait for the new skills. 

Let's keep the conversation going, perhaps we can help other Canadians as they work through this as well. 

[Laurel]

I admire what you are attempting to do.

[Alexa in Canada]

Hi, thanks to the quick action of the admin for this site, we now have our own Canadian Category for discussion and support.  I will be switching most of my Canadian posting and comments to that section.

Here is a link for quick access,

http://www.echotalk.org/index.php/board,15.0.html