Early Tuesday morning, somewhere around 1:30, I woke up, being a middle-aged man that’s what I do, and asked my echo what time it was, and to my utter shock and annoyance received no answer. I proceeded to take care of the need for which I woke up, and then try to ascertain the problem with the echo. I went so far as to contact Amazon. My echo died. It had ceased to be. It had gone to meet its maker . It was bereft of life. It has kicked the bucket. Shuffled off its coil, run down the curtain and join the choir invisible. It is an EX Echo.

Having ascertained that my echo was now a very nice door stop, I ordered a new one immediately. Over the last 5 years or so, I have become dependent on the echo. Voice control of Lights, being able to check my math without a calculator, music, audio books, podcast, and radio just by expressing a mere thought is too useful to be without.

I find that all extremely disturbing.