I got an Echo a few months ago. It's pretty cool. So far my favorite things are the timer/alarm so I can remind myself to stop coding, the weather, the news, and my very favorite, the ambient sounds (Sleep Sounds is my favorite). The Echo makes it so easy to sit down, set a timer for an hour or so, put some ambient noise on to cut down on distractions, and work until the time is up. If I want to go for a walk before dark, I can ask when sunset is and set an appropiate alarm. I also got the basic Hue starter kit so I can turn my lamp on/off.

When I found out that you can use js to write skills (apps) I had to make one. I wrote a basic quotes skill I call "The Spiritual Scientist" It reads out quotes from great scientists like Einstein or Sagan that have a spiritual bent to them. You can checkout the code here if you'd like.

Bird Sounds drives my cats crazy :)