Alexa and local media

So, after my recent visit to Leanne’s (and I’m back there this coming weekend), and seeing her Google Home dooberry in action, I did a bit of research and settled on an Echo Dot for myself (since it seems to have the edge). After some issues getting the WiFi set up, which seems to be a problem with the Google app and recent versions of Android, I got it going and set up from an older Android device. All good.

And I’m having fun setting it up (who knew talking to a speaker could be so entertaining), BUT, I want to be able to stream my local media from an NFS share on a Raspberry Pi to it, and it can be done using the My Media addon (which has a Pi server). All set up and working, and life is good.

Now, I see this is a 7 day trial, and whilst it’s not expensive ($10 for a year), do I need the paid subscription? Or will it still work locally after that 7 days. Or, is there a free alternative?

I’m completely new to talking to these things, so excuse me if this is elementary.

EDIT: Oh, and if and when we live together again, I want to see if I can get Alexa and Google talking to each other, or even arguing. That should be fun 🙂