The convenience and _naturalness_ of the interaction is just so cool!
Asking basic questions like the weather, the time, and maybe my calendar (doesn't work well with multiple calendars so while I look forward to when I can use this, I can't yet).
Just got a Home Mini; I find it pretty useful as a living room entertainment controller.
> All of them really seem to be designed to get you to buy them and then to sell you more stuff, not to actually be useful.
While I don't actually use mine for shopping yet, reducing friction for shopping you would do anyway is quite useful.
> The music integration doesn't work well with Spotify on the home
Seems to work reasonably well with Google Play Music (and the playback controls are are acceptable if minimal for Netflix; haven't used media controls with anything else.)
> and can't even add reminders.
The Home doesn't seem to have trouble adding reminders for me.
> The echo has to ask "am or pm" when I tell it to 'wake me up tomorrow at 8'.
While 8am is more likely, it's not impossible that someone would mean pm (people have all kinds of different schedules), and confirmation is better than assumption with alarms. So, so see this as doing the right thing.
> The only reason I use it is that it's perfect as a handsfree music player and that has its uses in the shower, etc.
So clearly you find it useful.
I have tested a few of these, and have a Max and a regular Home in my house. Also have the assistant on my NVIDIA Shield and on Android Auto. I find them handier than I thought I would. But my kids might finder them handier than I do.
My 10 year old daughter really likes the home, she has it in her room and uses it to listen to whatever music she wants, which she sings along to. She gets the weather from it, sets alarms if she needs them, and generally finds it useful.
I use it to find my phone ("hey google, where's my phone" to get it to ring), to ask about weather, travel times, math questions [especially good with the kids], and most often to play music.. either by cast from my phone or computer, or just by verbal request. The Max sounds _really_ good. I need to get a second so I can get stereo though.
I think they're handy and getting handier. I can't compare to the competition, though.
1. Alarm clock + morning briefing while I get ready
2. Music player (youtube music works really well, spotify doesn't)
3. Cooking assistant, setting timers etc
4. TV remote - saying "ok google, play xyz" is the ultimate in lazy and I love it
Eventually, and when they get a little cheaper, I intend to invest in a suite of smart lights which (probably?) go nicely with an assistant.
Having said that, natural language stuff still has a long way to go. Ultimately I think of them more as a semi-useful toy.
These speakers once they start showing the info via projection on walls or beaming the info on your TV, mirrors, etc I think are going to be even more useful.
The big difference is the Echo requires rigid language or basically commands you memorize versus the Google home natural language for most things. It is like the Echo is a command line and the Google Home a GUI.
I imagine that the functionality will only get better over time.
Doesn't this mean that you find it useful?
Integrated with Sonos, easier to play music than using my phone.
Home assistants really are useful if they are integrated and work well. I want to try a RP3 version of Alexa next.
“Alexa, turn on Christmas!”
“Okay.”